Twice Forgotten
African Americans and the Korean War, an Oral History
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- $24.99
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
Journalists began to call the Korean War "the Forgotten War" even before it ended. Without a doubt, the most neglected story of this already neglected war is that of African Americans who served just two years after Harry S. Truman ordered the desegregation of the military. Twice Forgotten draws on oral histories of Black Korean War veterans to recover the story of their contributions to the fight, the reality that the military&8239;desegregated in fits and starts, and how veterans' service fits into the long history of the Black freedom struggle.
This collection of seventy oral histories, drawn from across the country, features interviews conducted by the author and his colleagues for their American Radio Works documentary, Korea: The Unfinished War, which examines the conflict as experienced by the approximately 600,000 Black men and women who served. It also includes narratives from other sources, including the Library of Congress's visionary Veterans History Project. In their own voices, soldiers and sailors and flyers tell the story of what it meant, how it felt, and what it cost them to fight for the freedom abroad that was too often denied them at home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Cline (From Reconciliation to Revolution) presents in this immersive history the first-person accounts of Black soldiers who served in the Korean War. He delves into the history of the all-Black 24th Infantry Regiment, which "acquired one of the longest records of unrelieved service on the front lines" before it was disbanded in 1951, and notes that Black newspapers and the NAACP demanded a role for Black servicemen beyond the traditional menial functions of transport and food services. Interview subjects, including congressmen John Conyers and Charles Rangel, recount resistance to integration at the military bases where they trained, and vividly describe harsh winter conditions in Korea. Though President Truman claimed in 1950 that "all of America is proud of our Negro fighters in Korea," racist incidents persisted, as did unfounded accusations that Black troops were "bugging out" under fire. Harrowing close calls abound—Rangel says that during the battle of Kunu-ri Pass "the whole concept of my life began anew because I knew then that I was dead." After the war, returning Black servicemen were "rudely reintroduced to Jim Crow," and some took leading roles in the civil rights movement. Richly detailed and thoughtfully presented, this is a treasure chest of insight into the Black military experience.
