Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad by Matthew F. Delmont

Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad Reviews

• 
  Bookishrealm

  Every year I come across a stand out non-fiction title that I think everyone should read. This year Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad takes that place this year.
  
  Over the years I've become such a fan of non-fiction. It was intimidating at first, but I realized when I stuck to topics that interested me it began to feel more accessible. Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Aboard details the struggle that Black Americans faced during World War II. "Double Victory" was the desire to not only defend America abroad but to also obtain rights for the Black community on American soil. With so many people desiring to remove certain parts of history from secondary education, it's so important that these parts of history and still shared.
  
  What was so amazing about this book was not only the information shared, but also the level of accessibility. The book is told in short biographical chapters that don't feel dense or like information overload. Delmont focuses on presenting the facts and how military decisions impacted the Black community. It never ceases to amaze me that to this day, America will attempt to hide the racist actions it partook in while attempting to "free the world" of oppressive ideals which they considered to be communism. It infuriates me to recognize and acknowledge the hypocrisy this country used to justify fighting a war, but treating it's Black citizens like trash. Even though there was some knowledge that I was aware of like the term "double victory" there were other aspects of this history that I was unaware of like the actual protocol that the US military used to keep Black soldiers out of their ranks.
  
  This isn't an easy read. I would not go into it expecting not to feel some level of anger and frustration, but it is worth every feeling, every emotion. I learned so much and couldn't wait to share everything with my own family and friends. Definitely pick this one up if you have the chance.
• 
  laurel [the suspected bibliophile]

  There is a talent to writing history—and an even greater talent to writing history that encompasses so many threads and turning individual threads into a comprehensive tapestry.
  
  This book is so well researched and well-written, and covers the military service of Black Americans during World War II...their struggles and triumphs in war and at home, as they fought against the Nazis in Germany and the Japanese in the Pacific and the seemingly insurmountable racism and apartheid within the military and at home.
  
  The history of WWII has been spun into that of Greatness. Of men fighting for freedom.
  
  But, as Delmont shows, this version is not true at all. The lives of white men were valued and honored as heroes, and they were the ones who reaped much of the benefits given to veterans afterward. Black servicemembers fought for their country, with the idea of a double victory—aboard and at home. While white male veterans received their GI Bills and paths to success after the military, Black veterans faced racism and lynching for daring to wear their rightfully earned uniforms, vote, buy homes or receive their GI benefits.
  
  Anywho, definitely a must-read for WWII and military buffs.
• 
  Daphyne

  I wish I could make everyone read this. I’ve read many books on racism and there have been passing vague references to WW2 Black soldiers and the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. This book fills in the gaps. I learned so much. It made me so very angry at injustice but also deeply impressed by the many Black Americans who were willing to fight and die for this country and for freedom in-spite of the horrible ways they were treated. I’m buying this one and adding it to my home library.
• 
  Jillian Doherty

  I don’t often add an excerpt within a review, but a book this important deserves to be as brilliantly characterized, as the author does so throughout this epic history.
  Delmont’s definitive and deftly drawn history needs to be read, shared, and wide exposures!
  
  “All of these contemporary battles and many others have their roots in WWII. Stories of the war that do not reckon with the Black American experience leave us ill-prepared to understand the present and rudderless as we try to navigate the future. Ignorance is a luxury we cannot afford. If we tell the right stories about the war, we can meet the resurgence of white supremacy as a deeply entrenched aspect of our country's political history and cultural life, rather than a surprise or anomaly. If we tell the right stories about the war, we can see modern racial justice activism as the continuation of decades long struggle to make America an actual functioning democracy.
  
  If we tell the right stories about the war, we can finally honor the sacrifices of the Black veterans, defense industry workers, and citizens who fought on foreign battlefields and in their own cities and towns so that no one would be ever again be treated as half American.”
  
  Galley borrowed from the publisher.
• 
  Dan

  Half American
  by Matthew F. Delmont
  
  This history is about the African American servicemen and women during WWII and it was top notch.
  
  Now I have read books on the Tuskegee Airmen and had even visited the national historic site in Alabama. I also knew of some of the riots that occurred at training bases across the country during the war and the riots in Detroit where African American workers were not hired for open positions building vehicles. I knew of the explosion at the shipyard in Richmond, California that took so many African American lives during the war and that the workers were railroaded for the explosion even after telling white officers the conditions were unsafe.
  
