Foxholes and Color Lines: Desegregating the U.S. Armed Forces (Rand Book)

Author:	Sherie Mershon, Steven Schlossman
ISBN:	0801872413 , 9780801872419
Publisher:	The Johns Hopkins University Press
Date:	2002-06-14
List Price:	~~$25.00~~
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US Books > History > Americas > United States > African Americans > History

Product Description：

The desegregation of the American armed forces -- one of the most sweeping changes in the military's history -- is widely remembered as a straightforward, relatively effortless process and a shining example of the effectiveness of America's military command. Foxholes and Color Lines challenges this view, revealing both the intense political conflict at the time and the strenuous opposition to racial integration within all branches of the armed forces.

Amazon.com Review：

In the early 1990s, as the issue of gays in the military was being debated, two researchers from a noted think thank, the Rand Corporation, were commissioned to write a history of how the military has dealt with racial discrimination and segregation in its ranks. The researchers, Sherie Mershon and Steven Schlossman, have greatly expanded their original study into a full-length narrative giving the entire story of how blacks were assigned to separate service until President Truman, with an executive order in July 1948, integrated the U.S. Armed Forces. The story of how the military was eventually integrated is complex and at times surprising. While the military was in some ways ahead of the rest of society in providing opportunity to blacks, some of the institutionalized discrimination was arbitrary and seems utterly bizarre from today's perspective. --Robert McNamara