(upbeat music) - We're now joined by Matthew Delmont, distinguished professor of history at Dartmouth College, I'll get that out, and author of "Half American: "The Heroic Story of African Americans "Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad."

Professor, great to have you with us.

- Thanks for having me.

- "Half American" isn't just the name, it means a lot.

Describe it please.

- So the title of the book comes from a letter written by a man named James G. Thompson.

James Thompson was a 26-year-old from Wichita, Kansas, and he wrote this amazing letter to the Pittsburgh Courier in late December, 1941, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

James Thompson was a black man and he knew that he and other black Americans were about to be drafted into a segregated military.

And so in this letter, he wrote a series of very pressing and pointed questions.

He asked, in part, "Should I sacrifice my life "to live half American?

"Is the America I know worth defending?"

And that phrase, "Should I sacrifice my life to live half American?"

It really stuck with me.

It's why I chose "Half American" as the title of the book.

The Pittsburgh Courier used Thompson's letter to launch what was called the Double Victory Campaign, which really became the rallying cry for Black Americans during the war.

- So, and the rest of that quote is fascinating.

This is again from James Thompson.

"Would it be demanding too much "to demand full citizenship rights "in exchange for sacrificing my life?

"Is the kind of America I know worth defending?"

Do you still think that's a question that a fair number of African Americans in the military would ask today?

- I think unfortunately it is.

I think the military deserves a lot of credit for thinking longer and harder about issues of racial equity than almost any other organization in American society.

And so African Americans are well represented today in the military, much more well represented at different ranks than they were in 1941.

But one of the challenges Black Americans have always faced in terms of service to their country is what does it mean to serve a country where you don't yet have full citizenship and full equality?

Things are obviously better today than they were during World War II, but that question of should I risk my life to serve a country where there's still vast racial wealth gaps, where there's still police brutality, still issues that confront too many African American communities.

So there's still issues that African American service men or women still grapple with today.

- So let's put this in perspective.

You used the term double victory, the theme of double victory, Black Americans were fighting fascism abroad, racism at home, but they're fighting in the war to represent the United States of America.

When they come back after the war, to what degree do you believe, professor, the federal government, the leaders in Washington, disproportionately, obviously almost all white, understood, not just the paradox, but how wrong it was for that to be going on for Jim Crow, for racism, for prejudice, for all kinds of things going on, was there a sense like, "Hey, wait a minute, we just asked "people to put their lives on the line and now."

Was there any of that or is that just pipe dream?

- It was a slow realization for people in power, people like President Truman and other officials in Washington DC and that's why I think it's so powerful about looking at World War II from the Black perspective, this double victory campaign that was launched by the Pittsburgh Courier, a Black newspaper, it really became the focal point for Black Americans throughout the war.

Double victory stood for fighting for victory over fascism abroad and victory over racism at home and it wasn't just a cover slogan or rhetorical device, it really was how Black people thought about the war.

They were absolutely committed to military victory.

They knew that Black Americans and all Americans had to do everything they could to defeat the Nazis and the Axis powers.

But they also recognized that wasn't enough.

It wasn't enough to achieve military victory and then come home to the same kind of racial discrimination here on the home front.

And so that home front story of the fight against racism and the fight for civil rights became important as well.

Those stories are intertwined in the history of World War II.

- Matt, why did this become so... why did you jump into this?

- For me, I'm a historian, all my work focuses on African American history, but it was really a desire to do justice to that generation of Black veterans, for everything they gave to the country, and that everything they continued to give to the country when they came home.

One of the things they say in the book is for Black Americans, World War II didn't end in 1945, that whole generation of Black veterans came back and they kept fighting.

They were just fighting here in the United States fighting for civil rights, fighting to make America country where freedom and democracy would truly be values that could be shared by all people.

- I'm curious about this, you talk about West Point and racism at West Point.

Talk about that.

- One of the characters I feature in the book is a man named Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.

He was the first leader of the Tuskegee Airmen.

He was the fourth Black person to ever graduated from West Point, the first in the 20th century.