  What I didn't know was how systemic all of the racism was around the war specifically and how FDR refused to do anything about it lest he lose Southern democrats support for his re-elections. I didn't know of the Double V campaign led by the NAACP that demanded the end to segregation along with the fight against the Axis. I didn't know that African Americans were even more likely to be targeted by racist cops when in uniform.
  
  On the war front I didn't know that the Ledo Road in Burma was built by African American units and that thousands of African Americans died of tropical diseases there in Burma. I didn't know that the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion was an African American unit at Normandy. As they were exposed on the beaches of Normandy, they assembled a system in the midst of gunfire. The connected dirigibles acted as airborne mines to stop the Luftwaffe from strafing the beaches. I didn't know that so many African American units served in North Africa and Italy before D-Day. I also did not know that approximately one million African Americans served in all theaters of WWII by the war's end, many in vital supply roles.
  
  4.5 stars. Highly recommended. An exemplary job of tying in the dual pursuit of civil rights during and after the war.
• 
  Christina

  “When the Americans celebrate the country’s victory in World War II but forget that the US Armed Forces were segregated, that the Red Cross segregated blood donations, that the Black World War II Vet returned to the country only to be denied jobs and housing, or that Black Vets were attacked or murdered for violating the color line, it becomes all the more difficult to talk honestly about racism today.”
  
  Reading the history and the experiences of Black WWII Vets had such a sobering and damning affect on me. Here I am, a proud Black woman US Marine Corps Vet, who served in combat twice, realizes slowly while reading this book, that my experience in the service, is only because there were men and women who looked like me that survived horrendous and inhumane treatment since the Civil War, and beyond. Not that I didn’t know that the service was segregated, I knew, but I knew very little. Shamefully little, to be honest.
  
  “While racism was pervasive in all branches of the military, the Marine Corps stood out for its hostility to Black Americans. From 1798 to 1942, the Marines refused Black Americans the opportunity to serve.”
  
  During WWII, while the United States was trying to fight and win a battle against Nazism, white people literally had their foot on the necks and backs of Black people. White servicemen and officers designed a campaign of terror for Black Americans in order to reinforce, strengthen, and hold onto white supremacy to last forever, especially once the war was over. White enlisted servicemen, white officers, and with the help of the white local policemen, they lynched, murdered, dragged, mutilated, gutted, and defiled Black Americans with a vengence.
  
  “If the swastika is an emblem of racial oppression, the stars and stripes are equally so.”
  
  Hitler actually adopted the U.S.’s Jim Crow treatment of Black Americans to design his system of Nazism. Let that sink in.
  
  Black Americans wanted to do their part in the war. They tried to volunteer for the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor, only to be turned away. When they were allowed to join, they were treated as inhuman and segregated. Black Americans were rarely or ever given any skilled jobs. Black servicemen were given only the lowest of the lowest jobs, serving, cleaning, cooking, etc. White servicemen thought Black Americans as inferior, unintelligent, and undisciplined. White people would rather have lost the war, than to allow a Black person to serve in the military. One white servicemember was quoted, “I would rather lose the war than to work with these Negroes.” When a Black servicemember wore their uniform, the sight of them inflamed white people. Black Americans were treated with such contempt and degredation for even holding the flag in their hands, let alone wearing the uniform. If a Black person was seen wearing their uniform coming home, they would be beaten, murdered, lynched, and/or mutilated. They may have survived enemy threats abroad, but they would die in Mississippi for having worn their uniform home.
  
  White photographers and news journalists literally turned their backs on Black Americans in the service. The media kept Black people out of photographs, TV newsreels, movies, and basically erased Black men and women from ever being in WWII. White servicemen cared more about the color of a person’s skin than with the skills a Black American could aid in helping in the war. White government officials, senators, congressmen, and Presidents of the White House disparaged Black American’s character, and performance in WWII. The media also contributed in making sure no Black American was ever seen in pictures during WWII. History books have us totally wiped out in existence, as if we didn’t contribute to winning the war or even being there.
  
