A massacre they don't teach you about in history

[iluvtennis]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CSSIZhiLS0k/


maryengelbreit
Did you know this? I never did until just recently. I never knew black servicemen were not included in the G I Bill, either. Some of our parents probably didn’t know either, or they did know and just accepted it as the way things were. But they must have known something, been aware of all the injustices, because they knew enough to hide it and not to teach it in schools. We were all raised in a cloud of white privilege. It’s way past time to end this and teach ACTUAL history. If your school won’t teach it, you teach your children. Until all of this is brought out in the open, until everyone is made aware that the lives we all live now were made possible by slavery and racism, we have no chance of changing anything for the better. Ever.
Teach real history.

-----
Instagram poster is spot on - US needs to teach real history!

More info: https://www.history.com/news/red-summer-1919-riots-chicago-dc-great-migration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Summer

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. "Instagram poster is spot on - US needs to teach real history!"

I never knew black servicemen were not included in the G I Bill, either. Some of our parents probably didn’t know either, or they did know and just accepted it as the way things were. But they must have known something, been aware of all the injustices, because they knew enough to hide it and not to teach it in schools. We were all raised in a cloud of white privilege. It’s way past time to end this and teach ACTUAL history. If your school won’t teach it, you teach your children. Until all of this is brought out in the open, until everyone is made aware that the lives we all live now were made possible by slavery and racism, we have no chance of changing anything for the better. Ever.
Teach real history.

-----
Instagram poster is spot on - US needs to teach real history!

She can start with herself. Black veterans were definitely included in the GI Bill. No matter how many times people state the contrary, that does not make it so.

I went through this a few weeks ago. I'll have to find my earlier post.

In reality, black veterans did face extra barriers, but it was not because of the GI Bill itself. It did not say "if you're Black, you get nothing." Problems arose because of the people who were administering the GI Bill locally.

Snopes gives the claim a "mostly true," but the problem is with the way the benefits were doled out. As usual, "it's complex."

Were Black World War II Veterans Excluded from GI Bill Benefits?

After fighting wars abroad, Black former servicemen faced segregation, violence, and discrimination at home.

Nur Ibrahim

Claim
Black veterans who fought in World War II were excluded from GI Bill benefits including housing and education.

Rating
Mostly True

About this rating

What's True

While a few Black veterans were able to benefit from housing and education opportunities granted by the GI Bill of Rights, the vast majority of Black veterans were excluded from such benefits due to nationwide racism and discrimination against Black people. However ...

What's False

Black veterans were not meant to be excluded from the GI Bill — existing discriminatory laws and implementation ensured they were. Not all Black veterans were excluded, though all of them faced numerous challenges getting their benefits due to racism.

Origin

The GI Bill of Rights for returning World War II veterans in 1944 was heralded at the time as a significant piece of legislation that helped propel millions of servicemen into the middle class. The bill—which was promoted as race neutral—provided veterans with unemployment insurance, tuition assistance, job placement, and guaranteed loans for home ownership, farms, and businesses.

And the bill did that—just not for most of the roughly 1.2 million Black men who enlisted in the war. On paper they all could have received access to education and home ownership, but they had to contend with racism ingrained into systems around the country, not just in the southern states.

Published 25 June 2021

{snip}

[iluvtennis]

2. I posted this more so about the white supremacists lynching men who had just fought in the war. n/t

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. Got it. Which reminds me, I have to start a thread in the Virginia group about the anniversary of

a lynching. There was plenty of violence to go around.

Thanks for the thread.

[FakeNoose]

5. So, this article was about WWI black veterans, not WWII

I'm sure you are correct that the black veterans of WWII were treated fairly, included in the GI bill, and (hopefully) not lynched when they returned home in uniform.

It was a different treatment they received in 1919, and much easier to cover up.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

7. Mary Engel Breit, in her Instagram tweet, or whatever they call those in Instagram, was the one

who made the claim that the GI Bill excluded Blacks. It did not.

They were not treated fairly though.

HTH

[brush]

10. This was after WWI, right? I don't think there was a GI bill...

after WWI. That was after WWII if I recall correctly. Black GIs did get some benefits after WWII, my father being one.

