Let Us Fight as Free Men: Black Soldiers and Civil Rights

Epilogue

Epilogue Today, sixty years after the end of the Korean War in 1953, military integration has become a reality. African Americans can be found in all positions and ranks of the military.1 In 1989, Colin Powell became the first black man to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When he joined the armed forces in 1958, five years after the stalemate in Korea, the military, according to his memoir, ‘‘was the only place . . . where a young black kid could now dream; the only place, where the color of your guts and the color of your blood was more important than the color of your skin.’’2 The Korean War Veterans Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., manifests in granite and stainless steel this alleged fulfillment of racial diversity and equality in the military. With it, the Korean War shed its image as a ‘‘bitter war that Americans forgot,’’3 and was turned into the victorious beginning of the end of the Cold War. Moreover, the war was constructed as a success story not only with regard to the Cold War, but for race relations in the United States as well.4 Even though the memorial’s design represents, in the words of art historian Kirk Savage, ‘‘no victory party,’’ it displays America’s (allegedly) successful acceptance of diversity.5 At the memorial’s dedication celebration in July 1995, President Bill Clinton stated, ‘‘In steel and granite, in water and earth, the creators of this memorial have brought to life the courage and sacrifice of those who served in all branches of the Armed Forces from every racial and ethnic group and background in America. They represent, once more, the enduring American truth: From many we are one.’’6 The memorial affirmed the ‘‘the idealized self-image of a multiethnic, multiracial democracy, hospitable to difference but united by a common sense of national belonging.’’7 At the opening of the nationwide anniversary celebrations in June 2000, President Clinton repeated this thought when he noted, Epilogue 225 ‘‘Korea helped remind us . . . that our people and all our rich diversity are our greatest strength, that a fully integrated military is our surest hope for victory, that our freedom and security depends on the freedom and security of others, and that we can never, ever, pull away from the rest of the world.’’8 Clinton and the other speakers at the events reminded their audiences that America should never forget how far the nation had come and how much it had to offer to the world. Official commemorations of military integration before and during the Korean War have all too often forgotten or rather ignored the long African American struggle for desegregation in the armed forces. Moreover, politicians and the press have embraced and replicated this inclusive and equal picture of American democracy and the Korean War, thus not only silencing the struggle of African Americans at the time, but also the continuing grievances and racial tensions in the United States.9 Like most Korean War veterans, African Americans were happy about a memorial erected on the Mall in their honor. Korean War veterans, regardless of race, had long complained about their societal lack of recognition and commemoration. Many felt that they had not received sufficient gratitude for the sacrifices they made for a foreign people and the American nation during a war that took place in a country that, in the end, nobody really seemed to know and care much about.10 They had felt for all too long that they had been sandwiched between World War II’s ‘‘Greatest Generation ’’ and the tragic figures of the Vietnam War,11 although they had also participated in a bloody and costly war. The memorial on the Mall managed to heal many old wounds, but for many black veterans the fight was still far from over. For African American veterans, the alleged lack of commemoration was hurtful. Even more painful, however, was that when the Korean War was remembered, their achievements were often left out or degraded. They felt that the rectification of and control over their image as soldiers in public memory and history was still outstanding. Segregation might have ended, but black soldiers’ portrayal as failed combatants during the Korean War continued. The major history books on the Korean War reiterated the negative assessments of black soldiers that white officers had made during the war. Instead of fighting...