The Role Of African Americans In Ww2

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Africans Americans served many different jobs in World War Two. Of the sixteen million soldiers, almost one million were African Americans (“The Depression”). Women served as nurses abroad. It was not socially acceptable to let African Americans serve white soldiers, but they did it anyways. This picture is some African American nurses serving abroad in England. For men, more than half a million soldiers fought in Europe that were African Americans. At first, they were not involved in the fighting, and if they were, nowhere close to the front line. They had mainly supporting roles until 1941. In 1941 an experiment was run to see if African Americans were as good in combat as white soldiers were. An all black combat unit was tested, and in this unit were the Tuskegee Airmen …show more content…
Many African Americans were also in the navy, working as cooks or mess attendants. Sometimes, they served as gun men. After this experiment, African Americans were fighting in the war. They fought in the Pacific in the Navy. They were also part of the army that liberated Europe from Nazi Germany. Following that battle, they helped with the U.S. Army of Occupation in Germany after the war had ended. Still in segregated units, they helped democratize the German people and obliterate any racism (Höhn). African Americans served abroad in many ways, including nurses, in the navy in the pacific, and in the army in Europe.

While African Americans were a large part of the war effort abroad, African Americans still had to deal with segregation during World War II. One area where they faced discrimination is the military. They were discriminated by the jobs they were