That being said, we do know most of what the post is about is true. After learning about the Greenwood massacre in Tulsa in 1921, who can deny the racist savagery that happened.

[former9thward]

17. Very few Black GIs got full benefits.

Examples:

The G.I. Bill aimed to help American World War II veterans adjust to civilian life by providing them with benefits including low-cost mortgages, low-interest loans and financial support. African Americans did not benefit nearly as much as White Americans. Historian Ira Katznelson argues that "the law was deliberately designed to accommodate Jim Crow". In the New York and northern New Jersey suburbs 67,000 mortgages were insured by the G.I. Bill, but fewer than 100 were taken out by non-whites. In the New York and northern New Jersey suburbs 67,000 mortgages were insured by the G.I. Bill, but fewer than 100 were taken out by non-whites.

By 1946, only one fifth of the 100,000 blacks who had applied for educational benefits had been registered in college. Furthermore, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) came under increased pressure as rising enrollments and strained resources forced them to turn away an estimated 20,000 veterans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill

[brush]

18. No doubt. I'm sure Black GIs didn't get equal benefits to white ones.

[mountain grammy]

20. The GI Bill didn't exclude Blacks

but the banks did and the colleges did, and they were handing out the money.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

22. That's right. The problems were on the local level.

The article at History.com goes into the history of the writing of the legislation. It's about what you'd expect.

UPDATED:APR 20, 2021ORIGINAL:JUN 21, 2019

How the GI Bill's Promise Was Denied to a Million Black WWII Veterans

The sweeping bill promised prosperity to veterans. So why didn’t Black Americans benefit?

ERIN BLAKEMORE

{snip}

[mountain grammy]

27. In 1958 my mom was working for a bank processing VA loans

Every Black applicant was denied. She asked why once. She was told her job had been cut.

I remembered her being fired, but it was a few years later when she told me the story how she helped people fill out the paperwork only to see them be denied. The couple she asked about were far more qualified than many who had been accepted. She went to the manager, who had hired her, and asked if he could look into it. He said he would. At the end of the day she was fired.

I think she gave a deposition about it at some point many years later.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

28. I'm sorry, what did you say?

I was busy watching "Happy Days." I just love those old TV programs that show how super duper swell everything was back then.

No, I do not know what time frame "Happy Day" is supposed to be based in.

[mountain grammy]

36. Yep, when America was great, right?

[cbabe]

46. I was told to not let

'those people' clutter up the office when I was working in the 90s for the top medical center in the PacNW. Helping new parents fill out birth certificates. State institution so we took all comers.

Forced out shortly thereafter.

Still happening. Seattle Children's Hospital, tops in the nation. Currently being investigated for racism. Top doc quit over racist treatment of children.

[paleotn]

35. Technically, no....

But along that same thread, technically black folks were eligible to vote in Mississippi in the first 2/3rds of the 20th century. Technically that is.

[mopinko]

3. they teach it in chicago public schools.

possibly as a poke at old man daley's legacy, as he was reported to be there. never proven, but....

over a beach.

[frazzled]

12. Yes and a topic on local shows such as Chicago Tonight

It was widely covered in 2019, on the 100th anniversary.

As for the racism that persisted after World War II, I highly recommend the film Mudbound, by Dee Rees.

Directed by Dee Rees (“Pariah”), the sprawling drama follows two families — one white and one black — in rural Mississippi during World War II and its aftermath. Carey Mulligan, who earned an Oscar nomination for “An Education” (2009), stars as a farm wife caught between her husband (Jason Clarke) and his younger brother (Garrett Hedlund), a returning veteran. The R&B singer Mary J. Blige, in what’s said to be a breakout performance, plays a mother whose son (Jason Mitchell) is also a returning veteran who comes back from Europe only to encounter intransigent racism.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/movies/mary-j-blige-mudbound-trailer-carey-mulligan.html

Trailer:

[live love laugh]

40. I live in Chicago. Never heard of this until today.

Attended public school and had some really good teachers.

Don’t know how this was overlooked.

[mopinko]

41. not sure when they started, but my kids are in their 30's.

[rickyhall]

6. I learned nothing about African American or Native American Massacres in school.

Just on & on about Manifest Destiny & the White Right to civilize the uncivilized FOR THEIR OWN GOOD.

