Related Research Articles
Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups, usually referring to races. Desegregation is typically measured by the index of dissimilarity, allowing researchers to determine whether desegregation efforts are having impact on the settlement patterns of various groups. This is most commonly used in reference to the United States. Desegregation was long a focus of the American civil rights movement, both before and after the US Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, particularly desegregation of the school systems and the military. Racial integration of society was a closely related goal.
Mutiny is a revolt among a group of people to oppose, change, or remove superiors or their orders. The term is commonly used for insubordination by members of the military against an officer or superior, but it can also sometimes mean any type of rebellion against any force. Mutiny does not necessarily need to refer to a military force and can describe a political, economic, or power structure in which subordinates defy superiors.
The Port Chicago disaster was a deadly munitions explosion of the ship SS E. A. Bryan on July 17, 1944, at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Port Chicago, California, United States. Munitions being loaded onto a cargo vessel bound for the Pacific Theater of Operations detonated, killing 320 sailors and civilians and injuring at least 390 others.
The 24th Infantry Regiment is a unit of the United States Army, active from 1869 until 1951, and since 1995. Before its original dissolution in 1951, it was primarily made up of African American soldiers.
The military history of African Americans spans African-American history, the history of the United States and the military history of the United States from the arrival of the first enslaved Africans during the colonial history of the United States to the present day. African Americans have participated in every war which has been fought either by or within the United States, including the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican–American War, the Civil War, the Spanish–American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War.
Lavarack Barracks is a major Australian Army base located in the suburb of Murray in the City of Townsville, Queensland, Australia. Lavarack Barracks is currently home to the Army's 3rd Brigade and 11th Brigade. Elements of the 3rd Brigade based at the Barracks include the Combat Signals Regiment, 3rd Combat Services Support Battalion, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the Royal Australian Regiment and the 2nd Cavalry Regiment. The barracks are named after Lieutenant General Sir John Lavarack, an Australian Army officer during both World Wars and Governor of Queensland from 1946 to 1957.
The Houston race riot of 1917, also known as the Camp Logan Mutiny, was a mutiny and riot by 156 soldiers from the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment of the United States Army, taking place on August 23, 1917, in Houston, Texas. The incident occurred within a climate of overt hostility from members of the all-white Houston Police Department (HPD) against members of the local black community and black soldiers stationed at Camp Logan. Following an incident where police officers arrested and assaulted black soldiers, many of their comrades mutinied and marched to Houston. There they opened fire and killed eleven civilians and five policemen. Five soldiers were also killed in exchanges of gunfire with the police.
Sir! No Sir! is a 2005 documentary by Displaced Films about the anti-war movement within the ranks of the United States Armed Forces during the Vietnam War. The film was produced, directed, and written by David Zeiger. The film had a theatrical run in 80 cities throughout the U.S. and Canada in 2006, and was broadcast worldwide on Sundance Channel, Discovery Channel, BBC, ARTE France, ABC Australia, SBC Spain, ZDF Germany, YLE Finland, RT, and several others.
John Darrell Sherwood is an American author who has published five books and numerous articles. He specializes in military history, but has also published articles on travel and skiing. He has been with the Naval History and Heritage Command since 1997.
The USS Kitty Hawk riot was a racial conflict between white and black sailors aboard the United States Navy aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk on the night of 12–13 October 1972, while positioned at Yankee Station off the coast of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
The 96th Engineer Battalion was a military engineer unit in the United States Army. The battalion, which was composed mainly of African-American troops, served during World War II and was also known as the 96th Engineer General Service Regiment.
A series of policies were formerly issued by the U.S. military which entailed the separation of white and non-white American soldiers, prohibitions on the recruitment of people of color and restrictions of ethnic minorities to supporting roles. Since the American Revolutionary War, each branch of the United States Armed Forces implemented differing policies surrounding racial segregation. Racial discrimination in the U.S. military was officially opposed by Harry S. Truman's Executive Order 9981 in 1948. The goal was equality of treatment and opportunity. Jon Taylor says, "The wording of the Executive Order was vague because it neither mentioned segregation or integration." Racial segregation was ended in the mid-1950s.
The Townsville mutiny was a mutiny by African American servicemen of the United States Army while serving in Townsville, Australia, during World War II.
The Battle of Bamber Bridge is the name given to an outbreak of racial violence involving American soldiers stationed in the village of Bamber Bridge, Lancashire, in Northern England, during the Second World War. Tensions had been high following a failed attempt by US commanders to racially segregate pubs in the village, and worsened after the 1943 Detroit race riot. The battle started when white American military police (MPs) attempted to arrest several African American soldiers from the racially segregated 1511th Quartermaster Truck Regiment for being out of uniform, a violation of the US Army Code of Conduct, in the Ye Olde Hob Inn public house in Bamber Bridge.
The Concerned Officers Movement (COM) was an organization of mainly junior officers formed within the U.S. military in the early 1970s. Though its principal purpose was opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, it also fought for First Amendment rights within the military. It was initiated in the Washington, D.C., area by commissioned officers who were also Vietnam Veterans, but rapidly expanded throughout all branches and many bases of the U.S. military, ultimately playing an influential role in the opposition to the Vietnam War. At least two of its chapters expanded their ranks to include enlisted personnel (non-officers), in San Diego changing the group's name to Concerned Military, and in Kodiak, Alaska, to Concerned Servicemen's Movement.
