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Nicholas Guymon

Mrs. Hynes

Honors U. S. History

6 March 2017

The Second World War and the Civil Rights Movement

From 1939 to 1945, the Second World War embroiled France and Great Britain and later

the Soviet Union and the United States in a worldwide conflict against Germany and her allies.

The war crippled countries and reduced cities to rubble. Hitler and the Nazis launched a

campaign to purge racial minorities and target an entire ethnic group ended the lives of millions

of people in the Holocaust. Militaries began to use newly developed and improved

technologies that enabled them to kill at unprecedented rates with even more efficiency. Needless

to say, the Second World War came at a great cost of human life. Notwithstanding the widespread

destruction, the Second World War provided more opportunities for patriotic African American

citizens and women through service in the military and employment in factories. However, even

in those areas, discrimination persisted. In fact, the discrimination and inequality which African

Americans still experienced in the United States Armed Forces during the Second World War

served as one of the catalysts for the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.

During the Second World War, many African American citizens sought to end the

inequality, racism, and the segregation that existed in American society and the United States

Armed Forces by seeking legal protection. Throughout the war, the United States Armed Forces

remained segregated because Franklin Roosevelt and his appointees refused to abandon the Jim

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Crow policies of World War I (Dwyer). Until President Harry Truman, urged by African

American activists, passed an executive order on July 28th, 1948 that legally ended racial

discrimination in the United States Armed Forces, the services remained completely segregated

and wrought with disparities in training, equipment, and opportunity (Integration). These

disparities not only heavily restricted African Americans who were already enlisted in the

military, but they also prevented many from even enlisting in the military itself. According to

Matthias Rei, a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter, the immense racial segregation that

African American military personnel experienced during the Second World War was evident in

the fact that the treatment of German and Italian prisoners of war was generally better than that

of African American soldiers: Axis prisoners of war were usually accepted as whites by

Americans of European descent and [they] enjoyed the status and many of the privileges that this

conferred (540). As a result, these inequitable conditions during the Second World War spurred

many African American civil rights activists such as A. Philip Randolph to protest their treatment

in the nations military programs and to begin the greater fight for equality through the Civil

Rights Movement itself.

Throughout the Second World War, my grandfather, Staff Sergeant Jack Guymon Sr.,

witnessed the extent of the segregation in the United States Air Force during his two-year

domestic service with the 3052th AAF Base Unit and his seven-month foreign service with the

segregated 305th Bombardment Group (Honorable; Enlisted). According to Michael

Guymon Sr., Jack Guymon Sr. flew 58 missions over Europe and North Africa, whereas the

life expectancy of an tail gunner was merely four

missions (2). During both his domestic and

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foreign services, racial segregation and exclusion was prevalent in virtually all aspects of his

military occupation. Since the majority of African American Air Force pilots received their

education at a segregated air base in Tuskegee, AL, my grandfather did not have the

opportunity to study aviation with African Americans (Tuskegee). Although my grandfather

never flew with African American aviators in his own unit, his squadron was occasionally

escorted by the Tuskegee Airmen on missions over Europe and North Africa. The Tuskegee

Airmen were a historic group of aviators who were the first African American pilots to serve in

the history of the United States Air Force. From this information, it is evident that the racial

segregation that my grandfather witnessed, especially during his training and service in the Air

Force, highlights the inequality and the disparities that engendered the Civil Rights Movement.

Throughout all the armed conflicts in the history of the United States, African Americans

have fought alongside their white counterparts in order to defend the liberties enjoyed by most

Americans. Although the Second World War proved to be one of the most destructive time

periods in human history, it is evident that this period also witnessed immense progress for

African Americans and other disenfranchised members in the United States. During this period,

America saw the creation of the first all-black pilot regiment known as the Tuskegee Airmen, the

integration of more women into the workforce, and the integration of Native Americans from

tribal groups such as the Navajo into the military as code-talkers. However, perhaps the most

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important social development of the era post Second World War was the Civil Rights Movement,

which came as a response to the segregation and discrimination that African Americans

wrongfully endured in all aspects of their lives, including the military.

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Works Cited:

Dwyer, Ellen. Psychiatry and Race during World War II. Journal of the History of

Medicine and Allied Sciences, vol. 61, no. 2, 2006, pp. 117143.,

www.jstor.org/stable/24632295.

Guymon, Jack H. The United States Government. The Army of the United States. Enlisted
 Record and Report of Separation. The Government Printing Office, 1945.

Guymon, Jack H. The United States Government. The Army of the United States. Honorable

Discharge. The Government Printing Office, 1945.

Guymon, Michael Jr. Personal Interview. 22 Feb. 2017.

Nicholas Guymon, Crew JJ-50 from the 305th Bombardment Group photograph. Sept. 1945.

Private Collection.

President Harry Truman Orders Integration of U. S. Armed Forces. Equal Justice Initiative: A

History of Racial Injustice, 2014. Accessed 4 Mar. 2017.

Reiss, Matthias. Icons of Insult: German and Italian Prisoners of War in African American

Letters during World War II. Amerikastudien / American Studies, vol. 49, no. 4, 2004,

pp. 539562., www.jstor.org/stable/41158095.