[70sEraVet]

11. Yes, I tried to think of any massacre I heard about in school

The Alamo was the only thing I could think of; certainly no massacre where whites were the perpetrators.

[brush]

21. Wonder who thought up the phrase "manifest destiny?"

Last edited Tue Aug 10, 2021, 11:45 AM - Edit history (1)

That phrase is all about carte blanche to whites to do anything and everything to the land and any people of color on it for their benefit, and the subsequent hiding of their crimes against nature and humanity.

Actual history needs to be taught to open eyes to see why things are, and to lessen racism.

[cbabe]

47. The Catholic Church in the 15th century

issued a series of papal decrees commonly called the Doctrine of Discovery.

Meaning a Christian could plant a flag and claim possession of the land.

Manifest destiny. Genocides. Rape of the earth.

Whitey on the moon.

[brush]

48. Ahhhh. Thank you. And so it began.

[cbabe]

49. Allow me to add a sidenote about Nixon and

the moon landing.

He wanted the plaque planted on the moon by the American flag to reference his Christian god.

Could have been a legalistic attempt to claim the moon under the Doctrine of Discovery, which is still in force.

Luckily, NASA resisted and only posted the date using AD thereby placating Nixon.

[brush]

8. Thanks for posting so much was hidden of the brutal racist incidents...

in the nation's history. This is one of many, just like many just found out about the Greenwood massacre (Black Wall St.) last summer. And Greenwood was just one of many similar massacres in Black towns.

Thanks for posting.

[SWBTATTReg]

9. Thank you so much in providing this information to the DU community. No wonder I value DU

and its community members so much, for the immense amount of knowledge and history among its members and their access to such knowledge and history.

[progressoid]

13. Unfortunately the "History" Channel lost it's credibility

with shows like UFO Hunters and Ancient Aliens.

[niyad]

14. Heartsick KNR

[monkeyman1]

15. Man I screwed up , I learned about this in grade school in the mid -50's !!

thought everybody knew this ! just like everything else , it blow's over . well, the insurrection not going to blow over like TFG want's it too. this racism pos is finally going to get his turn in the barrel!

[Pepsidog]

16. Seems there is quite a lot of history this 59yo white male doesn't know. Shameful.

To be clear, I am referring to myself. I cannot believe I never heard of Tulsa massacre or this fact.

[rockfordfile]

19. African American soldiers on their way to Nam were spit on by right-wing pos

[mahatmakanejeeves]

24. Can you cite an instance of this?

Last edited Mon Aug 9, 2021, 05:40 PM - Edit history (3)

The similar claim that leftists spat on anyone in uniform at about that time has not held up well against scrutiny.

I know it's not possible to say that it never happened, but did it happen frequently? How often? Where? What airport?

This is the first time I've ever heard of this.

Thanks.

The Spitting Image



The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam is a 1998 book by Vietnam veteran and sociology professor Jerry Lembcke. The book is an analysis of the widely believed narrative that American soldiers were spat upon and insulted by anti-war protesters upon returning home from the Vietnam War. The book examines the origin of the earliest stories; the popularization of the "spat-upon image" through Hollywood films and other media, and the role of print news media in perpetuating the now iconic image through which the history of the war and anti-war movement has come to be represented.

Lembcke contrasts the absence of credible evidence of spitting by anti-war activists with the large body of evidence showing a mutually supportive, empathetic relationship between veterans and anti-war forces. The book also documents efforts of the Nixon Administration to drive a wedge between military servicemembers and the anti-war movement by portraying democratic dissent as a betrayal of the troops. Lembcke equates this disparagement of the anti-war movement and veterans with the similar stab-in-the-back myths propagated by Germany and France after their war defeats, as an alibi for why they lost the war. Lembcke details the resurrection of the myth of the spat-upon veteran during subsequent Gulf War efforts as a way to silence public dissent.