- Go back for a second, professor, put the Tuskegee Airmen in perspective because people hear it and don't really understand it and you'll help us, please.

- Absolutely, so the Tuskegee Airmen I think, today are probably the best known servicemen from World War II.

They were the pioneering Black fighter pilots.

But we have to understand, when you go back to the 1930s, 1940 even just in the lead up to World War II, the Army Air Corps didn't allow any Black Americans to serve at all.

They didn't want any Black pilots.

And so there was a real push from civil rights activists and from Black newspaper editors to force the Army Air Corps to finally allow the first cohort of Black pilots to train and to serve and then once those men got into the combat, then they had to prove themselves in combat.

In some cases, prove themselves to their own white officers who still didn't think Black men had what it took to be fighter pilots.

- Go back to the West Point story.

- So Benjamin O. Davis Jr. was the first leader of this Tuskegee Airmen unit.

He graduated from West Point in 1936, only the fourth Black man to ever do so.

But when he graduated, the Army had no idea what to do with him.

He wanted to be a pilot, but at that point, they weren't allowing any Black men to be pilots.

When he described his four years at West Point in the mid 1930s, he said it was horrific, the kind of racism he encountered.

He said no one spoke to him for a full four years other than direct commands.

They tried to isolate him and they ostracized him just because he was a Black serviceman.

Nevertheless, he persevered through that, ended up serving a distinguished tour as one of the leaders of Tuskegee Airmen and then served for the rest of his life in the Air Force, one of the first generals in the Air Force.

- Fast forward.

I had the honor of interviewing a late General Colin Powell, grew up in the Bronx, right?

Family, I believe, from Jamaica, comes here and becomes who Colin Powell was and why he still matters.

For Colin Powell to achieve what he did, when he did, how he did in the Bush administration and then go on to the UN.

Yes, there were problems and challenges, people can check it out, but he also stood up and said, "I was wrong," as it relates to weapons of mass destruction, that's not the issue.

What did his ascension to the role that he played in the military and the federal government mean?

I know we're talking about one person, but it's historically very significant, is it not?

- It absolutely is.

For someone like Colin Powell to break the barriers that he did in the military and then in politics was incredibly important.

Part of the role of someone like Colin Powell is they open up opportunities for the next generation follow and for Colin Powell himself, he said that he would not have been able to achieve what he achieved without the generation that came before him, this World War II generation, that served so proudly and then kept fighting to make the military racially integrated.

By 1948, President Truman signs an executive order, desegregating the military.

That's what makes it the kind of organization where Colin Powell can imagine himself achieving, being judged by his merit and his performance, rather than being judged just by the color of a skin.

- You've decided to give 14,000 copies of your book to students across the country for free.

Who are those students, A, and B, why did you do it?

- So, the students and teachers are from all across the country.

I partnered with a education organization called Zinn Education Project that has a network of teachers who care deeply about sharing these kind of stories in the classroom and I was so grateful that so many teachers signed up and so many students had the opportunity to engage with the book.

For me, it's important because this is why I write, this is what I do as a historian.

I teach students here at Dartmouth, but when I write books like this, I wanna share with as many people as possible and we're at a moment in our country's history where it's so important for us to engage honestly and openly with all aspects of American history and I think this story is powerful because it's a story about people who love the country.

These Black Americans who served during World War II, they loved the country so much, not just to fight for it and serve for it in the military, but to come back and really demand that America become a country that could provide actual freedom and democracy to all people.

- Before I let you go, professor, some people might say, "Oh, this is a story about Black American history."

The reality is this is simply about American history.

- Absolutely, you can't talk about American history without understanding African American history.

I hope that this is a book that appeals to all readers.

These are stories of new heroes that we can count in the stories of World War II and the thing I tell my students in the classroom all the time is that the stories we tell about the past matter.

And so, I hope readers are inspired by the powerful stories of patriotism and service that they'll find in the book.

- Professor Matt Delmont, professor of history at Dartmouth College and also author of "Half American: "The Heroic Story of African Americans "Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad."

Professor, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thanks for having me.

- I'm Steve Adubato.

We thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you next time.

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