Because the black hostesses were not allowed to serve without limitations, they decided to leave the club. In December 1943 a decision was reached by the Boston USO Committee and the black USO workers. A new “international” USO club was to be established in the exclusive Back Bay section of the city. The new club was open to all races, and volunteers of any race could work there. College co-eds of various races from nine colleges in the Greater Boston area pledged their support to the club. The women promised at least 200 volunteers would be ready by the time the new club opened in January 1944.
The establishment of the international USO was not a solution to the discrimination problem that existed at the Boston Common USO. While the black USO workers and members of the armed forces were promised a club where discrimination would be absent and which would be located in an exclusive Boston neighborhood, it didn’t solve the problem of racism that existed in the Boston Common USO.
Saving Fat
The enemy knew what they were up against when it came to the force of the American military, but they couldn’t have been prepared for the might of the American housewife. The military draft ensured a ready supply of soldiers. American factories furnished a steady stream of weapons and aircraft. And American housewives put their clout behind volunteer home front conservation efforts.
The American housewife was called upon to scrimp and save every scrap of fabric, paper, cardboard, metal, and even kitchen fat. These materials were taken to government collection centers and recycled into products for war use. Recycled magazines, games, and athletic equipment were used in military camps for leisure activities for the troops. Fabric was used to make military uniforms and parachutes. Recycled metal was used for weapons and aircraft. Paper and cardboard cartons were needed to ship food, medical supplies, and ammunition to the armed forces. And fat and oils were needed for the glycerin they contained. Glycerin was used for making explosives and in ointments for surgical dressings. During the first nine weeks of the nationwide campaign 4.5 million pounds of fat was collected at grocery stores. The Fat Salvage Committee estimated that was enough glycerin for 11,300,000 anti-aircraft shells. The goal was to collect 500 million pounds of fat.
A government agency, the Office of Price Administration (OPA), organized a plan for rationing food in American homes. There was a need for large quantities of food for the fighting armies in war zones and for citizens of warring countries where the production of food had been interrupted by the war. American farmers, workers, and housewives were called upon to help grow, harvest, and conserve food so those who couldn’t produce their own had food. And American housewives stepped up to help. It meant eating and cooking differently—sometimes the usual ingredients were in short supply or not available at all. The OPA set up a system for rationing. They used a points system under which points were assigned to some products. Housewives got ration books from the county ration board. The books contained a limited number of stamps that could be used for the scarce items. Sugar, coffee, and red meat were rationed. Butter, milk, and eggs were also in short supply.
The rationing system could be a little tricky to understand. So in December 1942 black women’s groups volunteered to help housewives understand the process. Representatives from several national black women’s organizations attended a conference in Washington, DC, where they learned about rationing. Thomasina Johnson, Flaxie Pinkett, Elsie Austin, and Ethel Popel Shaw attended the conference and then went back to their communities and taught other women in their women’s clubs about the system.
The Original Illinois Housewives Association existed before World War II but took on new duties after America joined the fight in late 1941. The group’s motto was: “To give a greater knowledge to the housewife which will serve as power for an increased economic independence, that makes for better living.” The organization offered monthly lectures and demonstrations on consumer problems and home economics, as well as a “circulating library” of literature about home economic issues. Consumer clinics were held with lectures, exhibits, and demonstrations on food and nutrition, fabrics and clothing, house furnishings, drugs and cosmetics, health and hospital insurance, savings, and gardens and flowers.
In October 1942, Lillian Le Vine, president of the Original Illinois Housewives Association, called a three-day conference. The theme was “Be prepared for vital war service.” The group was taking on a new phase of war service work that fall and winter. Mothers, wives, sisters, and other female relatives of servicemen and -women were invited to join the organization. And all the group’s board members signed the Consumers’ Pledge for Total Defense, promising to buy carefully, take care of things they had, and waste nothing.
“Good, wholesome food puts the fight in our fighters.” The federal government used catchy sayings such as this on posters and brochures to remind American farmers that they needed to help supply food to the military and to hungry people living in war-torn countries where food was in short supply. Through the US Department of Agriculture’s Food for Freedom program, farmers were encouraged to grow more while using less. The government asked farmers to conserve fuel, machinery, and tires while producing more food with fewer workers. The government told farmers that in just one month the 7.5 million soldiers fighting the war ate a stack of food the size of the 102-story Empire State Building.
Since the increased demand for food directly affected farm families, black farming women played a key role in the war effort. Food production and food conservation were critical areas of focus. And black women on the farms came through for the war effort just as their counterparts in the cities did. Georgia’s black farmers increased their poultry and egg production, enlarged their gardens, preserved fruits and vegetables, planted fruit trees, cured hams, and made lye soap from leftover cooking grease.
