Theften the books are on officers and theyre on the very wacs who served, but few on black enlisted women so i wrote about the four women that here, theyre part of the 6,500 contingent of black war, who enlisted in the pioneers of the wac and they had the same reasons that other for joining. They wanted to learn new skills. Inck women were engaged service occupations, cleaning, laundry work and they wanted to otherure that they had skills to give them opportunities after the war. Also were very interested in helping to advance democracy at home beingl as female. American, and and coming up, tell me about the four women. The four women involved, to the this is an incident at fort evans in massachusetts. There were 100 women in this detachment. Nearly all of them were orderlies. Orderlies given the assignment the hospitalse of at fort devons. Assigned thisre position. They came in to have skilled jobs. Had hoped to have any other job, except cleaning time. At the same thing with ana morrison, i readmurphy i feel when her material, it looks like she joined for adventure. Something different, get out of her home town. In alice young, she went specifically. She had some experience as a nurse in training and she wanted to join the wac, they were desperate for medical and she thought this would be her pathway to become a nurse after the war. And were there other women, white women in the hospital that nurses . King as as medical technicians. You have the Army Nurse Corps andthis is about the wac there were white wacs there, twice as many as there were black wacs. Only been white wacs fort devonsnd when was told to incorporate this women, theyf 100 basically segregated the two hospitals, all the white wacs moved to one hospital, all the black wacs were put in the other one and in the white wacs working, you had very few as orderlies and the rest were working in the skilled wacs had the black enlisted to perform, as well. Tell me about the actual strike. Happen and what was the outcome . When the women arrived at devons at the end of 1944, they expected4, to have the same jobs that the white wacs were doing. Thatswhy they enlisted, what had been advertised, how desperate of a need the army had for these skilled jobs. They arrived at fort devons, they were given these orderly jobs, they thought this do, theyll do it for a while and see what a great job we do and they did a great job, and then we can move on to other professions. That didnt happen. Not after the first month, month, third month. Almost five months later, they realized its not going to happen. And so it was spontaneous, but it followed a number of events. A strike and it happened one morning, march the 1945, and thats when strike happened that was spontaneous, something that happened the night before, the last straw and the strike occurred. And what was the outcome . Strike,y decided to what was the response of those them . Rs that worked with interesting, because prior to this time, the women had been , not these four, but detachment and wanting to and thethe situation army said no, theres no racism involved here, its just what do best today. They wanted to show after the general of the First Service command arrived and said you go to work or you will be marshaled. Four women took the court marshal. They opted for the court marshal. Others would have, others tried to, but four women were put on trial. And how widely reported were actions . The black press was amazing. Militaryd on the during world war ii, it got the word out pronto. Naacp was also alerted to this incident prior to the actual strike. Someone from there had written to them about how things were, situation it was. So the case was National News the black press. That did not necessarily mean in waswhite press, but this such an interesting case. There were tons of court men,als featuring black but women in the military was so new so this became a National Sensation because it was black women, women at all, being court womenled and then black who the press did not see that much of. Normally, when they were talking about white wacs and how was and about their green girdles that were and all these kinds of things. This came on, when this hit the news, people are interested in it. Curious. So let me about the court marshal. What was the outcome for the women . Court marshal is one of the most interesting parts of the book. Dramatic trial. The naacp stepped in and lawyer, ahem a prominent local attorney, but defense lawyers had their arguments for their they spoke about their courage and bravery. Rainey was, julius trying very hard to get these women off, but he could not use discrimination defense because Racial Discrimination did not exist in the military because the war policy againsta that. So you have the circular argument where it cant exist. Saying these are our problems, here are our grievances and the military had this trial where their lawyer was defending them and saying gentlemen, they were whatsed, they didnt know they were doing. He knew exactly what was going maybe not from the position of a female, though, so he used womens natural tendencies hystericalsed and and based his defense on that. Monomaniaced them a at one point. The women had their say, they were able to defend themselves court marshal, too, but its interesting to see how even their wac attorney turned it around, but he did try to build it up to take intuthis that it was the perception of racism, not that the army was racist, but these women had this perception of racism. And so what happens to the women . Did they leave the army . Army . N the what happened with them . Yes, the case went on. The biggesttion factor besides these women, these otherwise ordinary women, thebiggest factor was public. The public got involved, the word press, spread the out. All the way to california, oregon to the south to the north. People knew about it white and black and the public, men, white, everybody was writing in to the War Department. The War Department had to take action. Action they take is a bit convoluted but eventually the women did return to fort devons orderlies. Mained as so you read this book and say well nothing really changed, but change. Id they did have the attention of their higher brass. Before they could not get the attention of even their local officers or tenants, and now, the War Department of, secretary of war knew who these women were. President video roosevelt knew o women were, the naacp, the wac, they hadhe their attention and it did make a difference. Even though these women returned their duties, it didnt change a lot for them all dramatically, but it really made a difference for other black being sentere also to other posts and theres one particular, gardner hospital, where during this case case, theres a lot of memorandums between the gardnerrtment and chicago to make sure that there are a lot of womens in different ranks, different that worked out much better for them than it did for these women here. Bolzenius, thank you for talking with us. This is American History tv, on cspan 3, where each weekend feature 48 hours of programs, exploring our nations past. For more information, you can our website at cspan. Org history. This weekend on American History heartage lee, author of the league of wives the whold story of the women took on the u. S. Government to bring their husbands home. Vietnam war by two pow wives. Heres a preview. We were married four years before he left on the crews and daughtero children, my is in the audience now. She was three years old when her father left. Shotckily when he was down, the north vietnamese took and published it so that was wonderful because then or at leasts alive alive at that point. Did not write any letters and i found out after came back why, but was just the four years, and then i didnt find out until had died in captivity. Do remember the day that you found out that your husband was unaccounted for and bityou tell us a little about that . When i was notified . Awas having dinner about block away with a friend of mine and it was about 8 00 at night a phone call apparently from one of my neighbors and she said debbie, you need to go home. Your usedants to buy car. So i got the children thinking thewants to buy a car in dark . [laughter] way, we went in the house, i didnt see any car or anything outside, i got into the a knock on the the and as soon as i saw shoulder bars, i knew. ,nd that was october 4th 1966. Watch the entire discussion Heath Hardage Lee and vietnam pow wives sunday at eastern. Youre watching American History cspan 3. Monday night, on the communicators. We talked about future of journalism in the age of big mediairms with news alliances david shaverb and matthew shears with a Computer Communications industry association. Facebook, google, apple. They employ exactly 0 journalists okay so the amount journalism theyre doing is zero. Were not going to city halls, theyre not going to school meetings, theyre not covering the president. Our rely on delivering content and monetizing around that content and if you dont do that anymore we dont have local journalism. The question isnt whether or not we want a strong and vibrant journalism industry. We tried that in the 1970s were lastapers threatened by a new medium, the broadcast era. It didnt work. The communicators, monday night at 8 00 eastern on 2. Pan ago inears ago, in june june of 1969, the Cuyahoga River caught fire near cleveland. The event helped lead to the creation of the Environmental Protection agency. Next on reel america, the Crooked River dies. This 1966 documentary traces the 100mile long Cuyahoga River from its source to cleveland, where it minutes, polluted, into lake erie. The film was featured on montage, an Award Winning documentary series that aired on clevelands wkyctv. More than 250 episodes were produced from september 1965 to 1978, now archived at the December Michael Schwartz Library at Cleveland State university. This is presented courtesy of the library and producer dennis gould. Dennis golden. The Cuyahoga River, as most think of it, the brown stream that meets lake erie, an industrial waterway, its banks
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