Black Veterans, Politics, and Civil Rights in Twentieth-Century America

This collection examines the lives of African American soldiers and the sociopolitical world they constructed upon returning to the United States. The experiences analyzed in this volume provide a useful backdrop for understanding the complex relationship between race, war, and politics in the United States throughout the twentieth century.

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Fusing riveting testimony from African American veterans with the most incisive research of current military scholars, Black Veterans, Politics, and Civil Rights in 20th-Century America: Closing Ranks explores the intersecting characteristics of civil rights struggle and political activism that was reflected in the lives of ex-GIs throughout Twentieth Century American history. The volume examines black veterans’ social and political activities throughout the 20th Century, from the World Wars, through the Korean and Vietnam War, and ends with the Persian Gulf War. Presenting the full flesh and blood experiences of black veterans who came from backgrounds and from all walks of life, each essay captures how race, gender, ethnic, class, disability, generation, and region shaped their experiences in the nation’s military during times of war and how these issues profoundly affected the postwar politics they embraced while trying to realize the true meaning of equality in America. With original essays by emerging scholars in the field of study, Closing Ranks is a foundational text for reassessing the relationship between the ex-GI and the modern nation state and providing readers with a vivid window into the harsh realities that black citizen-soldiers have faced during war and its aftermath for nearly a century.