Even black women who didn’t normally work on farms volunteered their efforts to help farmers meet the demands for increased food production. Because so many farm laborers had joined the military or gone to work at defense plants, farmers experienced a severe shortage of workers to help plant and harvest the crops. In the South, black wives of doctors, undertakers, teachers, preachers, and storekeepers in one county volunteered to help harvest the peanut crop in 1944. In Fitzgerald, Georgia, a group of women from the Baptist church volunteered to help a recently widowed woman harvest her Victory Garden in 1943. They picked, shelled, and prepared the produce from Ashley Johnson’s farm. Then the volunteers took the produce to the local high school, where it was preserved by canning and dehydrating. The dehydrated food was taken to the community food bank for use in the winter months by families who were in need.
Sherman Coffee’s family was in need of help in the fall of 1944. They operated an 840-acre farm near Frankfort, Kansas. Normally they had plenty of help during the harvest season—there were five sons in the family. But in 1944 those sons were all in the armed forces. When the local community turned out to help the family with the harvest, the appearance of one woman turned heads. Lucile Bluford, managing editor of the Kansas City Call newspaper, had driven 150 miles from Kansas City. She had taken her vacation time to help on the Coffee farm. Although Lucile had no experience in farm work, she drove a wagon as she helped with the threshing and loading of wheat. And she served as the assistant cook.
The Women’s Land Army (WLA) was formed by the federal government in 1943. The goal was to recruit 60,000 women to help farmers throughout the country as they met the demands for food production. The government ran articles in black newspapers, encouraging women to join the WLA. But some states were reluctant to include black women in the WLA. An official in South Carolina explained that they planned to use white women initially—because if they started the program with black women, white women would refuse to join. However, in Arkansas by mid-1944 about 25,000 black women were WLA members.
The Red Cross
For many Americans in the 1940s the Red Cross was a symbol of generosity and goodwill. It was an organization known for its spirit of c
aring and compassion for people in need. But for many black people in the 1940s the admirable work of the Red Cross was overshadowed by its policies of racial discrimination.
The American Red Cross played a vital role during the war, providing aid to members of the armed forces and their families. The agency trained nurse aides to help alleviate the shortage of nurses in hospitals, provided care packages to civilians in war-torn countries and to American prisoners of war in enemy camps, and even followed Allied armies to the war zones. Some individuals in the Red Cross volunteered their time, while others were paid for their work. Many of those who were in paid positions had left successful professions to serve with the Red Cross for the duration of the war. The combined work of the 40,000 paid employees and 7.5 million unpaid volunteers had extraordinary results.
One service provided by the Red Cross was the collection and distribution of blood, which was available to people receiving transfusions in hospitals. The need for blood was great during wartime—especially by military hospitals for soldiers who had been wounded in battle. Americans were encouraged to donate at Red Cross blood banks, and many did. Many black people wanted to give blood to the Red Cross to help wounded soldiers, but the Red Cross would not accept it. The Red Cross defended its policy saying they were acting on orders from the military.
In January 1942 the agency changed its policy and accepted blood from black donors for the first time. Even so, it segregated the blood supplies. “Negro blood” was kept separate from “white blood.” Blood from black donors was carefully labeled to ensure it was used only for black people.
In St. Louis, Missouri, Gabriel Jones and Ellise Davis went through a humiliating experience when they tried to donate blood to a Red Cross blood drive. The two women were workers at an ordnance plant and answered the call for blood when the Red Cross set up a blood bank at the plant. They were especially eager to donate because they had been told that few blacks had contributed to the bank. They were told by the Red Cross representative that their blood would not be labeled “Negro blood.”
On the day of the blood drive the two women were standing in line with their white coworkers as they waited to donate their blood. To their surprise they were pulled from the line and escorted to an isolated room where Red Cross workers were preparing to withdraw their blood. The two women were surprised because Gabriel had talked to a woman at the Red Cross headquarters the day before the drive. At first she was told the Red Cross did not accept blood from blacks. Later she received a call from a woman at the Red Cross headquarters saying they would accept Gabriel’s blood, but she didn’t mention that Gabriel and Ellise would have to go through the experience in a separate area from their white coworkers. After being pulled into the separate room by officials, Gabriel and Ellise refused to give their blood to the Red Cross. They wanted to show their disapproval of the Red Cross segregation policy.
The policy of segregating blood continued because many Americans believed there was a difference between white people’s blood and black people’s blood. Many white people continued their racist beliefs that black people’s blood must be kept separate so that it would not contaminate blood from white people. But even when scientists proved that blood characteristics were not related to race, the Red Cross continued to label blood by race. Finally, in 1950—five years after the end of World War II—the Red Cross stopped the practice.
The Red Cross trained women as volunteer nurse aides all across the country. Black and white women volunteered to “pledge myself before God, to practice my duties as nurses aide faithfully.” And they agreed to fulfill their duties for no pay: “My only recompense will be satisfaction in a deed well done and in knowing that I am making a contribution to civilian defense and to suffering humanity.” Each volunteer completed 80 hours of training and promised to complete at least 150 hours of service per year after her training.