  The only reason the Allies won the war was because of Black Americans. The work that was relegated to us; the supply lines and such, is what kept the Allies able to fight and progress to win the war. The all Black infantry units, the Tuskegee Airmen, Montford Point Marines, and the Black Balloon Battalion are some of the infamous groups of servicemembers that contributed heavily in the success of winning WWII. There were Black truck drivers pushing the front lines, there were Black Americans landing DUKWs (ducks) in the water to invade the beaches to get us to land. There were Black engineers who made roads and supply lines through the jungle in order to push through enemy territory. Black servicemen provided the food, supplies, and ammunition in order for us to win the war. There were Black women nurses who tended to the sick and maimed, and kept them healthy to keep them fighting. Had it not been for Black servicemembers, WWII would have been a loss.
  
  However, the mistreatment of Black Americans was intentionally designed so as when the war was over, white supremacy would remain in full effect. These instances of taking Black lives was not isolated examples, but a pattern of violence that showed that Black lives ultimately did not matter. Not only did they unalive us, but white supremacy gatekept us out of housing, education, and financial wealth. The financial wealth gap was created because white supremacy denied WWII Black Americans the right to the GI Bill, VA Home Loans and various VA benefits that would have benefited families after their service in the Armed Forces.
  
  The Armed Forces officially was desegrated on July 26, 1948, after WWII. Executive Order 9981, which committed the government in desegregating the military by then President Truman. However, a rebel group of Southern democrats formed the “Dixie-crats” in order to protest the desegration in the military, and formed their political party and nominated their own person, Strom Thurmond, for President. The white Southerners wanted to keep Jim Crow alive forever and at any cost. By 1953, in the Korean war era, the military was still not fully desegregated. Segregation in the military demeaned Black Americans and made the war efforts inefficient and kept the Allies less successful in winning the war, causing incalcuable harm to many Black American troops.
  
  However, Black servicemembers never gave up the fight for equal rights. The more we were disenfranchised, the more we ratchted up the movement for civil rights. Black Americans fought for desegregation in the military, voting rights, ending poll taxes, demanding the Federal government to create Anti-lynching legislation, outlawing the racial housing covenants, and establishing Federal Fair Employment Practice Act. When we say Black Lives Matter, in today’s language, every marginalized group wins and benefits from these things that Black Americans fought and literally died for. Black Americans are literally fighting for a country that does not regard us as fully human, yet want us to sacrifice our lives for it.
  
  “If ordinary white Americans [choose] not to understand the depths of racism in [this] country, it [is] not for lack of knowledge or information. It [is] a willful decision to turn away from burgeoning Black freedom struggles and an intentionl refusal to reckon with the realities of racism in America.”
  
  Centering Black stories and Black histories is more than just clarifying what happened back in the day. The stories we continue to tell about our past help us to keep us knowledgable to better understand and manuever the present as well as understand our past. Keep telling Black stories. We are worth it. The sheer courage, mettle, intestinal fortitude and committment to this country who keeps taking our lives casually and carelessly is a testiment to our resillence and heroism that we continue to show up everyday trying to make the best out of our situations.
  
  Black Americans like Thurgood Marshall, Medger Evers, A. Phillip Randolph, Martin Luther King Jr., Black Women Army Corps (WACS), Bayard Rustin, Roy Wilkins, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Mary McLeod Bethune, and so many others are the ones who kept pushing Black servicemen and women to continue to show up everyday and fight for their equal rights. Without these individuals, and groups of people who gave their lives to the hard work of protesting, marching, refusing to be sent away, is the reason why we can say Black Lives Matter. We matter. Our stories matter. Our lives matter. Our future matters. Our past matters.
  
  “Thousands of men suffered and died to make the stars and stripes supreme in the U.S. There is but one American flag. We are Americans or something else.” - E. Washington Rhodes
  
  Required reading. 5 stars.
  
  I want to thank Viking Publishers (@vikingbooks) and the author Matthew F. Delmont (@mattdelmont) for this book in exchange for a fair and honest opinion. One of best book nonfiction book I’ve read to date.
• 
  Kim Becker (MIDDLE of the Book MARCH)

  Read for the Booktube Prize.
• 
  Porter Broyles

  This is a fun short little book about the experience of black Americans during WWII.
  
  Each chapter is a short synopsis over an aspect of the black experience during the war.
  
  None are overy complex nor detailed. In several cases I found myself thinking, "This is only part of the story", but this is an introduction to the topic.
  
  The book brings together a number of stories/issues that the reader may have encountered in other sources and presents them in one tomb.
  
  The writing is clear and concise. The stories are short and enjoyable.
  
