10-125 The First Great Migration Between 1910 and 1940, over 1.6 million African Americans left the rural South for Northern and Midwestern cities in the first Great Migration. Immigration restrictions during and after World War I created labor shortages in the North, opening industrial job opportunities for African Americans. In the North, they found better jobs, schools, and voting access but faced poor housing, overcrowding, and discrimination. The growth of urban Black communities led to significant cultural and political gains, but also created demographic shifts that caused tensions in their new cities. Photographer Jack Delano captures a group of Florida migrants on their way to New Jersey to pick potatoes in July 1940, highlighting the intersection of migration, labor, and racial dynamics. Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Jim Crow and the KKK After World War I, the virulent racist Ku Klux Klan expanded beyond its traditional home in the South. Klan membership in Ohio alone rose to more than 300,000 during the 1920s. The NAACP recorded at least 544 lynchings of African Americans in the United States between 1918 and 1941. Leading up to World War II, African Americans in many parts of the country, especially in the South, were treated as second-class citizens, with many of their rights and liberties systemically denied by laws that kept blacks in positions of inferiority. These segregationist laws and practices were informally named after a racist caricature known as Jim Crow. A flag announcing a lynching is flown from the NAACP headquarters in New York City, starkly reminding viewers of the violence and terror faced by African Americans. Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Beaumont to Detroit Looky here, America What you done done- Let things drift Until the riots come. Now your policemen Let your mobs run free. I reckon you don't care. Nothing about me. You tell me that hitler Is a mighty bad man. I guess he took lessons From the ku klux klan. You tell me mussolini's Got an evil heart Well, it mus-a-been in Beaumont That he had his start- 116% ILE DISURANCE CO IR INDUFINDEN INSONANCE Cause everything that hitler And Mussolini do, Negroes get the same Treatment from you. your HOM with knot You jim crowed me Before hitler rose to power- And you're STILL jim crowing me Right now, this very hour. Yet you say we're fighting For democracy Then why don't democracy Include me? I ask you this question Cause I want to know How long I got to fight BOTH HITLER - AND JIM CROW
Jim Crow and the KKK After World War I, the virulent racist Ku Klux Klan expanded beyond its traditional home in the South. Klan membership in Ohio alone rose to more than 300,000 during the 1920s. The NAACP recorded at least 544 lynchings of African Americans in the United States between 1918 and 1941. Leading up to World War II, African Americans in many parts of the country, especially in the South, were treated as second-class citizens, with many of their rights and liberties systemically denied by laws that kept blacks in positions of inferiority. These segregationist laws and practices were informally named after a racist caricature known as Jim Crow. A flag announcing a lynching is flown from the NAACP headquarters in New York City, starkly reminding viewers of the violence and terror faced by African Americans. Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Tuskegee Airmen Before the Tuskegee Airmen, no African American had ever been a United States military pilot. At First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's insistence, the first African American fighter squadron was created in 1941. The 99th Fighter Squadron, later the 332nd Fighter Group, symbolized African American participation in World War II despite being one of the smallest Black units. Overall, the 992 Tuskegee-trained pilots logged over 15,000 sorties and nearly 1,600 fighter missions over Italy and Germany, protecting B-24 and B-17 bombers from enemy aircraft fire and destroying enemy targets. AVIATORS KIT BAB AN650 PRES
LIBE IF RIGIT Black Vets and the GI Bill Designed to assist in the transition to civilian life, the Gl Bill provided educational and housing benefits to veterans, but was routinely administered in discriminatory ways, particularly in Southern states. Black veterans were consistently denied loans for homes and faced limited access to higher education due to racial quotas. This unequal treatment not only hindered their economic progress but also perpetuated the racial inequalities they had fought against during the war. Nevertheless, some Black veterans used the Bill to further their education and better their lives. Staff Sergeant Herbert Ellison explains the GI Bill of Rights to African American members of a quartermaster trucking company, highlighting their right to post-war benefits Dourtesy of the Librany of Congress Three African American women in Houston, Texas, circa 1948, hold a sign reading, "Segregation is Discrimination underscoring the fight against racial ation following World War IL
GI Bill Publications, circa 1945 Designed to assist World War II veterans in reintegrating into civillan life, the Gl Bill of Rights promised loans, training, and educational opportunities. However, many of these benefits were unevenly distributed, and America's segregated society often denied African Americans full access. Despite their sacrifices, Black veterans faced significant barriers, including restrictions on schools they could attend, banks they could use, and neighborhoods in which they could live, limiting their ability to maximize the benefits they earned. This inequity contributed to an expanding wealth gap between Black veterans and their white counterparts. Flyer: The National WWiI Museum Collection, 2024.011.001; Booklet: Gift of Dorothy Guthman Schlesinger, 2000.126.023; Gl Bill: Gift in Memory of Ernest J. Pesek, 2017,326.040 going back to civilian life
The Blinding of Isaac Woodard My God! | had no idea it was as terrible as that! We've got to do something!
