Exploring American Histories: Printed Page 741

Document 23.5

Letter from Black Soldiers, 1943

During World War II, many black soldiers and their families wrote to popular African American newspapers such as the Pittsburgh Courier to publicize discrimination in the armed forces. In the following letter to the editor, a group of black soldiers describes their mistreatment at an army base in Colorado, showing that racial discrimination was not confined to the South.

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Source: Philip McGuire, ed., Taps for a Jim Crow Army: Letters from Black Soldiers in World War II (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1983), 64–65.

  • Question

    How does the treatment of these soldiers contradict the goals of the war?

  • Question

    How do the soldiers characterize their experience at the base?

  • Question

    What do the letter writers hope to gain?

Put It in Context

Question

What is the connection between the experiences described in this letter and the start of the civil rights movement?