Fusing riveting testimony from African American veterans with the most incisive research of current military scholars, Black Veterans, Politics, and Civil Rights in 20th-Century America: Closing Ranks explores the intersecting characteristics of civil rights struggle and political activism that was reflected in the lives of ex-GIs throughout Twentieth Century American history. The volume examines black veterans' social and political activities throughout the 20th Century, from the World Wars, through the Korean and Vietnam War, and ends with the Persian Gulf War. Presenting the full flesh and blood experiences of black veterans who came from backgrounds and from all walks of life, each essay captures how race, gender, ethnic, class, disability, generation, and region shaped their experiences in the nation's military during times of war and how these issues profoundly affected the postwar politics they embraced while trying to realize the true meaning of equality in America. With original essays by emerging scholars in the field of study, Closing Ranks is a foundational text for reassessing the relationship between the ex-GI and the modern nation state and providing readers with a vivid window into the harsh realities that black citizen-soldiers have faced during war and its aftermath for nearly a century.
Robert F. Jefferson Jr. is associate professor of history at the University of New Mexico.
Foreword: Looking Back and Looking Ahead, by Hal M. Friedman Introduction: Recovering the Scions of Jericho: America's Wars, Black Veterans' Politics, and Civil Rights in Twentieth Century American History, by Robert F. Jefferson, Jr. Chapter 1: "We Never Get to Be Men:" Big Bill Broonzy, Black Consciousness, and WWI's Returning Black Veterans, by Kevin Greene Chapter 2: "Frames Refocused: Blinded Black and White Ex-GIs and the Social Re-Orientation of Self in World War Two America," by Robert F. Jefferson, Jr. Chapter 3: "Have Gun, Will Travel: The Deacons for Defense and Justice, Armed Self Defense and the Long Black Power Movement," by Selika M. Ducksworth-Lawton Chapter 4: "The Military No More: Vietnam, Civil Rights, and Attitudes Toward Change," by Jeremy P. Maxwell Chapter 5: "African American Leadership's Tug of War with Black Military Service Members: Rhetorical Situation Strategies in the Face of the Persian Gulf War," by Elizabeth Desnoyers-Colas Afterword: How to Place These Fine Essays into Larger Contexts, by Peter Karsten
Robert F. Jefferson Jr.'s Black Veterans, Politics, and Civil Rights in Twentieth-Century America: Closing Ranks is a crucial contribution to a more nuanced understanding of the dynamic, contested, and sometimes uneven relationship between military service and civil rights. In this fine volume, Jefferson assembles an impressive collection of insightful essays by a diverse range of accomplished scholars. The result is a concise and cogent analysis of how black veterans have grappled with their military service and leveraged it in the broader struggle for civil rights. This noteworthy anthology should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the vital linkages between military service, black veterans, and civil rights in American society during the twentieth century. Students, scholars, and general readers alike will benefit from reading it. -- William A. Taylor, Angelo State University
