Was anyone else as late as we were in learning that...

[LAS14]

...Blacks were excluded from the GI Bill after World War II?

Hubby and I only learned that this year. He's 87. I'm 78. We were anti-war, civil rights activists, demonstrators for this and that, right up till today. But we didn't know this mind blowing fact until last year.

Anyone else like us out there????


Important update. It was not, after all, an official policy of the government. Thanks to Silent Type for the correction.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/black-world-war-ii-vets-gi-bill/

[MOMFUDSKI]

1. Did

not know either. Guess nobody really wanted to talk about it. How awful.

[Celerity]

2. Multiple parts of the New Deal discriminated against blacks as well

https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3447

Until the New Deal, blacks had shown their traditional loyalty to the party of Abraham Lincoln by voting overwhelmingly Republican. By the end of Roosevelt's first administration, however, one of the most dramatic voter shifts in American history had occurred. In 1936, some 75 percent of black voters supported the Democrats. Blacks turned to Roosevelt, in part, because his spending programs gave them a measure of relief from the Depression and, in part, because the GOP had done little to repay their earlier support.

Still, Roosevelt's record on civil rights was modest at best. Instead of using New Deal programs to promote civil rights, the administration consistently bowed to discrimination. In order to pass major New Deal legislation, Roosevelt needed the support of southern Democrats. Time and time again, he backed away from equal rights to avoid antagonizing southern whites; although, his wife, Eleanor, did take a public stand in support of civil rights.

Most New Deal programs discriminated against blacks. The NRA, for example, not only offered whites the first crack at jobs, but authorized separate and lower pay scales for blacks. The Federal Housing Authority (FHA) refused to guarantee mortgages for blacks who tried to buy in white neighborhoods, and the CCC maintained segregated camps. Furthermore, the Social Security Act excluded those job categories blacks traditionally filled.

The story in agriculture was particularly grim. Since 40 percent of all black workers made their living as sharecroppers and tenant farmers, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) acreage reduction hit blacks hard. White landlords could make more money by leaving land untilled than by putting land back into production. As a result, the AAA's policies forced more than 100,000 blacks off the land in 1933 and 1934. Even more galling to black leaders, the president failed to support an anti-lynching bill and a bill to abolish the poll tax. Roosevelt feared that conservative southern Democrats, who had seniority in Congress and controlled many committee chairmanships, would block his bills if he tried to fight them on the race question.

snip

[malaise]

3. And many would prefer to bury that sordid racist history

so it can be reintroduced

[Mister Ed]

35. Aye, so it can be reintroduced.

That's a great point, and one that had never occurred to me until you brought it to my attention just now.

Until this moment, I thought that right-wingers just wanted to bury the racist aspects of history because it's a shameful truth that they'd rather not contemplate. But it's much more than that, isn't it? They know that "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it", and they want it all forgotten so they can get busy repeating it.

Thank you for providing me with this epiphany. I will carry it in the forefront of my mind.

[malaise]

38. Over these years more than a few of them have promoted the view that slaves were happy singing folks

There’s a reason why slave laws still exist. Four states removed them from their constitutions but not Louisiana.
This was last year
https://lailluminator.com/2022/11/17/the-story-behind-why-louisiana-voted-against-a-ban-on-slavery/

Last week, Louisiana voters struck down an amendment to its constitution that would have prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude.

The four other states where slavery was on the ballot – Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont – approved similar referenda. Louisiana was put in the national spotlight for rejecting the change.

Trevor Noah did an entire sketch on “The Daily Show,” mocking Louisiana for voting “against ending slavery.” Correspondent Roy Wood Jr., who is Black, pretended to stand just over the state’s border, joking, “I’m safer here in Mississippi, which is something no Black man has ever said.”

[Mister Ed]

40. That's stunning, and I hadn't known it.

I have to thank you again for providing me with additional education.

[malaise]

41. You DUers educate me daily

It’s all good😀

[Tetrachloride]

4. G.I. Bill wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill

[Silent Type]

6. Here's a discussion in Snopes. It was not the GI Bill, itself, it was racism,

discrimination, colleges that wouldn’t accept Blacks, banks wouldn’t lend for homes in predominantly Black areas, job discrimination, etc., that kept these veterans from benefitting.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/black-world-war-ii-vets-gi-bill/

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter why it happened. It did and it’s negatively impacted generations.

