HF+Group+5+2011

Alex Greenwald: In 1942 black leaders threatened a protest march in DC and Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 to outlaw discrimination in government work.-SAS, http://www2.sascurriculumpathways.com/ProductEntrance/Launch/launch.jsp?unit=1259

Military policy did not allow blacks into combat units until 1944, thus accounting for the fact that little more than 50,000 black troops engaged the enemy in combat. Blacks served courageously in every theater of action, yet routinely the military failed to honor their bravery.

**Tuskegee Airmen, an all-African-American combat squadron that became one of the most highly respected fighter groups of World War II.**

Miller, and others, black soldiers faced violence and hostility at home. Expanding black neighborhoods and business centers increased the competition for physical, cultural, and political space in America's cities. The ensuing tensions erupted in racial clashes and riots throughout the war years, the worst coming in Detroit in 1943.

Ultimately, the successes of black activists encouraged a stronger push for racial justice. President Roosevelt's actions served as a prelude to the Truman administration's executive order integrating the military and its espousal of civil rights. The treatment and triumphs of black workers, voters, and soldiers radicalized a community that already was eager to end the last vestiges of racism. In this manner, World War II—and the black responses to it—paved the way for racial integration, the civil rights movement, and a wider debate on the nature of American citizenship. -http://www.bookrags.com/research/african-americans-world-war-ii-aaw-03/

Bianca Clark: http://www.sascurriculumpathways.com When the War started the men left to go fight in the war, leaving their jobs behind. The Executive order 8802 outlawed discrimination in government work. This let women work in war industry. They worked as nurses and engineers. At first, they weren't sure if they could handle it, but women proved themselves to their bosses. When WWII ended, the men came returned to their old jobs prior. Even the women that wanted to continue working were pressured to give up their jobs. When men returned from war and their wives were back to staying home, the baby boom began.

Ally Lates: http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Ha-La/Jewish-Americans.html

 //“// STEREOTYPES, ANTI-SEMITISM, AND DISCRIMINATION  The arrival of eastern European immigrants prompted the first significant tide of anti-Semitism in America. During the 1880s, clubs and resorts that once welcomed Jews began to exclude them. European anti-Semitism influenced a growing number of Americans to adopt various negative stereotypes of Jews as clannish, greedy, parasitic, vulgar, and physically inferior. To mitigate these sentiments, Americanized Jews developed aid societies to provide jobs and relief funds to help eastern European Jews fit into American society. In addition, American-born German Jews fought against restrictive legislation and formed philanthropic societies that funded schools, hospitals, and libraries for eastern European Jews. The hope was that if the hundreds of thousands of newly arriving Russian Jews had access to homes, jobs, and health care, the decreased burden on American public institutions would ease ethnic tensions.  Despite efforts by Americanized Jews to reduce ethnic hatred and stereotyping, discrimination against Jews continued into the twentieth century. Housing restrictions and covenants against Jews became more common just prior to World War I. During the 1920s and 1930s, Jews faced significant difficulty obtaining employment in large corporations or in fields such as journalism. Jews were also increasingly subjected to restrictive quotas in higher education. In particular, Jewish enrollment dropped by as much as 50 percent at Ivy League schools such as Harvard and Yale during the 1920s. By the 1930s most private institutions had Jewish quota policies in place. In politics, one of the motivating forces behind the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 was the negative image that some held of immigrant Russian Jews, who were thought to live a lowly, animal-like existence. This "dirty Jew" stereotype was based on a perception of ghetto Jews, who were forced to endure squalid living conditions out of economic necessity. Another stereotype was of the Jew as Communist sympathizer and revolutionary, a characterization stemming from the belief that Jews were responsible for the Russian Revolution. All of these negative stereotypes were reinforced in American literature of the 1920s and 1930s. Authors such as Thomas Wolf, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway all depicted Jewish caricatures in their novels, while poets such as T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound freely expressed their anti-Semitism.  Fueled by a Worldwide Depression and the rise of German Nazism, Jewish discrimination and anti-Semitism reached a peak during the 1930s. One of the more influential American voices of anti-Semitism was Roman Catholic priest Charles E. Coughlin, who argued that the Nazi attack on Jews was justified because of the communist tendencies of Jews. Coughlin blamed New York Jews for the hard economic times, a message intended to appeal to Coughlin's Detroit audience of industrial workers hurt by the Depression. At the end of World War II, when the atrocities of the Nazi Holocaust became widely known, anti-Semitism in America diminished considerably. Though some Jews in academia lost appointments as a result of Communist fears instigated by Senator Joseph McCarthy, Jews generally enjoyed improved social conditions after 1945. Returning war veterans on the G.I. Bill created a demand for college professors that Jews helped fulfill, and entrance quotas restricting admission of Jewish students at universities were gradually abandoned. As discrimination waned, Jews enjoyed substantial representation in academia, business, entertainment, and such professions as finance, law, and medicine. In short, Jews during the postwar years resumed their positions as contributing and often leading members of American society.”