It is my deep conviction that we have reached a turning point in the long history of our country's efforts to guarantee freedom and equality to all our citizens. Recent events in the United States and abroad have made us realize that it is more important today than ever before to ensure that all Americans enjoy these rights. And when I say all Americans - I mean all Americans.
Turning Points in Civil Rights World war undeniably gawanized ne civinights Movement. Many of its most consequential events 1947 Jackie Robinson 1954 Brown v. Board of Education 1955 The Murder of Emmett Till 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott 1957 Little Rock MARC 1961 Freedom Rides 1963 March on Washington 1963 The Murder of Medgar Evers 1965 Bloody Sunday
EA NOS VALLO UNITED STATES ARMY BECOMING THE WORLD'S MOST FORMIDABLE FIGHTING FORCE Ea Nos Vallo (This We'll Defend) The historical mission of America's oldest and largest service has been land-based operations. It filled that role and more in all theaters of World War II, from defense of the Philippines in early 1942 to the decisive push into Germany in 1945, from amphibious operations in North Africa to special forces in Burma. Behind this roster of battles and bravery is a remarkable story of expansion and training. The pre-war Army of roughly 188,000 in 1939 had grown six fold by 1941. Ultimately, over six million served in 91 Army divisions, supported by extraordinary logistical operations and over 150,000 women in the WACs (Women's Army Corps). The Army also drove the industrial mobilization that built the unprecedented "Arsenal of Democracy." All Photo Credits: Courtesy National Archives KEY LEADERS GEORGE MARSHALL Army Chief of Staff DWIGHT EISENHOWER Supreme Allied Commander in Europe DOUGLAS MACARTHUR Commander, U.S. Army Forces in the For East Commander, CBI OMAR BRADLEY U.S. Il Corps, First U.S. Army, Twelfth U.S. Army Group MARK CLARK Seventh U.S. Army, Fifth U.S. Army, Fifteenth U.S. Army Group COURTNEY HODGES Third U.S. Army, First U.S. Army GEORGE PATTON Western Task Force, U.S. Il Corps, Third U.S. Army LUCIAN TRUSCOTT U.S. VI Corps, Fifth U.S. Army WALTER KREUGER Third U.S. Army, Sixth U.S. Army ALEXANDER PATCH Seventh U.S. Army SIMON BOLIVAR BUCKNER, JR. Tenth U.S. Army (included USMC units) DIVISIONS 91 (67 Infantry, 1 Mountain, 5 Airborne; 2 Cavalry; 16 Armored) CAMPAIGNS ASIATIC PACIFIC THEATER Philippine Islands 『 East Indies Aleutians India-Burma China Defensive New Guinea Eastern Mandates Guadalcanal Northern Solomons Bismarck Archipelago Central Pacific Papua Western Pacific Southern Philippines Central Burma China Offensive Ryukyus EUROPEAN-AFRICAN-MIDDLE EASTERN THEATER Algeria-French Morocco Egypt-Libya Sicily Naples-Foggia Rome-Arno Normandy Southern France Northern France Rhineland Ardennes-Alsace Central Europe North Apennines Po Valley AMERICAN THEATER Antisubmarine
"In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression— everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way— everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear-which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor-anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb." FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT Excerpted from the State of the Union Address to the Congress, January 6, 1941
WHAT BECAME OF THE FRANK FAMILY? After three harrowing days, the Franks arrived at Auschwitz. As they disembarked from the train, German officers divided the group by sex, separating Otto from his family. Margot and Anne were deported to Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp in Germany, but Edith was left behind at Auschwitz, where she starved to death. Margot and Anne died from typhus in March 1945, just weeks before the British army liberated Bergen-Belsen. Of the eight people in the annex, only Otto survived. Anne Frank's legacy, however, lives on in the millions of young people who have read her diary, and who view her as a strong and fearless witness to the truth. BACKGROUND MURAL Otto Frank in the attic of the Secret Annex, 1960. He spent the rest of his life working to ensure that his daughter's story would be known, turning her diary into a manuscript that has been translated into more than 60 languages. Arnold Newman / Getty Images
THE HOLOCAUST During the Holocaust, the Nazis murdered some six million Jews, along with many other victims, labeling them "subhumans." Much of the Holocaust took place "by bullets," with mobile death squads shooting their victims en masse and dumping their bodies into pre-dug graves. By 1942, the Nazi regime and its collaborators shifted to more sophisticated methods using modern industrial technology. Nazi authorities first rounded up Jews from all over Europe, shipping them to ghettos in the occupied territories in the East, and from there to death camps in Nazi-occupied Poland. Chasing the notion of an engineered "master race," the Nazis committed unspeakable crimes.