  Overall, I found myself enjoying the book despite its brevity. A great introduction to the subject.
• 
  Mal Warwick

  Histories of the US role in World War II frequently mention the famous Tuskegee Airmen, a segregated African-American fighter squadron that distinguished itself in the European Theater. Sometimes they also cite the 92nd Infantry Division (“Buffalo Soldiers”), which breached the Gothic Line in northern Italy. The 761st Tank Battalion (“Black Panthers”) occasionally appears too. The Black tankers fought their way with General George S. Patton’s Third Army from Normandy, across France, and deeply into Germany. But singling out these exceptional units does a disservice to the much more substantial role of African-Americans in World War II.
  
  As the US National WWII Museum observes, “More than one million African American men and women served in every branch of the [segregated] US armed forces during World War II.” And millions more were active on the home front, building Liberty Ships and Sherman tanks and holding down thankless jobs in support of the war effort. In Half American, Dartmouth historian Matthew F. Belmont tells their stories, chronicling the time when the civil rights movement began to find its footing.
  
  FIGHTING FOR A CHANCE TO FIGHT
  As Delmont makes clear at the outset, “Nearly everything about the war . . . looks different when viewed from the African American perspective. For Black Americans, the war started not with Pearl Harbor in 1941 but several years earlier with the Italian invasion of [the African nation of] Ethiopia and the Spanish Civil War. As soon as Adolf Hitler’s regime rose to power in the 1930s, Black Americans recognized the significance of the Nazi threat and the similarities between the Third Reich’s and America’s racial policies.” Hitler’s ideology was, in fact, grounded in American and British racist theories, not German.
  
  Yet, Delmont adds, “in the days after Pearl Harbor, hundreds of Black volunteers were turned away by military recruiters. In a nation mobilizing for war, African Americans first had to fight for the right to serve in the military.” And that fight only became less frustrating as manpower shortages forced the Pentagon to open the gates more widely later in the war.
  
  HOW AFRICAN-AMERICANS HELPED WIN THE WAR
  In his survey of the role played by African-Americans in World War II, Delmont highlights the essential work of the hundreds of thousands of Black men and women who did not fight on the war’s front lines. For example, in the course of the war, over 16,000 Tuskegee Airmen trained in Alabama. Fewer than 1,000 of those airmen were pilots, and out of them 352 were deployed and fought in combat. The 1,800 missions they flew over Europe were only possible because of thousands of others in the unit. The mechanics. Air traffic controllers. Mapmakers. Meteorologists. Typists. And, yes, no doubt janitorial staff, too. Yet this pattern was not unusual in the air corps. Nor was it out of synch with the armed forces as a whole. Overall, more than 16 million Americans served in the military during the war. Yet fewer than one million ever saw serious combat.
  
  SPEEDY AND EFFICIENT LOGISTICS MAKE MODERN WARFARE POSSIBLE
  In fact, as Delmont makes abundantly clear, the greatest contribution made by African-Americans in World War II was in logistics. “Fighting a global war required a colossal logistical undertaking to link the continental United States to battlefronts around the world. On a map, these supply lines looked neat and orderly, so many air, land, and sea routes crisscrossing the globe. On the ground, it was clear that building, maintaining, and defending these supply lines entailed a tremendous amount of work.” And Black soldiers, sailors, merchant marines, and airmen performed much of this work. Throughout the war, the US military deliberately—as a matter of policy—assigned most African American soldiers and sailors to non-combat roles, sending many of those well-qualified for combat into jobs such as engineers, quartermasters, and cooks.
  
  But logistics was key. For example, as Delmont reports, “In the six months after D-Day, the port of Southampton was the busiest in the world. More than 6,400 vessels left Southampton bound for France carrying nearly 2 million military personnel, 170,000 vehicles, and over 1.7 million tons of supplies. Black troops made up twenty-five of the twenty-seven port companies at Southampton, more than half of the truck companies, and almost all of its quartermaster and engineer general service regiments.” Without them, Eisenhower, Bradley, Montgomery, and Patton could never have moved as far or as fast inland as they did. And many of the generals acknowledged that debt in glowing terms following the war.
  
  FIGHTING RACISM ON THE HOME FRONT
  It’s well known that the US military was segregated during World War II. That began to change only in 1948, when President Harry S Truman issued Executive Order 9981, desegregating the armed forces. (It was another decade before the order fully took effect.) But segregation on the home front presented massive problems throughout the war—and throughout the country, not just in the South.
  
