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Brenda L. Moore 6 From Underrepresentation to Overrepresentation: African American Women Whenever I mention research I am doing on African American women who served overseas during World War II, my listeners almost invariably reply, "I didn't know black women served in the military during World War Ill" The fact is that as early as the American Revolution, African American women supported military troops as cooks, laundresses, seamstresses, and nurses. Virtually every history book on African Americans documents slave and abolitionist Harriet Tubman's service as a spy for Union troops during the American Civil War. But Tubman was not the only African American woman to participate actively in the Civil War. In her book Reminiscences, Susie King Taylor tells of her experiences maintaining military equipment and nursing wounded men who were aSSigned to the First Carolina Volunteers, the first Negro regiment organized by the Union Army (Taylor 1968). Contributions made by countless other black women during the Civil War, many ofwhom were promised freedom from slavery as compensation for their services , remain undocumented (see U.S. DOD 1991,137). In subsequent years, thirty-two African American women, serving as nurses during the Spanish-American War helped the United States rise to the status of imperialist power. Initially rejecting the services of African American women, the military later recruited them-primarily because of the misconception that blacks were immune to typhoid fever, a disease that killed many of the soldiers who fought in that war. During World War I, some African American Copyrighted Material 1 16 Brenda L. Moore women performed military duties to release men for combat, and others served in the Nurse Corps (U.S. DOD 1991, 140). African American women have served this country in every war. Military organizations have consistently reflected the larger society, including its race and gender norms, which for more than a hundred and fifty years justified the exclusion of women and racial minorities from regular military service. Protecting the community through military service has historically been viewed as the responsibility of full citizens, individuals who possess such rights as owning property, participating in the exercise of political power, and sharing in the nation's economic wealth and security.' For decades, full citizenship in the United States, including the duty of national defense, was reserved for white men. This policy of exclusion was part of the code oflocal state militias that predated World War I, as well as the nation 's first large, standing, federal army, authorized by the National Defense Act of 1916.2 Thus, women and minorities have been excluded from active participation in the defense of the nation until a crisis erupted, and then they have been used as white men saw fit. Historically, African American women have willingly shared the burden of national defense out of a sense of moral obligation to the country but also in an attempt to demonstrate their worthiness for full citizenship. Their efforts were often in vain, however, because the services of women and minorities were forgotten as soon as the conflict was resolved. World War II: A Turning Point World War II created fundamental changes in military race and gender policies. Actually, racial poliCies were modified even before the United States entered the war, through the Selective Service Training Act of 1940. While prohibiting race discrimination against male volunteers and draftees, nevertheless this act upheld the norm ofracial segregation by specifying that "there would be no intermingling between the races" (Lee 1966, 76). The policy further held that the number of "Negroes" would not exceed their percentage in the civilian population (Lee 1966).3 Women, on the other hand, did not become members of the American armed forces until after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. The Women's Army AUXiliary Corps (WAAC), established in May 1942, was converted to the Women's Army Corps (WAC) in 1943, giving women full Army status.4 Both the Selective Service Copyrighted Material .136.26.20] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 00:53 GMT) African American Women 117 Training Act and the act creating the WAAC were necessary before African American women could serve in the U.S. militaryS Following the War Department's lead, the Navy established its Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) in July 1942; the Marine Corps opened its doors to Euro-American women in February 1943. African American women, however, were not accepted into the Marine Corps during the war at all (Johnson 1974, 33-41); they were authorized to enter the...

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