The San Francisco Nexus in World War II

This book provides a detailed historical account of how people and institutions of San Francisco and the Bay Area during World War II shaped the world we live in today. It discusses the invention of the atomic bomb, the migration of Black Americans to the San Francisco area, and the internment of Japanese Americans.

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During World War II, the people and institutions of San Francisco experienced major changes and transformed the country. In The San Francisco Nexus in World War II: Freedoms Found, Liberties Lost, and the Atomic Bomb, Philip E. Meza provides a detailed historical account of these stories and changes. He discusses the invention of the atomic bomb from a speculative design for a nuclear weapon sketched on a chalkboard at Berkeley by theoretical physicist Robert Oppenheimer to a new way of conducting research, known as “Big Science” that was pioneered by his friend and colleague experimental physicist Ernest Lawrence, leading to the first atomic bomb. During this time, Black Americans migrated to San Francisco to escape the Jim Crow south and found new freedoms, good jobs, and a leader in a singer turned welder named Joseph James. Meza documents how they fought for and won an end to segregation in their union. At the same time, Japanese Americans were forced from their homes by a tragically misguided presidential executive order upheld by the US Supreme Court, of which showed the fragility of liberty in America. This book tells the story of these and other events that shaped the San Francisco and Bay Area through the eyes of fascinating people, like that of Maya Angelou and John F. Kennedy, and others who have been lost to history, all of whom were at this nexus at this consequential time.