  When the United States first declared war and the nation’s major corporations began mobilizing to produce armaments, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Americans flocked to factory gates to do their part in winning the war. African-Americans were prominent among them. But almost everywhere they were turned away. Racist managers and trade union leaders stoutly resisted allowing Black workers to join their ranks—and when African-Americans persisted, white workers frequently walked off the job. When massive pressure from grassroots action and government mandates eventually broke the logjam, Black workers usually encountered discrimination on the job. And that led to further tumult.
  
  “I’D RATHER SEE HITLER WIN THE WAR”
  For example, as Delmont notes, “many Black war workers in Detroit used wildcat strikes to demand equal rights in defense plants. [A] Black strike at Packard ended after . . . three [African American] men were returned to their assembly-line jobs. Days later, on June 3, 1943, twenty-five thousand white workers (90 percent of the total workforce) retaliated by walking off the job, shutting down the entire plant. Many crowded the factory gates, cheering racist soapbox speakers. ‘I’d rather see Hitler and Hirohito win the war than work beside a n***** on the assembly line,’ one man screamed.” And although that was an isolated example, Delmont quotes many other examples of similar racist rhetoric elsewhere around the country. In fact, “Detroit was just one of more than 240 cities, towns, and military bases that witnessed outbreaks of racial violence in the summer of 1943.”
  
  As one African-American war correspondent wrote so poignantly, Black soldiers fought to “tear down the sign ‘No Jews Allowed’ in Germany,” only to finding signs reading NO NEGROES ALLOWED were still commonplace in America.”
  
  THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT BEGAN COMING INTO ITS OWN IN THE WAR
  Delmont’s story largely revolves around some of the millions of Black men and women whose work in World War II has never made the history books. But familiar figures appear, too.
  
  ** Labor leader A. Philip Randolph threatened a massive African-American March on Washington in 1941. His threat, backed up by the NAACP and other early civil rights leaders, forced FDR to issue Executive Order 8802, which prohibited discrimination in the defense industry.
  
  ** Thurgood Marshall, the future Supreme Court Justice, traveled tens of thousands of miles every year to lend his considerable legal skills to NAACP Chapters around the country.
  
  ** Lieutenant Colonel (later four-star General) Benjamin O. Davis Jr., a West Point graduate, led the Tuskegee Airmen. He was the first Black brigadier general in US history.
  
  ** Roy Wilkins, James Farmer, Rosa Parks, and others who would later rise to prominence in the civil rights movement were all active in the struggle for African-American equality during World War II.
  
  PUTTING IT ALL IN PERSPECTIVE
  Delmont observes, “It was only a few years ago that the Associated Press updated its style guide to encourage journalists to stop using the euphemisms ‘racially motivated’ or ‘racially charged’ when ‘the terms racism and racist can be used . . . to describe the hatred of a race, or assertion of the superiority of one race over others.'”
  
  In the concluding words of his book, Demont reminds us that “if we tell the right stories about the war, we can finally honor the sacrifices of the Black veterans, defense industry workers, and citizens who fought on foreign battlefields and in their own cities and towns so that no one would ever again be treated as half American.”
  
  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  Matthew F. Delmont’s bio at Amazon.com reads as follows: “Matthew F. Delmont is the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor of History at Dartmouth College. A Guggenheim Fellow and expert on African American history and the history of civil rights, he is the author of Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad (Viking, 2022), as well four previous books: Black Quotidian, Why Busing Failed, Making Roots, and The Nicest Kids in Town. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and several academic journals, and on NPR. Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Delmont earned his BA from Harvard University and his MA and PhD from Brown University.”
• 
  Jess

  Although I hate glorifying the murder and devastation of war and the military (aka imperialism), this is a really great history of the Black American experience around WWII, both abroad and at home. I love how the author tied in the deep-rooted issues of white supremacy and racism back to everything. I think the conclusion, which tied this history to the issues of the present day, was really powerful and on point. Highly recommend!
• 
  Amanda

  I recommend this to all my friends in the military and even those who aren’t. I learned so much, things I’m ashamed I didn’t know before.
  
  Definitely going to buy a physical copy to re-read closely for highlighting and reference.
• 
  Dakota Morgan

  Half American offers a powerful look at the African-American experience before, during, and after World War II, both on the home front and in the theater of war. There's a lot of fascinating material here that I wasn't aware of, particularly the Double V campaign for victory against fascism abroad and racism at home.
  
