The "Double-V" campaign in World War II Hawaii: African Americans, racial ideology, and federal power

Journal of Social History, Summer, 1993 by Beth Bailey, David Farber

Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, as the United States joined the war that had been raging for so long, the largest circulation African American newspaper in the country called for a "Double V" campaign: "Victory over our enemies at home and victory over our enemies on the battlefields abroad."(1) The editor of the Pittsburgh Courier wrote: "We call upon the President and Congress to declare war on Japan and against racial prejudice in our country.

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Certainly we should be strong enough to whip both of them."(2) Only one of those wars would be declared. President Roosevelt and his advisors had no intention of dividing America's efforts between the war and troubling domestic social issues. In this vein, it was decided that the nation would fight its enemies with segregated armed forces. The official rationale for racial segregation had been clearly stated in 1939: "The War Department administers the laws affecting the military establishment; it cannot act outside the law, nor contrary to the will of the majority of the citizens of the Nation."(3) This official statement suggests a unity of both authority and policy that is misleading, and which obscures the complexity of racial issues during the war. During World War II the federal government (partly in the guise of the War Department) greatly expanded the reach and range of its power. In practice this meant that the federal government exercised control over all matters deemed pertinent to winning the war, reaching into people's lives and into local communities in an unprecedented manner. The possibility for uniform national policy was greater than ever before. But government agents, military or civilian, did not enforce laws and policies in a completely standard fashion. On particular issues and in specific cases, they often bowed to the weight of local (or regional) custom and tradition. Race was one of those issues. It was potentially inflammatory, politically dangerous, divisive of the American will. Thus federal policy on race was most inconsistent, played out in the complicated contexts of local desires and traditional understandings, pressured by the acts of often outraged citizens, and always subordinate to the larger aim of winning the war. During World War II the policies affecting black Americans--and thus to some extent their experiences as Americans--were shaped by the competing, overlapping, and uncertain lines of political power and social authority. Though policies might be coherently stated at a national level, the importance of local situations, of contingency, and of individual action could be enormous. Still, it was to a great extent the presence of the federal government that created the spaces in which these factors could play such important roles.(4) The struggles about race are most obvious where it seems inevitable they would be obvious--in Southern training camps. There the limits of America's promises were fully demonstrated, as the military and federal government frequently set local custom over national law. But it is also instructive to look to a less predictable example. It was in Hawaii that the meaning of divided sovereignty and local difference was perhaps most complex for black Americans. Southern training camps demonstrated the limits imposed on African Americans; Hawaii demonstrated a complicated set of possibilities. In Hawaii during the war, there was a volatile combination of extreme state power, a complex system of race relations that was not bi-polar and had no established place for African Americans, and the tensions of a war zone that had to absorb hundreds of thousands of men from the mainland, all of whom carried the cultural codes of their diverse homes. The men who came to Hawaii found it a strange place in many ways, but they also found the familiar structures of American life. This juncture of familiar and unfamiliar created in Hawaii a certain liminality. Some would use this liminal landscape to construct new paradigms of race and new possibilities for struggle as yet unexplored in mainland America. In the Territory of Hawaii, the federal government's presence was more extreme and totalizing than in any other part of the nation with the exception of Washington, D.C. For almost the duration of the war, from shortly after the surprise attack on December 7, 1941 until late in 1944, the islands were under martial law. Hawaii was in the war zone; the territory was fully governed by the needs of a wartime state. People lived under total blackout conditions; military courts held sway and habeas corpus was suspended; all correspondence was censored; there were restrictions on travel. The war was never a distant presence to the people of Hawaii. They lived in its shadow, and among the flood of men and women, well over a million service personnel and civilian employees of the military, who were brought to Hawaii by reason of war.(5) Among these men and women were approximately 30,000 people of African descent--soldiers, sailors, war workers.(6) They came to a place that, before World War II, had no "Negro Problem," in part because few people on the islands recognized that "Negroes" lived in Hawaii. In 1940, according to one estimate by the territorial government, approximately 200 "Negroes of American birth" lived on the islands. There were some other people of African descent, ethnically Puerto Rican. Census data on race and ethnicity were notoriously hard to gather on the islands, partly because there was a great deal of intermarriage between groups and partly because mainland categories did not necessarily make sense in Hawaii. In Hawaii's census data in the early 20th century, people of African descent were classified as Puerto Rican and Puerto Ricans were classified as Caucasian. Thus most of Hawaii's "Negro" population was classified as "Caucasian."