NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — Race relations and the fight for ethnic equality have been an ongoing pursuit since the birth of the nation. Every facet of society has an integration story, including the military. The Fighting for the Right to Fight exhibition at the National World War II Museum tells much of that story of integration.
The overall narrative begins with African Americans’ involvement in wartime, predating World War I, and continues onward, past World War II, to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
African American soldiers fighting in World War II were fighting for a double victory. They were fighting for the victory of the Allied Forces and the United States. The second victory they were hoping for was a victory of equality back at home in America.
Krewasky A. Salter is the WWII guest curator for the exhibition and says, “It’s three years before Executive Order 9981 is signed, which integrates the military on paper, but it still takes the Korean War before it’s completely integrated.”
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s was initiated greatly by the actions of Black World War II veterans. Jackie Robinson was a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Before the Black Panther Civil Rights Organization was formed in 1966, there was an earlier group called the Black Panthers, the 761st Tank Battalion, which was a fierce group of Black soldiers founded in 1942 at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana.
“A lot of people know Medgar Evers as a key figure in the Civil Rights Movement. Of course, he was brutally assassinated in his driveway in 1963,” Salter said. “What a lot of people don’t know is he was also a WWII veteran. He survived WWII, only to be assassinated.”
War didn’t just involve men. WWII employed women. Olivia Hooker had been a child survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre but would continue on to be the first woman to enter the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II.
Some Black women served in the Army, Navy and NASA, and some took jobs supporting the war effort at home.
“There were many Rosie the Riveters who supported the war industry,” Salter said. “People know Rosa Parks as the strong-willed woman who wouldn’t give up her seat on the bus in December of 1955. A lot of people don’t know that Rosa Parks worked on Maxwell Air Force Base during World War II.”
Much of the story of Black women’s involvement in the building of the great legacy of the U.S. is being increasingly uncovered. Recently, Netflix and Tyler Perry put a spotlight on a movie that stars the likes of Kerry Washington and tells the story of The Six Triple Eight.
Kathe Hambrick is the executive director of the Amistad Research Center and explains The Six Triple Eight, saying, “The Six Triple Eight were the first battalion of African American women to be deployed in World War II. They were only allowed to serve as postal workers, but they wanted to do so much more. They were in charge of making sure the mail was delivered to the soldiers, and that mail was sent from the soldiers back home.”
The Fighting for the Right to Fight exhibition is about Americans and what that spirit represents, in and beyond wartime, as well as freedom and equality and the right to fight for it. It will be on display until July 27, 2025, in the Sen. John Alario, Jr. Special Exhibition Hall at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.