The study of africanamerican life and history. Sandra bolzenius, what was the Womens Army Corps . The Womens Army Corps or the wac, ill be using that acronym to describe them, and members of the Womens Army Corps, it was established in 1942. The military, the army was fighting a two front war and needed more troops, so they enlisted women for the first time in its history to make sure they were able to fill the jobs that the men were leaving so they could go to the front. And there have been many books on the mistreatment of africanamerican soldiers during world war ii, but you wrote about four enlisted female soldiers. Who were they . First of all, im very glad that you mentioned that because so often the books are on the officers and theyre on the white wacs who served, but very few on black enlisted women so i wrote about the four women that i mentioned here, part of the 6,500 contingent of black women who enlisted during the war. Pioneers of the wac and they had the same reasons that other women had for joining. They wanted to learn new skills. At this time, most black women were engaged in service occupations, cleaning, laundry work and they wanted to make sure that they had other skills to give them opportunities after the war. They also were very interested as you can imagine, in helping to advance democracy abroad, as well as at home being africanamerican, and female. And tell me about the four women and their actions and the incident that occurred. The four women involved, to a honest, this is about strike incident at fort evans in massachusetts. There were 100 women in this detachment. Nearly all of them were orderlies. Orderlies being given the assignment of cleaning one of the hospitals at fort devons. And so they were assigned this position. Now, they came in to have skilled jobs. Mary green had hoped to have any other job, except cleaning houses at the time. Same thing with ana morrison, whenie murphy, i feel like i read her material, it looks like she joined for adventure. Find something different, get out of her home town. But alice young, she went in specifically. She had some experience as a nurse in training and she wanted to join the wac, they were desperate for medical technicians 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 were working as nurses . As medical technicians. You have the Army Nurse Corps and this is about the wac and there were white wacs there, twice as many as there were black wacs. In fact, there had only been white wacs originally and when fort devons was told to incorporate this detachment of 100 women, they 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 working as orderlies and the rest were working in the skilled jobs that the black wacs had enlisted to perform, as well. Tell me about the actual strike. How did it happen and what was the outcome . When the women arrived at fort devons at the end of 1944, october of 1944, they expected to have the same jobs that the white wacs were doing. Thats why they enlisted, thats what had been advertised, how desperate of a need the army had for these skilled jobs. When they arrived at fort devons, they were given these orderly jobs, they thought this is what newbies 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, second 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. There was a strike and it happened one morning, march 9th, 1945, and thats when the strike happened that was spontaneous, something that happened the night before, the last straw and the strike occurred. And what was the outcome . Once they decided to strike, what was the response of those officers that worked with them . Interesting, because prior to this time, the women had been complaining, not these four, but the detachment and wanting to resolve the situation and the army said no, theres no racism involved here, its just what you guys do best today. They wanted to show after the strike, the general of the First Service command arrived and said you go to work or you will be court martialed. Four women opted for the court martial. Others would have, others tried to, but four women were put on trial. And how widely reported were their actions . The black press was amazing. It focused on the military during world war ii, it got the word out pronto. The naacp was also alerted to this incident prior to the actual strike. Someone from there had written to them about how things were, how volatile a situation it was. So the case was National News within the black press. That did not necessarily mean in the white press, but this was such an interesting case. There were tons of court m artials featuring black men, but women in the military was so new so this became a National Sensation because it was black women, women at all, being court martialed, and then black women who the press did not see that much of. Normally, when they were talking about white wacs and how interesting it was and about their green girdles that were army colored and all these kinds of things. And then this came on and hit the news and people were interested. So tell me about the courtmartial. What was the outcome for the women . The courtmartial is one of the most interesting parts of the book. It was a pretty dramatic trial. The naacp stepped in and provided them a lawyer, a prominent local attorney, but normally, when defense lawyers had their arguments for their clients, they spoke about their courage and bravery. This lawyer, Julius Rainey was trying very hard to get these women off, but he could not use his Racial Discrimination defense because Racial Discrimination did not exist in the military because the War Department had a policy against that. So you have the circular argument where it cant exist. These women are saying these are our problems, here are our grievances and the military so they had this trial where their lawyer was defending them and saying gentlemen, they were confused, they didnt know what they were doing. He knew exactly what was going on, maybe not from the position of a female, though, so he used womens natural tendencies to be confused and hysterical and based his defense on that. Even calling them a monomaniac at one point. They had their say, they were able to defend themselves during the courtmartial, but interesting to see how even their attorney turned it around. But he did try to build it up to take on this idea that it was the perception of racism, not that the army was racist, but these women in a confused state had a perception of racism. And so what happens to the women . Did they leave the army . Stay in the army . Were they jailed . What happened with them . Yes, the case went on. I should mention the biggest factor besides these women, these otherwise ordinary women, the biggest factor was the public. The public got involved, the black press, spread the word out. All the way to california, oregon to the south to the north. People knew about it, white and black. And the public, men, women, black, white, everybody was writing in to the War Department. The War Department had to take action. What action they take is a bit convoluted but eventually the women did return to fort devons and they remained as orderlies. So you could read the book and say, nothing really changed. But things did change. They did have the attention of their higher brass. Before they could not get the attention of even their local officers or lieutenants. Now the War Department, secretary of war Henry Simpson knew who these women were. , president roosevelt knew who these women wear, so did his wife eleanor. The naacp, the godmother of the wac, they had their attention and it did make a difference. Even though these women returned back to their duties, now their grievances were heard. It didnt change a lot for them automatically, but it really made a difference for other black women also being transferred to other posts. One case in particular, gardner hospital where during this case and after the case, theres a lot of memorandums between the government and the War Department and the gardner hospital in chicago to make sure we have a lot of women of different ranks and different skills and that worked out much better for them than it did for these women here. Sandra bolzenius, thank you for talking with us. Next on the presidency. Jonathan pliska talks about the white house grounds and gardens in this program from a daylong symposium hosted by the White House Historical association in washington, d. C. He is an author of a garden for the president a history of the white house grounds. [applause] good morning, i am the assistant director of the National Center for white house history. It is a privilege to be with you this morning