(7) In 1940, no ethnic group claimed a majority in Hawaii. The largest group were people of Japanese ancestry, both citizens and aliens, who made up more than one-third of the islands' population. Caucasians were the next largest group (24.5% of total population), but "Caucasian" meant little to island residents. The more important category in Hawaii was "haole" (literally "stranger"), a term with a complicated history that by 1940 designated the relatively affluent whites of Northern European and American ancestry. Members of ethnic groups that had come to Hawaii to do plantation work, no matter how light-skinned, were not considered haoles. Thus Caucasian Portuguese and Puerto Ricans were not haoles (and were listed in census data as "other Caucasians"). Haoles made up less than 15% of the islands' population. The term "local" often designated the rest of the islands' peoples. Though the haole-local division existed, it was not a clear bi-polar racial system. The islands' population was too racially and ethnically varied, with "local" serving as an umbrella term for the Chinese (6.8%), Filipinos (12.4%), part-Hawaiians (11.8%), as well as Koreans, Portuguese, Puerto Ricans, Hawaiians, Japanese, and the many people of mixed ethnic or racial ancestry.(8) The haole elite was self-consciously proud of race relations in Hawaii, especially in contrast to those on the mainland. To readers fifty years later, their statements generally seem self-serving, obscuring the workings of power and the existence of privilege. Samuel Wilder King, delegate from Hawaii to the U.S. Congress before the war and Governor soon after (and proudly 1/12 Hawaiian), explained the elite view of Hawaiian race relations in a 1939 magazine article, "Hawaii Has No Race Problem": Today the races of Hawaii live together as one people, owing one common allegiance to their American nationality. Racial origin means nothing to the individual in his status as an American. Among the racial groups there is mutual understanding and friendly sympathy. The spirit of Old Hawaii governs, and "race prejudice" as such is not countenanced.(9) To an extent the haole elite really believed these words. That they had systematically excluded Asian and Pacific Americans from economic power for decades, that they had done their best to keep them out of real political power, that many spoke of Asian and Pacific Americans in stereotypical and prejudicial terms, that most refused to intermingle socially with Asian Americans or the Puerto Ricans or Portuguese--all of this the haole elite found not of essential importance in their characterization of Hawaii as the land of racial and ethnic aloha. To many of the islands' peoples, Wilder's statement would have seemed ridiculous at best. Still, the claim was somewhat legitimate in the context of the United States in 1939, and in that he was describing the general sentiments of the people of Hawaii. Most people on Hawaii did not bring the racist ways of the mainland into their daily lives. They did stereotype one another: many Americans of Japanese ancestry looked down on the Chinese and often upon the haoles. The Chinese looked down on the Filipinos. Round and round it went. Each ethnic group had its suspicions of the others and definite hierarchies existed. But such prejudices were not the white heat of the mainland's rigid caste society. The lines were less absolute, the barriers more permeable. It helped that no one group held a majority. For whatever reasons, local people in Hawaii (as well as many of the haole elite) did not by World War II manifest the depth of racist thinking that was essentially taken for granted on the mainland. As many on the islands claimed, Hawaii was much more progressive on the issue of race than the rest of the United States. The men and women who came to Hawaii from the mainland were uniformly shocked by what they found. On the streets of Honolulu or in small towns on the Big Island, "white"ness was not the natural condition. Of course, it wasn't in North Africa either--but North Africa was not America; it was not, by implication, home. All newcomers were surprised, but reactions varied. Some praised what they saw as unprecedented racial equality; others were mightily upset by it; still others just confused. Very few of the mainlanders, white or black, really understood the complexities of Hawaii's racial system. But no one could come to Hawaii and not notice race. The issue of race suffused wartime Hawaii. It could not be avoided. Writing home in private letters to family and friends, wives and sweethearts, black men who had come to Hawaii as servicemen or war workers discussed the possibilities of Hawaii's wartime racial liminality. A shipyard worker wrote: "I thank God often for letting me experience the occasion to spend a part of my life in a part of the world where one can be respected and live as a free man should." Another young man tried to explain to his girlfriend: "Honey, it's just as much difference between over here and down there as it is between night and day." He concluded: Hawaii "will make anybody change their minds about living down there." "Down there" was the Jim Crow South, the place about which a third man wrote, "I shall never go back...."(10) White men and women from the mainland also saw the possible implications of Hawaii's racial landscape: "They have come as near to solving the race problem as any place in the world," wrote a nurse. "I'm a little mystified by it as yet but it doesn't bother anyone who has lived here awhile." A teacher found it world shaking: "I have gained here at least the impulse to fight racial bigotry and boogeyism. My soul has been stretched here and my notion of civilization and Americanism broadened."