IMPLEMENTING THE FINAL SOLUTION As German armies conquered most of Europe, Nazis targeted Jews in the occupied territories. In the vast regions captured in the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, death squads (Einsatzgruppen) shot hundreds of thousands of Jews. But the Nazi desire to kill all the Jews of Europe required more careful organization. On January 20, 1942, Nazi officials gathered at the Wannsee Conference to plan the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question:" a systematic program to identify, assemble, and deport Jews to newly constructed death camps in Eastern Europe. 171
YOUNG DIARISTS Anne Frank was not the only victim of the Holocaust to write of her ordeal. As many as 1.5 million Jewish children were killed or starved to death. All over Europe, young people kept diaries of their persecution: Petr Ginz in Prague, Moshe Flinker in Brussels, Yitskhok Rudashevski in Vilnius, and many others. Sheindi Miller was just 14 when she was sent to Auschwitz, but she too kept a diary on crumpled pieces of paper and old index cards, smuggled it out of the camp, and managed to survive. All these works are a remarkable testimony to the fiendish nature of Hitler's plans.
Courtesy of Anne Levy Anne Skorecki Levy Anne Skorecki Levy, born in Lodz, Poland, was a little girl when the Nazis invaded. She spent much of her childhood in fear, hiding in a chest her father altered to conceal Anne and her sister, Lila. The girls and their parents remained together in the Warsaw ghetto, then later in suburban hiding. In 1949, the family immigrated to the United States and settled in New Orleans. In later years, Anne married her high school sweetheart, Stan, raised a family, and bravely confronted Holocaust deniers.
OTHER VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST The Nazi regime and its collatorators targeted mary other groups for persecation, imprisonment and murder, including Pales, Soviet prisoners of war and cuilians, Sarts, Ruma, Jehoahs Witnesses, press, gay people, and the mentaly and physically disabled. The Nan's regarded all these groups as racial and pollical threats to thei twisted ideals, as securty risks or simply asa drain on resources
Elie Wiesel Elie Wiesel was a 15-year-old Romanian Jew when the Nazis deported him and his family to Auschwitz. Guards immediately herded his mother and younger sister into gas chambers. Wiesel and his father remained in Auschwitz. They endured a death march to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany in 1945, where his father died. Wiesel was liberated in 1945 and later emigrated to the United States, where he dedicated his life to preserving the memory of the Holocaust and fighting intolerance and hatred. Wiesel's leadership was instrumental to the concept and founding of the US Holocaust Memorial in Washington, DC.
INTO THE GERMAN HOMELAND BREACHING THE SIEGFRIED LINE In early 1945 the Allies renewed their assault on the fortified Siegfried Line along the German border. In the south, Allied forces liberated the remaining areas of occupied France. In the center, American forces battled forward, finally breaking free of the treacherous Hürtgen Forest and capturing the key stronghold of Saarbrücken. In the north, British and Canadian troops continued their advance through the Netherlands. By March, the Allies had captured thousands of German prisoners and reached the Rhine River, the last major obstacle on the march into the German heartland. keyvillage, the Americans were repulsed. They did not recapture Schmidt until February 1945. An American infantryman guards German prisoners captured during Operation Grenade, the surprise crossing of the Ruhr River on February 23, 1945. The Siegfried Line, neary 400 miles fortified defensive positions along Germany's border, featured both natural and man-made obstacles, including belts of "dragon's teeth" anti-tank traps.