GI's Against Fascism was a small but formative organization formed within the United States Navy during the years of conscription and the Vietnam War. The group developed in mid-1969 out of a number of sailors requesting adequate quarters, but coalesced into a formal organization with a wider agenda: a more generalized opposition to the war and to perceived institutional racism within the U.S. Navy. Although there had been earlier antiwar and GI resistance groups within the U.S. Army during the Vietnam era, GI's Against Fascism was the first such group in the U.S. Navy. The group published an underground newspaper called Duck Power as a means of spreading its views.
The Stop Our Ship (SOS) movement, a component of the overall civilian and GI movements against the Vietnam War, was directed towards and developed on board U.S. Navy ships, particularly aircraft carriers heading to Southeast Asia. It was concentrated on and around major U.S. Naval stations and ships on the West Coast from mid-1970 to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, and at its height involved tens of thousands of antiwar civilians, military personnel and veterans. It was sparked by the tactical shift of U.S. combat operations in Southeast Asia from the ground to the air. As the ground war stalemated and Army grunts increasingly refused to fight or resisted the war in various other ways, the U.S. “turned increasingly to air bombardment”. By 1972 there were twice as many Seventh Fleet aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin as previously and the antiwar movement, which was at its height in the U.S. and worldwide, became a significant factor in the Navy. While no ships were actually prevented from returning to war, the campaigns, combined with the broad antiwar and rebellious sentiment of the times, stirred up substantial difficulties for the Navy, including active duty sailors refusing to sail with their ships, circulating petitions and antiwar propaganda on board, disobeying orders, and committing sabotage, as well as persistent civilian antiwar activity in support of dissident sailors. Several ship combat missions were postponed or altered and one ship was delayed by a combination of a civilian blockade and crewmen jumping overboard.
African Americans played a prominent role in the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was the first American war in which Black and White troops were not formally segregated, and even saw significant growth in the number of African Americans engaged in battlefield combat, though some de facto segregation still occurred.
The GI Underground Press was an underground press movement that emerged among the United States military during the Vietnam War. These were newspapers and newsletters produced without official military approval or acceptance; often furtively distributed under the eyes of "the brass". They were overwhelmingly antiwar and most were anti-military, which tended to infuriate the military command and often resulted in swift retaliation and punishment. Mainly written by rank-and-file active duty or recently discharged GIs, AWOLs and deserters, these publications were intended for their peers and spoke the language and aired the complaints of their audience. They became an integral and powerful element of the larger antiwar, radical and revolutionary movements during those years. This is a history largely ignored and even hidden in the retelling of the U.S. military's role in the Vietnam War.
Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War was the first comprehensive exploration of the disaffection, resistance, rebellion and organized opposition to the Vietnam War within the ranks of the U.S. Armed Forces. It was the first book written by David Cortright, a Vietnam veteran who is currently Professor Emeritus and special adviser for policy studies at the Keough School of Global Affairs and Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of 22 books. Originally published as the war was ending in 1975, it was republished in 2005 with an introduction by the well known progressive historian Howard Zinn. Despite being first published 49 years ago, it remains the definitive history of this often ignored subject. The book argues persuasively, with encyclopedic rigor, the still under appreciated fact that by the early 1970s the U.S. armed forces, particularly its ground forces, were essentially breaking down; experiencing a deep crises of moral, discipline and combat effectiveness. Cortright reveals, for example, that in fiscal year 1972, there were more conscientious objectors than draftees, and precipitous declines in both officer enrollments and non-officer enlistments. He also documents "staggering level[s]" of desertions, increasing nearly 400% in the Army from 1966 to 1971. Perhaps more importantly, Cortright makes a convincing case for this unraveling being both a product and an integral part of the anti-Vietnam War sentiment and movement widespread within U.S. society and worldwide at the time. He documents hundreds of GI antiwar and antimilitary organizations, thousands of individual and group acts of resistance, hundreds of GI underground newspapers, and highlights the role of Black GIs militantly fighting racism and the war. This is where the book stands alone as the first and most systematic study of the antiwar and dissident movements impact and growth within the U.S. armed forces during the Vietnam War. While other books, articles and studies have examined this subject, none have done it as thoroughly and systematically.
References
- ↑ James E. Westheider. The African American Experience in Vietnam: Brothers in Arms, p. 4
- ↑ "AM – Townsville WW2 mutiny uncovered by Queensland historian 10/02/2012". Australian Broadcasting Corporation . Retrieved 28 August 2015.
- ↑ "Queensland historian reveals World War II cover-up". ABC News. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
- ↑ "The Milwaukee Journal" . Retrieved 28 August 2015– via Google News Archive Search.
- ↑ Soldiers in revolt: GI resistance during the Vietnam War . p. 149.
- ↑ Kari A. Frederickson. The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932–1968. p. 31.
- ↑ Gregory A. Freeman. Troubled Water: Race, Mutiny, and Bravery on the USS Kitty Hawk. Macmillan, 2009.