Those days are what GOPers mean by good ole days, MAGA, etc.

[LAS14]

9. Thanks! nt

[doc03]

7. Nope never knew that. nt

[LAS14]

8. Please see my edit to the OP. nt

[EYESORE 9001]

10. That sounds suspiciously like critical race theory

You really are a rabble-rouser, aren’t you?

We’re still fighting these battles today, thanks to resurgent Jim Crow repression at the ballot box and a host of evils advanced in the name of ‘states’ rights’. Segregationists in Congress ensured that administration of the GI Bill benefits resided with the states, where some aspects of the program were discarded altogether because it would help black veterans disproportionately. They didn’t care that white veterans were harmed as well. Pure-D evil.

I’ve read discussion of reparations for descendants of black veterans who were disenfranchised from sharing in the postwar economy and chance to generate wealth. I stand four square behind those efforts.

[LAS14]

19. Did you see the update to my OP? Just wondering...

...which part was rabble rousing.

[EYESORE 9001]

23. I was a feeble attempt at humor

I admire what you’ve accomplished.

[uponit7771]

11. IINM Blacks got the GI but not the benefit from it like houses and education

[RKP5637]

12. To Herr DeSantis, gov. of FL, this is WOKE and must be eliminated in all schools and

minds. We must bury this, it might make White Nationalists uncomfortable to hear this happened.

[Johnny2X2X]

13. Redlining

Don’t forget redlining. Had a massive effect on generational wealth transference.

My own city, Grand Rapids, had a long history with redlining that still has deep effects all over town. A local news agency did a great multi story series on it in February. This stuff was still going on to at least some degree into recent decades. And even today, real estate agents discriminate against minorities.

[Celerity]

14. Parts of the Government DID wilfully racially discriminate as official policy (at your own link) in

regards to the GI Bill:

In an interview with NPR, Richard Rothstein, the author of the book "The Color Of Law: A Forgotten History Of How Our Government Segregated America," described in more detail how entrenched racism in other government agencies affected Black people:



Furthermore, white job counselors at local employment offices across the country refused to refer Black veterans for skilled or semi-skilled jobs, even though many of them came back from the war as fully trained mechanics, welders, electricians, and more.

Given that an overwhelming majority of Black veterans who fought in World War II were not able to benefit from the GI Bill of Rights, and were excluded from accessing it through a combination of racism, exclusionary federal and state law, and poor implementation, we rate this claim as “Mostly True.”

[IbogaProject]

24. It started w Wilson

His administration made a separate pay scale for African Americans under whatever was the name used.

[mgardener]

15. I was taught it in high school in the 70's

[Retrograde]

16. Specific exclusion, or

de facto exclusion? Was it like the original Social Security programs, that didn't apply to agricultural or domestic workers at first? While the results may be the same, from reading the previous posts it seems that the exclusion was more on the part of the institutions - banks and colleges - that administered the program rather than the bill itself.

[JudyM]

17. Rec. Important post and thread of comments.

Thanks for posting.

The GI Bill helped my father… he wouldn’t have been able to afford college otherwise and he continued on beyond that (ABD), enriching his life. He was grateful for the GI Bill. He also felt passionately about donating to the United Negro College Fund from early on… he was a Republican but saw the inequality and felt strong empathy. We didn’t discuss the racist aspects of the postwar economy, specifically, but I wonder now if his focus was in part because he witnessed the GI Bill-associated inequities.

[PurgedVoter]

18. And now gentrification has destroyed a lot of small black communities.

White folk moving in and destroying the neighborhood. With the mcmansions going up and property taxes matching with the bubble in my area, a community here in Texas once considered one of the cheapest places to live in the United States, is off all lists having to do with affordability.

The systemic injustice isn't just something that happened when we were young or before we were born. It's been part of planning the whole time. The rich won't continue getting bigger and bigger slices of the pie unless the pie keeps getting cut up. It's racism but its also a systemic attack on the bottom fifty percent. Probably the bottom 90 percent, but as they get above the bottom fifty, a lot of folk start blaming the bottom fifty for their financial fears.

[Hamlette]

20. my favorite outrage re: veterans

during the Vietnam war, many young men tried to avoid the draft by claiming they were gay even if you were not (you couldn't join if you were gay). So they declared that on their application. The government then required you provide evidence from 2 of your partners and a shrink. At that time, it was a bridge too far and few were able to meet the requirements for an exemption for being gay and were drafted and served their time, many of them in Vietnam.

