EDucate #25:
FACT: African American Women have played a part in every war effort in the US according to the Indiana based Buffalo Soldiers Research Museum.
Although African Americans have been the victims of racial oppression throughout the history of the United States, they have always supported the nation, especially during wartime.
During the Civil War, black women's services included nursing or domestic chores in medical settings, laundering and cooking for the soldiers. Indeed, as the Union Army marched through the South and large numbers of freed black men enlisted, their female family members often obtained employment with the unit.
Five black nurses served under the direction of Catholic nuns aboard the Navy hospital ship Red Rover. Four of their names—Alice Kennedy, Sarah Kinno, Ellen Campbell and Betsy Young—have been recorded.
Black nurses are in the record books of both Union and Confederate hospitals. As many as 181 black nurses—both female and male—served in convalescent and US government hospitals in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina during the war.
During the Spanish-American War, black women served as nurses.
Black women served their country in other capacities. Four black women were among the 3,480 "Y" women volunteers who helped soldiers and sailors overseas. At the request of the Army, the YMCA provided recreation for the American Expeditionary Force by staffing canteens, nursing, sewing, baking, and providing amusement and educational activities for the soldiers.
Black women also enlisted in the WAAC (Women's Army Auxiliary Corps) which soon converted to the WAC (Women's Army Corps), the Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), and the Coast Guard SPARS.
From its beginning in 1942, black women were part of the WAAC. When the first WAACs arrived at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, there were 400 white and 40 black women. Dubbed "ten-percenters," recruitment of black women was limited to ten percent of the WAAC population—matching the black proportion of the national population.
Enlisted women served in segregated units, participated in segregated training, lived in separate quarters, ate at separate tables in mess halls, and used segregated recreation facilities. Officers received their officer candidate training in integrated units, but lived under segregated conditions. Specialist and technical training schools were integrated in 1943. During the war, 6,520 black women served in the WAAC/WAC.
Although African Americans supported their government during WWII, they were not silent about racial practices in America. In fact, some even noted the similarities between the way Jews were treated in Germany and the way blacks were treated in America. As the Hitlerites treat the Jews, so they treat the Negroes, in varying degrees of viciousness ranging from the denial of educational opportunities to the denial of employment, from buses that pass Negroes by, to jailers who beat and torture Negro prisoners, from the denial of the ballot, to the denial of the right to live.
American women have participated in defense of this nation in both war and peacetime. Their contributions, however, have gone largely unrecognized and unrewarded. While women in the United States Armed Forces share a history of discrimination based on gender, black women have faced both race and gender discrimination. Initially barred from official military status, black women persistently pursued their right to serve.
On July 15, 1964, Margaret E. Bailey became the first black nurse promoted to lieutenant colonel in the Army Nurse Corps and would later become the first black colonel. Hazel W. Johnson became the first black woman general officer on September 1, 1979, when she assumed the position of Chief of the Army Nurse Corps.
