Episode Recording -- "Black women during and after World War II"

• 0:23-2:22: Progress during World War II

Maddy Johnson discusses the second world war and the progress made by white women and Black men. They also discuss how black women were often considered less desirable to employers and weren’t given the same jobs as white women. While white women were able to be riveters and welders, Black women were left to do janitorial work and meaningless tasks. While black men were able to be drafted and able to work in the government, black women remained unable to do that too.

Episode Transcript: 0:00-0:40 

Hello and welcome to episode 13 of the students podcasting history podcast. My name is Madeline Johnson and, in this episode, I'll be talking about women of color in the World War II era and beyond. This period of US history was very progressive for white women and black men, with white women being allowed to work in male dominated fields and black men being able to serve in the military and in the government. 


But where did that leave black women? Often black women were lost in the shuffle of progress, and I wanted to bring to light the experiences of black women during World War II and the post war era.

0:00-0:23: Intro

 Today's topic is women of color in the World War II era, and beyond. Let's explore what life was like for them while white women and black men were progressing. World War II completely uprooted American life as people knew it. 
This was a tumultuous time and was seen as a way for both white women and men of color to bring about permanent change for their respective movements. 

0:23-2:22: A Time of Progress

 In 1941, as the United States prepared to enter World War II, Philip A. Randolph, a black rights activist, made a big push for black people. On March 18th he wrote a letter to Walter White, head of the NAACP, planning a march on Washington. World of this potential march spread over the next months, reaching President FDR, who promptly signed executive order 8802 on June 25, which stated that there shall not be discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin. So, this was a pretty big deal, as black people had not been allowed to serve in the military or work in the government before. Then at the same time, white women were able to work in factories to replace the men who had gone abroad. black women, however, did not necessarily reap the benefits of this at first. While black men and white women were able to work in factories, black women were still given very menial tasks and often were forced to stay in their old spheres, that being domestic spheres and agricultural spheres. This is a quote from Karen Tucker Anderson um who wrote the paper, last hired first fire, black women workers during World War II. whatever the hierarchy of preference, however, black women could always be found at the bottom. 
The dramatic expansion of jobs for women did not necessarily mean the opening up of new categories of employment for minority group women. 

2:22- 5:13: Victory for black women

White women have long reaped the benefits of being second in line for progress after reconstruction and the industrial era, white women were allowed to work in factories and uh were allowed to like work outside the home for the first time while black women were relegated to farming or being domestic servants. However, in 1944, right before the war ended, they finally allowed black women to work in factories as Rosie the riveters. Despite the many challenges that came with being a black woman in a black woman in the workforce, some black women saw this as a small but important victory for black women in America when victories were sorely lacking. 
A lot of women saw this as an opportunity to gain a lot of freedom from the status quo that had been established over the years. Here's a quote from the American Yawp chapter 24 Jim Crowed segregation in both civilian and military sectors remained a problem for black women who wanted to join the war effort, even after President Roosevelt signed executive order 8802 in 1941 supervisors who hired black women still often relegated them to the most menial of tasks. Now we're going to listen to a brief clip of Betty Reid Soskin, Rosie the Riveter, telling her story about being a black woman during the World War II era. 

“We tend to revisit that history as a more enlightened era, and so we read those pictures of masses of people having their pictures taken all ages and all sizes and all colors standing together on the Kaiser yards. 
And we read that as examples of brotherhood and fellowship. But if you knew the secrets in which people were hired, it was first the men who were tool to fight, and then it was the boys who were too young to be drafted. and then it was single white women, and then married white women. and in 1943 black men to do the heavy lifting for the roses that they brought in, and it wasn't until late in 1944 when black women began to be trained as wilders, so that history gets revised without our intending it to.” 

5:13-8:36: Post-war era for black women

This small victory for black women was not to last, though, because after the end of the war, there was a huge amount of layoffs in former military factories as mass amounts of planes, automobiles and ammunition were not needed any more after the war.
So, a lot of these layoffs occurred among white women and black women, however, white women were the ones who were able to keep their jobs and almost no black women were able to keep theirs. A lot of black women didn't like this, obviously, and tried to hold on to their industrial jobs and not not wanting to go back to domestic service. However, domestic service remained the primary occupation of black women with about 700,000 black women in 1950 working in domestic service, which is over 40% of the black female workforce. 
Progress is always two steps forward one step back, and that's very clear from the slow in the civil rights movement during the 1950s, though the civil rights movement had begun the second that FDR signed that executive order. Nine years after the end of the war, Brown versus board of education eliminated segregation in schools across the country. This brings about a large wave of motion for the civil rights movement, which continues well into the 1980s. During the war, but especially after black women had begun to speak out and get the big civil rights movement going. Young women in particular were a big part of the civil rights movement. With women such as Rosa Parks, Elizabeth Eckford of the Little Rock Nine, and Diana Nash of SNCC. SNCC was a student organization of black people who pioneered the tactic of sitting in at segregated restaurants to just take up space. A lot of the people who participated in these Sit-ins were female, and Diane Nash herself, who was part of SNCC, spoke on her duties as a member of the civil rights movement. This is from her.

 
” I was also to keep the press informed and communities that were participating, such as Birmingham, Montgomery, Jackson, and Nashville, and I coordinated the training and recruitment of more people to take up the freedom ride.” 

But it's very often that we don't hear the stories of the black women in the civil rights movement besides Rosa Parks because a lot of the men are just more famous and, you know, men. But it's very clear that black women were a vital part of the civil rights movement going forward into the 1960s. 

8:38-8:54: Thank you

Thank you all so much for listening to my podcast episode. 
Go check out some of the other podcast episodes made by my peers. Write a review if you like and visit Students Podcasting, History for more stuff like this.