(11) Not everyone was so inspired. One hardened soul, in Hawaii with her husband and children, wrote the folks: "Down here they have let down the standards, there does not seem to be any race hatred, there is not even any race distinction ... I don't want to expose our children too long to these conditions."(12) A white man wrote home: "Imagine that the South will have some trouble ahead when all these black bastards return. Over here they're on the equal with everyone and I mean they live highly. They're in paradise and no fooling."(13) Others made it clear they did not believe the trouble would keep: "Boy the niggers are sure in their glory over here ... they almost expect white people to step off the streets and let them walk by.... They are going to overstep their bounds a little too far one of these days and these boys from the South are going to have a little necktie party."(14) If Hawaii was "Paradise," as the glossy travel posters had claimed in the days before war had covered its beaches with barbed wire, there was a snake in this paradise, too: "As you know," one man wrote back to the mainland, "most sailors are from Texas and the South. There are most[ly] Navy men here, and they have surely poisoned everyone against the Negro ... with tales of Negroes carrying dreadful diseases, being thieves, murderers and downright no good."(15) Just a few months after the first black war workers arrived, only weeks after the first black troops had come to the islands, a black war worker wrote his wife: I've told you before perhaps of this inter-racial conflict and how each little incident was adding a little more fuel. Well ... it seems that it's becoming a roaring inferno. And if I die, I want you to know that I went down fighting, with a prayer on my lips and your memory in my heart, fighting to break down those racial hatreds and prejudices.(16) If Hawaii was a place of eye-opening possibilities for some African Americans, it was also a place in which racial struggle would become a necessity. Prefiguring the wars for public opinion fought by the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, also against a backdrop of increasing federal intervention, both blacks and whites during the war tried to gain the support of Hawaii's diverse peoples. It is crucial that the struggles over race took place within a sphere of military (and thus federal) authority. The military, not local government or the courts or even the U.S. Congress, was the main arbiter of social justice, law, and order in the islands. And virtually all the men and women from the mainland worked for the military--whether as military personnel or civilian employees. How the military chose to enforce its rules and regulations helped determine who won and who lost certain rights and privileges. Some black Americans in Hawaii would demand that the military command choose sides in their struggle for respect and justice. They asserted that rank and not race, regulation and not custom, should structure relations between black and white servicemen. The responses of Hawaii's people and of military authorities illustrate the complexities of the role of the State and the importance of local conditions in the process of social change in mid-20th century America. The African American men who came to Hawaii (a very few black women war workers came to Hawaii, and then only late in the war) were a far from homogeneous group. In most ways they were almost as diverse a group as their white counterparts--though far more of the African Americans had had poor schooling, came from rural areas of the deep South, and had been denied specialized civilian and military training.(17) When it came to their attitudes about and responses to white racism and their responses to racist practices, the most significant divide was between blacks from the rural South and those from the urban North. A poll taken on the mainland showed that 7 of 10 Northern blacks though segregation should be attacked during the war-time crisis. Only one in ten Southern blacks agreed.(18) They lived with fear learned from experience. Some Northern blacks, while not unaware of the dangers, had never before confronted them firsthand. Others simply refused, no matter the consequences, to accept the violations against human dignity that too often were ignored or quietly sanctioned by military authority.(19) Leading the charge against racism and toward a re-casting of the meaning of race in Hawaii were the men of the 369th Coast Artillery (AA) Regiment--"The Harlem Hellfighters." The 369th was an elite New York National Guard unit that had been federalized for the war effort. In 1941, it was one of the very few all-black regiments: officers, as well as enlisted men.(20) The 369th was also a beloved community institution, based in the heart of Harlem, its armory overlooking the Harlem River at 142nd Street. While all five boroughs of New York City as well as some Southern states were represented by the approximately 1,800 men who would travel to Hawaii with the 369th, the core of the group came from a ten block radius within Harlem.(21) The history of the 369th, as most of the men in the regiment knew, was immediately important in the debates over racial policy in World War II. During World War I the 369th, attached to the French army, had fought in the Meuse-Argonne offensive, in the siege of Sechault. Their courage under fire had been exemplary and the French government awarded the Croix de Guerre to the 369th regimental colors and to over 150 of the men. When they returned from "over there" at war's end, all of New York, white and black, had turned out to pay their respects as the regiment marched down Fifth Avenue. The demonstrated courage of the 369th was highly publicized, and stood in contrast to much being written and said about the performance of black troops in World War I. An article in The Outlook argued that the performance of the 369th Infantry, "characterized by some as" possessing black skins, white souls and red blood,' ought to silence for all time the slanderous charge that Negroes are cowards and will not fight...."