  Another common thread: discrimination against blacks in the workplace, even as the need for workers increased with wartime production. I was surprised to learn of the political maneuvering and marches on Washington to get law in place that could (possibly) remove discriminatory hiring practices.
  
  Of course, as in any book about the mid-20th century Black experience, you'll find that one step forward is quickly followed by ten steps back. Half American is not a fun read. Small victories are often accompanied by, for example, a long list of incidents in which African-American soldiers were lynched upon returning home.
  
  While I enjoyed the unique look at World War II and certainly learned a fair bit, it's one of those books that leaves you queasy. How could our grandparents be so literally evil to one another. Boggles the mind and upsets the stomach.
• 
  Emily

  This book is mandatory. The only thing that's wrong with this book is that it should have been seventy years of churning out African-American World War II scholarship and popular history for your grandpa who likes reading about World War II, but America is racist and Black people have been erased from most popular and scholarly representations of World War II, so this is just one book. Also, Black people knew they were being erased from World War II even while they fought in it and one of the many aspects of the war here is Black people making it known that they also fought and died and are eligible for the GI Bill and white people ignoring them. Besides jumping around a lot to cover the whole entire war and not enough about the war in the Pacific, this book is spectacular. We've got the first man killed in Pearl Harbor, conscription, trucking, WACs, bravery, passing, Langston Hughes, the Lincoln Brigade, warehouses full of mail, D-Day, a young Thurgood Marshall, the highway connecting India and China, and more. I listened to this really fast and, again, this book should be forty volumes long. Excellent and informative.
• 
  Jaz Boon

  A significant and beautiful read about the contributions Black Americans made during WW2. Without equivocation, the often overlooked and dirty work taken on by Black Americans at home and abroad was pivotal in defeating the Axis powers. Delmont brings to the forefront the purposefully excluded contributions of Black soldiers in hopes of painting a more accurate picture of the past and present. This is a very accessible read and I really appreciated how Delmont connected the hypocrisy of fighting Nazis abroad while promoting racism within the military and back home. What’s more, connecting the exclusion of the contributions of Black Americans during the war to the inequity we still see today in our society. I wish I could give this 10 stars because it’s THAT good!
• 
  pʕałxʷ-Grahm Wiley-Camacho

  Great companion read to Vernon Baker’s Lasting Valor that contextualizes precisely how the US is such a shithole.
• 
  Sandy (Ms Reads A Lot)

  Book tube prize quarterfinal book
• 
  Leila Tejani

  Fascinating, especially since I didn't know how so many aspects of the civil rights movement are directly rooted in WW2. The writing is a bit dry, which I don't think has to be the standard for history books, but the quotes are well chosen.
• 
  Kerry

  Read for Quarterfinals BookTube Prize. Review in June
• 
  Peg

  One of the best works of nonfiction I’ve read in years. Both WWII history and the evolution of 20th century race relations in the U.S. are very well-represented fields on bookstore and library shelves, but it’s shocking how few accounts describe the intersection of the two. This is an important and overdue contribution to both subjects. It’s by turns infuriating and heartbreaking to contemplate the many ways in which Black men and women’s contributions to the war effort were minimized, dismissed, or mischaracterized. And it’s in some ways even more upsetting to reflect on how many concrete consequences of that ill treatment still echo today—almost 80 years later—in things like the racial economic inequities cemented by racially unequal access to GI Bill benefits. This is an uncommonly thought-provoking book—cannot recommend highly enough.
• 
  Ray

  Unquestionably 5 stars. Because of its subject matter Half American will be a heavy read for most people. In order to gain a truer understanding of the history of the United States readers should spend the time that this book deserves. It offers an unabashed look at racism during World War II. Half American truly is a must-read.
• 
  Donna Lewis

  Author Matthew F Delmont has written about World War II through a different lens than most books about the War. “The world’s greatest generation” is a wonderful saying, but it does not give enough credit to those Black Americans who had to fight two wars simultaneously—one against the oppressors in Europe and Asia, and another against Jim Crow in America. This book is both enlightening and infuriating. The fact is that many of the prejudices that existed in the 30s and 40s still flourish today.
  
  In 1941, many Double V clubs formed throughout Black communities throughout the US. Civil rights activists pushed the campaign’s two aims: victory over fascism abroad and victory over racism at home. Unfortunately, although “the Nazis were conquered on the battlefield, the racial ideas of white supremacy continued to flourish in America—then and today.”
  