{snip}

Origins

A persistent but unfounded criticism leveled against those who protested the United States's involvement in the Vietnam War is that protesters spat upon and otherwise derided returning soldiers, calling them "baby-killers", etc. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, years after the war in Vietnam ended, the proliferation of these spitting stories increased greatly. As both a Vietnam veteran and a member of the anti-war movement, Lembcke knew this criticism ran counter to what he personally experienced and witnessed. To the contrary, one of the hallmarks of the period's anti-war movement was its support for the troops in the field and the affiliation of many returning veterans with the movement. Lembcke was motivated to look further into the truth and origins of this spat-upon veteran myth, and the contradiction between historical fact and popular collective memory. Other observers had already noticed the proliferation of stories and questioned whether the spitting stories even made sense. In 1987, columnist Bob Greene noted:

{snip}

Synopsis

{snip}

In The Spitting Image, Lembcke acknowledges that he cannot prove the negative—that no Vietnam veteran was ever spat on—saying it is hard to imagine there not being expressions of hostility between veterans and activists. "I cannot, of course, prove to anyone's satisfaction that spitting incidents like these did not happen. Indeed, it seems likely to me that it probably did happen to some veteran, some time, some place. But while I cannot prove the negative, I can prove the positive: I can show what did happen during those years and that that historical record makes it highly unlikely that the alleged acts of spitting occurred in the number and manner that is now widely believed."

{snip}

[quaint]

42. Yes. Support Our Troops Bring Them Home!

People I knew placed blame on the PTB.

[BumRushDaShow]

23. And people want to know why the push for reparations?

Remember that the military was segregated all the way through WW2 until Truman finally desegregated it. And because black families were generally barred from moving into many of the post-WW2 developments (by dejure or defacto segregation), as well as kept from attending many colleges and universities other than what later became known as the HBCUs, then the GI Bill ("Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944" ) was essentially meaningless and unusable.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

25. 2019: 100 years ago, The Washington Post told its readers to meet for a "clean-up" operation.

Mon Jul 15, 2019: 100 years ago this week, The Washington Post told its readers to meet for a "clean-up" operation.

I knew the anniversary was coming up, but I hadn't thought it was right now.

The Washington Post Retweeted

100 years ago this week, The @washingtonpost told its readers to meet at 7th + Pennsylvania Avenue at 9pm for a “clean-up” operation. It was code signalling a white mob to riot.

Link to tweet

The Post, along with three other DC papers at the time, had spent weeks whipping white readers into a frenzy over supposed serial attacks by a black man.

Link to tweet

This is from 1998. I held on to my dead tree edition of the Washington City Paper; two copies.

Lost Riot

Thirty years ago this week, Washington burned. Seventy-nine years ago this summer, the city bled. Why we shouldn't forget the riots of 1919.

MICHAEL SCHAFFER APR 3, 1998 12 AM

Late on the Monday night of July 21, 1919, James E. Scott came back to Washington from a weekend out of town. His train pulled into Union Station right around midnight. ... The World War I veteran had picked a good time to get away. D.C. was in the midst of an unusually hot summer, even by its own swampy standards. Humidity hung in the air over the train yard and must have lingered under the high ceiling of the opulent railway station.

During that long, sewery summer, another kind of heat had been beating down on the city as well. The war had temporarily ballooned Washington's population and opened up thousands of new jobs. But now that it was over, all kinds of folks were still around, trying to hang on. Stories about a crime wave filled the newspapers. The news ratcheted up the pressure in the sweltering city, most dangerously along the city's precarious racial fault line.

The reports, written with lurid and inflammatory flair, suggested that black rapists were menacing D.C.'s white women. In response, white Washingtonians were forming posses. Talk of bringing back the lynchings of yore filled the air. Race relations were in a downward spiral nationwide—riots had already hit Charleston, S.C., and Longview, Texas—and the tense, nasty capital city was no exception. Scott knew about the trouble, of course, but he had no idea what he was in store for upon his return.

Stepping off the train, Scott walked out of the station and waited outside for the first of the streetcars that would carry him homeward. ... He took the Rock Creek Bridge line trolley up New Jersey Avenue to Florida Avenue. At 7th Street NW, Scott got off to wait for a transfer. About five minutes later, a streetcar bound for the Brightwood neighborhood arrived, rumbling up through deserted midnight streets. Scott and a uniformed Army captain—one of the endless stream of demobilized soldiers hanging around postwar D.C.—boarded the northbound car and headed off.