When those men were discharged, the government went back and if you had said on your application you were gay, even though you had served, you were denied all benefits. the GI bill and otherwise and given a dishonorable discharge.

[Hamlette]

21. one more outrage re: gays

Hitler sent gays to concentration camps with a specific sentence, usually many many years.

When the war was over, the US and Western European countries decided any gays who survived the camps should serve out their sentences and were sent to prison in Great Britain to complete their sentences.

Makes me boil.

[Ford_Prefect]

22. The GI bill was effectively neutral but was applied under existing discriminatory laws and practices

What's True
While a few Black veterans were able to benefit from housing and education opportunities granted by the GI Bill of Rights, the vast majority of Black veterans were excluded from such benefits due to nationwide racism and discrimination against Black people. However ...

What's False
Black veterans were not meant to be excluded from the GI Bill — existing discriminatory laws and implementation ensured they were. Not all Black veterans were excluded, though all of them faced numerous challenges getting their benefits due to racism.

[moniss]

25. This happened

in all areas of government programs like the Department of Agriculture. Programs meant to give assistance to farmers "somehow" had low participation by black farmers. Not a low number of applications on a percentage basis but rather a low number that got processed through and approved. "Somehow" the paperwork was always lost or this thing or that needed to be "evaluated". Or an application would drag on so that that the crop year came and went and so your old application was moot.

[ancianita]

26. Only after civil rights days, during my time teaching in 98% Black high schools, did I learn this.

I wasn't certified to teach history, so wasn't aware that it might or might not have been in history books. But I am pretty sure it's in all African American history books that my students read, or at least was conveyed in their history classes, since they were the ones who mentioned it to me on several occasions.

Now I've just assumed that it's now common knowledge. Guess not.

[calimary]

27. Disgraceful!

And I’m another one only learning about it at this late date.

[ShazzieB]

28. *raises hand*

Yeah, I just learned about it recently as well.

[LoisB]

29. I thought everyone knew this. Did you also know that Social Security originally excluded

agricultural and domestic workers? In 1935, what group of citizens were farm workers and maids? Three guesses and the first two don't count.

[Kaleva]

30. 75% of agriculture workers in 1930s were white

Scroll down to table 1

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n4/v70n4p49.html

Where did you get your info from?

[LoisB]

31. Please forgive my poorly worded statement. I should have said that the majority of Black people

at the time were either agricultural workers or domestic workers therefore a greater percentage of that population would have been excluded.
https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n4/v70n4p49.html#:~:text=The%201935%20act%20limited%20its,were%20farm%20and%20domestic%20workers.

[Kaleva]

34. Thanks for the clarification! I agree with the point you are making.

[LoisB]

36. Thank you. Sometimes I tend to think others always know what I mean. Thank you for pointing

out my unclear statement.

[Evolve Dammit]

32. Another example of historic racism. I did not know that. Really sucks after you served.

[meadowlander]

33. I only learned about it because I did a course on urban planning and policy ethics.

Should be standard high school curriculum.

It's a fascinating subject though - how what seems like innocuous zoning decisions can be arrayed against whole communities like the Catholics in Northern Ireland and the Palestinians in Israel.

[kimbutgar]

37. My Dad was in a specialized training program in world war 2 for African Americans who scored

High on an aptitude test. He was sent to Howard University to do a trading program for African American leadership in the “ colored” units. When my Dad returned to his home town after the war he saw his white friends who he grew up with and who had served get those GI Loans for college and home mortgages but he was excluded. Fast forward years later the group started having yearly reunions and called themselves the Promethean’s. Despite having so many obstacles the majority went on to become doctors, lawyers, civil servants and lived middle class lives. I heard about this when I attended a reunion with my Dad when I was 19 years and it pissed me off.

[TigressDem]

39. I knew about Red Lining by banks that would keep blacks and other minorities from getting bank loans

BUT did not realize that even if you HAD the GI Bill that you couldn't get the money for a home loan.

I guess it should have made sense that even if you could get the VA benefits for college tuition if the college didn't let someone in because of race, it was still an issue.

BUT were some states not even allowing vets to use GI Bill at traditional black colleges?

IF the college would accept it, was there STILL a way to deny the GI Bill benefit?

Did the States simply with hold the benefits completely or was it more the outside structure of racism that made the GI Bill moot?