Twice Forgotten: African Americans and the Korean War, an Oral History

By David P Cline

Book Overview

Journalists began to call the Korean War "the Forgotten War" even before it ended. Without a doubt, the most neglected story of this already neglected war is that of African Americans who served just two years after Harry S. Truman ordered the desegregation of the military. Twice Forgotten draws on oral histories of Black Korean War veterans to recover the story of their contributions to the fight, the reality that the military desegregated in fits and starts, and how veterans' service fits into the long history of the Black freedom struggle.

This collection of seventy oral histories, drawn from across the country, features interviews conducted by the author and his colleagues for their American Radio Works documentary, Korea: The Unfinished War, which examines the conflict as experienced by the approximately 600,000 Black men and women who served. It also includes narratives from other sources, including the Library of Congress's visionary Veterans History Project. In their own voices, soldiers and sailors and flyers tell the story of what it meant, how it felt, and what it cost them to fight for the freedom abroad that was too often denied them at home.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1469664534
• ISBN13: 9781469664538
• Release Date: January 2022
• Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 8.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

An in depth look into another sad legacy in the United States.

This is a very in-depth look into a time not that long ago when the United States was still dealing with what can only be described as mental lockdown of continuing apartheid. This book shows that hardcore mental lock certain (many) American politicians had to be weaned into excepting that African Americans are equal in every way to any other race. An embarrassing time only 75 years ago when our military was still asking its citizens to give up their family life and join an army that considered them inferior to other races. An outstanding book that every American should read because it proves that while it can be written on paper that African Americans were told they were accepted into the fold they were still going to be looked at and treated like less than second citizens and the questioned remained why should they fight for a country that still hated them.