“If the Swastika is an emblem of racial oppression, the Stars and Stripes are equally so. A New York Amsterdam News editorial argued in 1935: In making connections between Germany and the United States, black journalists and activists cautioned that Nazi racial ideology was not solely a foreign problem.

“In the freest country in the world, where even the president rages against racial discrimination, no citizen of dark color is permitted to travel next to a white person, even if the white is employed as a sewer digger and the Negro is a world boxing champion or otherwise a national hero… example shows us all how we have to solve the problem of traveling foreign Jews.” The Chicago Defender noted that “the practice of Jim-Crowism has already been adopted by the Nazis.” A quote from the official newspaper of the SS, the Nazi paramilitary organization, on the origins of the railway ban stated: Describing a plan to segregate Jews on German railways, the New York Amsterdam News wrote that Nazis were “taking a leaf from United States Jim Crow practices.” The historical record shows that as Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime rose to power in the 1930s, black-run newspapers quickly recognized that the Third Reich saw the American system of race law as a model. armed forces were segregated, that the Red Cross segregated blood donors or that many black WWII veterans returned to the country only to be denied jobs or housing, it becomes all the more difficult to talk honestly about racism today. When Americans celebrate the country’s victory in WWII, but forget that the U.S. Yet the recent resurgence of explicit racism, including the attack in Charlottesville, has been greeted by many with surprise.īut collective amnesia has consequences. There is a historical relationship between Nazism and white supremacy in the United States. The Double Victory campaign, launched by the Courier in 1942, became a rallying cry for black journalists, activists and citizens to secure both victory over fascism abroad during World War II and victory over racism at home. The Pittsburgh Courier, a leading African-American newspaper at the time, praised Wallace for endorsing what they called the “Double V” campaign. Those who fan the fires of racial clashes for the purpose of making political capital here at home are taking the first step toward Nazism.” “We cannot fight to crush Nazi brutality abroad and condone race riots at home.

In July 1943, one month after a race riot shook Detroit, Vice President Henry Wallace spoke to a crowd of union workers and civic groups:

Matthew delmont half american