It was only after he got on the second streetcar that Scott noticed anything unusual. Seventh and Florida lay near the heart of black D.C. Yet this evening, the weary traveler didn't see a single other African-American aboard the trolley. ... Scott paid his fare and headed toward a vacant seat. But a soldier stuck his arm out and stopped him. "Where are you going, nigger?" he asked. Stammering, Scott replied that he was only going to sit down. But by then, his words were being drowned out by the other passengers.

"Lynch him," said one.

"Kill him," said another.

"Throw him out of the window," said a third.

{snip}

[iluvtennis]

39. Wow, thanks for all of the additional data and for keeping the hardcopy newspapers. n/t

[czarjak]

26. What a country! Open Season is what they want.

[Evolve Dammit]

29. Our history is not what we were fed as students. And it is still obvious if one actually cares.

Sadly half of us (might as well round it off) just don't fucking care. At all. Considering only half of us can even be bothered to vote, it may well be a lot more. And so it goes on, and on. Sorry kids, we really suck. Our predecessors were even worse.

[pazzyanne]

30. This happened to immigrant veterans as well.

https://www.stripes.com/veterans/2021-05-30/Deported-immigrants-who-served-in-US-military-feel-forgotten-want-to-return-home-1609315.html

[AllaN01Bear]

31. a lot of these are so hidden.

a lot of this is what the rs dont want us to teach our kids . the truth. truth hurts .

[Tadpole Raisin]

32. OMG , I didn't know this. It is horrendous that men in uniform fighting for their country faced this

What’s worse is over 100 years later there are RW nut jobs who would be willing to do this today.

[marble falls]

33. Sad fact: only one instance in 50 years of it going on all over the country ...

... my dad once asked me why did black people burn their own homes and businesses. I told him that up to now all racial strife, 99% of the time was mainly caused by white males under 50. And every time it was black homes, black businesses and black churches that got torched; only black victims lynched, shot down in the streets, burned alive, driven out. So that's what they knew - "riot" or fight back, and the black part of town has just got to burn.

He got pretty sullen and muttered something about the Communist professors at Akron U. Dessert was quiet. All I was citing was American History.

[grantcart]

34. The reason why there were so many white race riots across the country

In 1919/1920 (I.e. Tulsa) that returning AA vets were allowed to keep their service weapons ( like white vets) and for the first time had the equipment and training to defend themselves. It terrified the white population.

[Prof. Toru Tanaka]

37. What a racist, fucked up country the U.S. was

and in 100 plus years, there is still a long way to go.

Covering up incidents like this and refusing to allow teachers to teach true history is not going to help this nation heal and move forward.

[femmedem]

38. At work, I've been helping to put together a Black heritage trail with other researchers. One site

is the location of 1919 attack on Black navy sailors by white sailors. News reports of the day said the mob of attackers and rubberneckers had about 5000 people, and the city had to call for military assistance.

This was in Connecticut.

[Niagara]

43. Every time I learn something new about American History

It infuriates me.




I found a heritage webpage that has historic information and images if anyone is interested in checking it out.


https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/wwi/war

[Tommymac]

44. New to me..but I was in NC Public Schools during my young life

At the time they were the 45th best public school system or something like that.

We were taught about G.W. Carver and his peanuts, Harriet Tubman and her underground railroad (not a very good spin on her), and happy slaves who were put out in the cold by the South's loss of the Civil War.

Oh yeah, and my teachers for the most part (except for 2 who were from northern states) told us in so many code words (not in textbooks): how Black folk were just not intelligent enough, and/or genetically challenged compared to superior European stock after all Darwin claimed it to be so if one believed his fairy stories, and/or too lazy to change their old inbred African ways to make it in modern times using modern wonders such as power tools and cars and washing machines instead of sticks and stones; that's why they were all so poor, and had to steal Government money in the form of food stamps and welfare to survive in 20th century White America.

Thank God for the liberal University of North Carolina which I attended...oh wait, never mind. The Koch's have destroyed that too.

[secondwind]

45. Never knew or heard of this!

[PurgedVoter]

50. This is new to me as well

Growing up, it was always, be nervous those people will riot and loot. As opposed to the truth that the people that looked like me will riot, and kill.

[flying_wahini]

51. And Racism continues its March in 'Merica.

Makes me sick to even read about it.