  “For Black Americans, the war started not with Pearl Harbor in 1941 but several years earlier with the Italian invasion of Ethiopia and the Spanish Civil War.” Black Americans also recognized that Nazi racial ideology was not just a foreign problem but was also similar to racial attitudes in the United States. Yet, over one million Black men and women served in World War II. During the summer of 1943, there were some 240 cases of organized racial violence in cities and on military bases in this country.
  
  According to Langston Hughes, “Fascism was Jim Crow with a foreign accent.” He went to Spain to see and write about the the Black volunteers with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, who worked with the embattled Spanish Republican government to fight the fascists. The group of 3,000 Americans included 80 African American men and women.
  
  Interspersed with geopolitical statements and human-interest stories are profiles that read like fiction rather than non-fiction. All are true and remarkably interesting. A great deal of the focus is on national politics and all branches of the military.
  
  The following familiar names are known to most people: President Franklin D Roosevelt, Benjamin O Davis (Jr and Sr)’, Paul Robeson, A Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, General Jacob Devers, Mary McLeod Bethune, General George C Marshall, Thurgood Marshall, Arthur Miller, J Edgar Hoover, et al. How these people supported or perpetuated or fought to eliminate Jim Crow discrimination is examined in depth, especially in terms of the military. Not in that list are the many unrecognizable names of the African American draftees who, in spite of the racism, continued to serve in the military. Wearing an army uniform did not protect soldiers from being lynched. (Anti-lynching measures were not passed in the Senate and House until 2022!)
  
  “White folks would rather lose the war than give up the luxury of race prejudice.” — Roy Wilkins
  
  There has been a lot of great things told about the Tuskegee Airman, but there are not many mentions of the “unfairness, demeaning insults, and raw discrimination.” This affected the pilots and the Black support staff that included many women working as nurses, airplane repair staff and highly trained meteorologists. This resulted in random threats, beatings, and low morale. Killings and violence were perpetrated by white police officers and armed civilians.
  
  “For Black Americans, the Merchant Marine was a powerful symbol of equality because unlike the army, Air Corps, navy, or Marines, merchant crews were racially integrated.” Some 24,000 Black Americans served in the Merchant Marine during the war.
  
  Black soldiers and Black civilian workers were given the most dangerous jobs, and when, after numerous deaths, they refused, they were tried and imprisoned for years.
  
  Fifty Black women in Massachusetts, many with college degrees, were “enticed to enlist in the WAC with promises of skilled jobs, only to be assigned cleaning duty.” When nurses defied orders to scrub floors and wash dishes, they were court marshaled.
  
  Despite many instances of heroic efforts during the D-day invasion, and despite recommendations by commanding officers, none of the more than 400 Medals of Honor awarded during the War, were bestowed on Black troop members.
  
  This is not a book report, so I have not mentioned the hundreds more heart-wrenching incidents that defy logic, but if you have any interest in this history, read this well-written book.
  
  Once again: if we don’t study history, we are doomed to repeat it. And if we don’t teach actual history in our schools, our children are doomed to perpetuate racial discrimination. “Ignorance is a luxury we cannot afford.”
  
  
  
• 
  Cropredy

  In truth - 3.5 stars
  
  It is tricky writing a review about the experiences of African-Americans during WW II as I am not African-American. I heard the author participating in a We Have Ways of Making You Talk USA podcast episode entitled
  The Black Military Experience and I was immediately drawn to the story as there was so much I did not know. The fundamental podcast message was - "why did the US, totally mobilized to defeat Japan and Germany, relegate 10% of the population to either no use or low-value use, especially as manpower was in short supply?". Hence, I got the book a few weeks later.
  
  Per the author, the racism present in America before, during, and after the war was appalling. The US military simply did not believe that Black soldiers were intelligent, courageous, or otherwise soldier-worthy humans. The entire US military was segregated. Blacks could only serve as messmen on Navy ships. The Army Air Corps didn't believe blacks could fly planes. The bulk of the substantial contribution in men from the African-American community were employed as laborers, construction engineers, supply echelons, and perhaps the worst job of all, graves registration (burying the dead bodies). There were a few exceptions - the 92nd Infantry Division, led by an avowed white racist general who had no confidence in his troops and maligned them during and long after the war, a tank destroyer battalion, and of course, the Tuskegee airmen who flew missions mostly in Italy.
  