(22) But criticisms persisted, and they had some basis in reality. In general, black troops had not performed especially well. They had been insufficiently trained and often badly led by unsympathetic or hostile white officers (one Southern white officer thought it appropriate to introduce himself to his men with the information that he had "suckled black mammies' breasts"). They lacked basic equipment, and morale suffered from discriminatory policies (unlike the white troops, they were prohibited from most contact with French civilians). A higher percentage of black soldiers than white were uneducated or illiterate. The explanations for failures abound; in that light the successes are the more remarkable.(23) Many were, however, perfectly willing to attribute the failures to racial inferiority: Negroes would never make good combat soldiers, for they lacked both the intelligence and the discipline necessary. Major General Robert Bullard, the World War I commander of the Second Army (in which blacks had served as the 92nd Division), wrote in his memoirs, which he published in 1925: "Poor Negroes! They are hopelessly inferior." There was, however, an even more chilling message for those who sought equality. Drawing on diary entries from the war, Bullard mused: "If you need combat soldiers, especially if you need them in a hurry, don't put your time upon Negroes.... If racial uplift or racial equality is your purpose, that is another matter."(24) Going into World War II, the Army's policy toward the employment of black troops was predicated on the "lessons" learned in World War I. The goal of the Army, or of any other branch of the armed forces, was not racial uplift--it was mounting a successful fighting force as quickly and efficiently as possible. And coming into World War II, using black troops clearly presented problems. Racial tensions tended to flare when blacks and whites were in close proximity. Moreover, Army Intelligence, G-2, argued against sending black troops just about anywhere beyond the mainland U.S., for the presence of blacks might create or exacerbate local racial tensions. The United States was not the only Allied nation with a race problem. Throughout the colonized world of America's allies, black troops might create political trouble.(25) Perhaps most important, the army found blacks ill-prepared for military life. Black men scored very badly on the Army General Classification Test (AGCT) and the Mechanical Aptitude Test, which were devised to use in assigning men to units; the AGCT was intended to measure the level of skill and ability attained to the point of testing by the inductee and "how ready [he is] to pick up soldiering--how likely [he is] to learn easily the facts, skills and techniques necessary for carrying out Army duties."(26) Scores were closely related to educational and cultural background, so it is perhaps not surprising that 49.2% of black inductees fell into the lowest quintile of the AGCT (compared to 8.5% of whites), and that 83.9% of blacks scored in the bottom 2 quintiles. (Test scores were meant to form a bell curve, and did for white troops.) The vast majority of blacks inducted into the army were unskilled, many illiterate. Officers found that it generally took two times as long to train a "black unit" as a "white unit."(27) Proponents of black combat forces during the World War II mobilization had a hard argument to make. Given the potential for disruptive racial tensions, even violence; given the poor promise indicated by AGCT scores--what evidence could they offer? Here, the 369th's actions in World War I were compelling evidence against racist charges that blacks were constitutionally, inherently, racially, poor soldiers. One of the most outspoken white champions of black soldiers during World War II was Hamilton Fish, Jr., the fiercely anti-New Deal, conservative Republican congressman from New York, who had been a company commander with the 369th during the Great War.(28) As the debate raged, in January 1941 the 369th was federalized in an early phase in the war buildup. Very purposefully, the Army command slated the 369th for anti-aircraft artillery training, a form of training that would keep its champions satisfied, but which would also minimize its integration into large scale combat operations with white soldiers.(29) Still, the end result was that the men of the 369th would become highly skilled combat soldiers with all attendant rights and status. The 369th was sent to Oswego, New York for training.(30) The experiences of the 369th preparatory to their taking up positions on Hawaii as coast artillery units shaped what was to come, enforcing and maturing their beliefs in the need for a "Double V" campaign. Their experiences also demonstrate the confusions white Americans felt when confronting the 369th's dual status as black men who happened to be combat soldiers and as combat soldiers who happened to be black men. At Camp Ontario, the men became expert at handling the anti-aircraft weaponry they had been assigned. Lieutenant Woodruff would be able to tell the white press, with no brag, that the men, "they're dead eyes ... and I don't mean with the galloping dominoes." White anti-aircraft artillery officers agreed: "They were crackerjack at parade and weapons."(31) In almost a year's time the 369th, under black officers' command (though two white artillery officers had been assigned to the unit as advisors during the training), had been transformed from young men in Harlem playing soldier on the week-ends to professional warriors.

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The "Double-V" campaign in World War II Hawaii: African Americans, racial ideology, and federal power

Journal of Social History, Summer, 1993 by Beth Bailey, David Farber

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