Fighting for Hope: African American Troops of the 93rd Infantry Division in World War II and Postwar America (review)

In Fighting for Hope: African American Troops of the 93rd Infantry Division in World War II and Postwar America, Robert Jefferson focuses on the wartime thoughts and feelings of soldiers. Officered by whites at the highest level and composed solely of blacks at the enlisted level, the 93rd served mainly at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and in the Southwest Pacific during World War II. African American men faced a quandary about the war: Should they fight against fascism abroad when their own lives were severely constrained by racism at home? If they fight, should it be in segregated units or in a fully integrated military? Fighting for Hope reveals how the men thought about these and other issues while relating some of their experiences during the war.

With today's army so racially and sexually diverse—though still struggling with the issue of sexual orientation—it might be difficult to imagine situations that African American soldiers faced in the 1940s. The military confined the men to a segregated unit commanded by southern whites. Although many soldiers were eager to learn new skills that might benefit them when they returned to civilian life, their senior officers had scant interest in their personal development. The men trained, trained, and trained some more, while the top military brass and politicians tried to figure out what to do with Negro soldiers. When finally deployed to the South Pacific, they were assigned to labor duties well behind the front lines. They had segregated and rudimentary recreation facilities and were routinely subjected to the same racist attitudes and behaviors that existed in the deep South. The men of the 93rd were fighting the Japanese army and the U.S. army simultaneously. One soldier wrote to his pastor back home saying, "We are not allowed to even leave the area. The white soldiers are permitted to do anything. We have to do all of the dirty work, and our food is different from that served to white troops. And worst of all, the white officers and soldiers are teaching the people in the Philippines that the Negro soldier has a tail like a dog that comes out at night and goes back in during the day" (215).

The soldiers frequently felt that the attitudes of their senior officers, their work assignments, and the racial restrictions derogated their dignity and manhood. Isaiah Johnson tells the story of trying to get back to Camp Polk, Louisiana, after a weekend pass in town: "The white soldiers were permitted to load on the public bus first to return to camp; then members of the all-Japanese 100th Battalion; and then, since all of the seats were filled by then, left us colored soldiers with no way to get back to camp" (129). Other instances of discrimination were far more serious. Blacks were court-martialed for rape and other sexual crimes, sometimes based on such flimsy evidence that even a few white officers objected. Nevertheless some men were executed. Relentless racial discrimination led to clashes with white soldiers, with the military police, as well as with senior officers.

Although Jefferson focuses on how African American soldiers felt about the army and the war, he also explores the dichotomy between the soldiers and the African American community back home. While the latter was pressing the government to "send our boys into action," the soldiers were more concerned about their physical separation from loved ones, inadequate recreation facilities, and their daily struggle to stay alive in the face of racism and live bullets.

Fighting for Hope is based on information gleaned from a wide variety of sources, including personal papers, military records, organizational histories, newspaper articles, oral history collections, letters and mementoes from the 93rd Infantry soldiers and their families, as well as from oral history interviews Jefferson conducted between...