  Besides the enlisted soldiers, the promise of good paying defense industry jobs was largely unmet as white workers throughout the country refused to accept any skilled black labor alongside them. Hence a large number of black workers were denied work in the vital war industries or relegated to janitorial and other low-skill positions. Blood banks kept white and black blood separate!
  
  White politicians (especially southern Senators) were openly hostile to blacks and in so many words, would have preferred the US to lose the war rather than to give up white supremacy over the American way of life.
  
  As I said, simply appalling.
  
  The book is replete with more examples, especially during the training of black soldiers in southern military camps and bases where everything you could imagine about the worst of Jim Crow did happen. Confrontations including up to mutinies were common.
  
  As I read the book I said, I sure hope this history gets taught in American schools today but I suspect it is not. It certainly wasn't taught when I was in school.
  
  So, 4 stars for being eye-opening.
  
  But why 3.5 stars overall? Parts of the book were lengthy expositions of the lives of a few, well-known personages - for example, Langston Hughes' experiences during the Spanish Civil War. Other parts of the book begged more for detail that simply couldn't be accommodated in 300+ pages surveying such a wide scope. Opposition to the use of black soldiers tended to be illustrated with direct quotes but little attention was paid to the parts of the political/military establishment that were supportive of the use of black soldiers and black civilian labor. The story had to be much more complicated and nuanced than a bunch of racist (mostly) southern generals, admirals, and politicians. At times, I felt I was reading the 1940s version of outrage Twitter.
  
  Truman ordered the integration of the military in 1948 but it is not clear from the text as to why that happened given it occurred in an election year and the status quo was so strong (note Jackie Robinson broke the baseball color barrier in 1947 though I don't recall if the book mentioned this.)
  
  I guess what I'm trying to say here is that Delmont gets stuck between doing superficial, only chapter-length, accounts of famous events (Tuskegee Airmen, Port Chicago explosion/mutiny, etc) and trying to write a grand narrative analysis of how the US went from a totally segregated, totally racist military and society to the integrated military we have today. Of course, many more battles needed to be fought post-1945 before the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 and the country is hardly a non-racial utopia today. But somehow, after reading the book, it wasn't clear to me how the black experience in WW II actually led to change - I was left more with the sense it was one of many stepping stones and did not cause a revolutionary change in societal thinking.
  
  No photos (if any book could benefit from photos, this would be one - especially as Delmont mentions that the pictorial accounts of the war (e.g. Life magazine) wrote out the African-American contribution almost entirely). No maps. Plenty of notes.
  
  Read this to deepen your understanding of WWII from the American side and to appreciate the depth of prejudice that had (and still has) to be overcome over the last 80+ years. It is a good starting point to learn more.
  
  
  
  One quibble - Delmont mentions the US deployed four carriers to stop the Japanese fleet in the spring of 1942 at the Battle of the Coral Sea (but there were only two).
• 
  Chris

  Not the book I thought it would be and that was a good development. I was familiar with many of the black units who fought in World War II but this book focuses on the black community's twin campaign of double victory which I was completely unfamiliar with. Double Victory was about defeating racism and fascism and it started on the home front and also during the Spanish Civil War. I learned much about black newspapers and their preeminent role in spreading the word. I'd heard all the horror stories of the abuse of black servicemen and women during and after the war. They are recounted here. And still they fought for America only to return to be treated as second class citizens. Unbelievable. They were accorded more respect in Europe than home in the USA. Eye opening.
• 
  Gregg Lines

  I enjoyed this book for several reasons. It helps paint a picture of the two fronts that black Americans fought on during the war: at home and abroad. Disheartening and encouraging at the same time, we see the struggles of men and women to be accepted in American society and the armed forces. Many have their all and others survived the war but were horribly mistreated when they got home.
  
  This book is an important lesson for Americans in the harms of racism and how policies can affect not just the living, but generations to come (e.g. access to GI Bill, housing etc that was unequal for service members due to their race).
  
  Highly recommend for those interested in WWII and race in U.S. society.
• 
  Amanda

  4.5 stars
• 
  Ryan

  This was a powerfully written and exceptionally well research book. A standout example of the way the past has influenced the present. This was one of the best books I've read on WW2, as it gave a far more encompassing history than presented in almost every other accounting.