#73: Exactly correct. During WWII, Americans in the homeland watching the newsreels or reading about our soldiers fighting would never know minorities were dying for the US. Look at Time or Life magazines from 1942-45, black soldiers, airmen, and sailors are not in any photos.
#75 | Posted by REDIAL at 2025-04-09 05:37 PM
The same thing happened during WWI, only in that case the big hidden group were Native Americans. At that time, Native Americans, who were born on reservations, were not considered to be American citizens. For most Native American men, the easiest way to gain citizenship was to serve in the US military, while Native American women could only gain citizenship by marrying someone who was already a citizen.
Well, during WWI, a significant percentage of the troops serving in France and Belgium were Native Americans and they suffered high casualty rates, which wasn't acknowledged until well after the war, but when it did become more widely known to the public there was a general outcry. Finally, in June 1924 Congress acted and passed the 'Indian Citizenship Act', also known as the 'Snyder Act', which granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States, whether they lived on a reservation or not. However, Native Americans were still denied the right to vote in many states and it wasn't until the 1965 Voting Rights Act that Native Americans were given the full franchise as citizens. But until then, many 'anti-Indian' laws persisted in many parts of the county, with some New England states not only denying Native Americans the right to vote, but also not allowing them to own property nor operating a place of business, well into the 1950's.
OCU