The first “Negro Red Cross Nurse’s Aide Corps” in the state of Texas graduated in April 1943, and its members went to work at Holy Cross Hospital, an “institution for the care of Negro patients” in Austin. In Harlem, New York, Grace Crump Jones was responsible for training the Red Cross volunteers at the hospital. Clerks, housewives, stenographers, factory workers, teachers, and newspaperwomen volunteered to become “the nurse’s extra hand.” Grace taught her first class of 25 volunteers to make beds, give baths, feed the sick, and admit and discharge patients. In Washington, DC, 54 prominent black housewives, civic workers, and community leaders made up the first class of Red Cross volunteer nurse aides at Howard University. After four weeks of lecture and classroom practice the volunteers completed three weeks of hospital probation. After they completed their training they served as assistants to the regular staff nurses in hospitals.
But not all Red Cross offices were open to black volunteers. Marie K. Clarke tried more than once to volunteer for nurse aide training with the Red Cross in Bridgeport, Connecticut. When she turned in an application in February 1942 the local Red Cross office accepted her. But before she began the training, local leaders contacted her and told her she couldn’t enter the current training class because she was black. It was the second time she had offered her services to the Red Cross only to be refused.
Marie appealed the decision to the national office of the Red Cross in Washington, DC. In her letter she wrote, “Is that a democratic stand for a large organization to take? The organization’s work is carried on with Negro’s money. We certainly donate to your campaigns. Why can’t we help to train so that in times of emergency we can do our part?”
An official from the Red Cross gave an explanation for Marie’s rejection: After completing the Red Cross nurse aide training, the nurse aides would serve as volunteers in the hospitals in the city. But none of the Bridgeport hospitals had black nurses. Therefore, there was no need for black nurse aides. The official explained that the Red Cross was acting as an agent of the hospitals in training the volunteers and that the hospitals simply had no need for black aides.
One hospital in Washington, DC, was happy to accept black women who had completed a seven-week Red Cross course for nurse aides in May 1943. The women were government workers and housewives who entered the course expecting to volunteer in local hospitals after they received their certificates. They finished the course and were certified to assist nurses and doctors in the obstetrics and pediatrics departments of local hospitals. A white superintendent of nurses at one hospital gladly accepted the 37 black volunteers. She put them to work immediately—scrubbing floors, cleaning restrooms, and emptying bedpans!
The volunteers walked off the job and refused to return until the superintendent allowed them to assist in the areas in which they had been trained. The superintendent defended her actions, saying that the black volunteer nurse aides’ presence had interfered with the training of “regular” student nurses. A representative for the black volunteers and the hospital officials met to settle the dispute. As a result, the superintendent allowed the black women to perform the duties for which they had been trained.
The Red Cross Overseas
The impressive work of the American Red Cross reached far beyond the cities, towns, and rural areas of America. When the Red Cross followed the American armies into battle at the fronts, black women were there to give their support. And while they may have been ignored by many Americans back home, they were revered by American soldiers across several continents.
In the fall of 1942 the Red Cross sent out a call for black men and women to volunteer for overseas duty. Articles appeared in black newspapers stating: “Help Wanted! Red Cross Seeks Qualified Colored Specialists for Overseas Assignments.” There were black soldiers fighting across the globe, and because white Red Cross workers typically didn’t serve black soldiers—either because they refused to, or because they didn’t have the opportunity to because of segregated facilities—there was a need for black Red Cross workers. There was a need for directors, associate directors, and recreation officers for the Red Cross se
rvice clubs located around the world. Some of the positions were paid positions. Black men and women answered the call. Typically, only men could fill the club directors’ jobs, but women were placed as associate directors and staff assistants.
The first black female Red Cross workers who volunteered for overseas duty arrived in London in October 1942. Henrine Ward, C. Gladys Martin, Magnolia Latimer, Carol Jarrett, and Sydney Taylor Brown won the hearts of the British according to newspaper reports. Their job was to supervise the recreation activities of the black soldiers and to promote good relations between black troops and British citizens. The newly opened Red Cross club they were to work at was a place where soldiers on leave from the front could enjoy wholesome cultural activities.
The staff at the London club was thrilled when in December they had a visit from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Henrine Ward and Carol Jarrett were chosen to escort her to the reception room, where an official committee was waiting to greet her. The First Lady walked through the club chatting with soldiers. Henrine described how she felt that day. “I was thrilled and proud when the First Lady of our land heartily shook my hand 3,000 miles from home. I couldn’t help but realize what a big thing she was doing to come so far to visit our troops and give spirit to those of us who had left home to make our colored warriors comfortable.”
There were three major branches of the Red Cross overseas—service clubs, field services, and clubmobiles. The service clubs were located in urban centers and served men on leave from the battlefield. The clubs had libraries, gyms, and auditoriums for dances. There were pool tables, darts, ping-pong, and pinball machines for use by the soldiers. The clubs had dining halls, and staff served three meals a day. There were beds and showers for the soldiers. The field services branch provided facilities wherever there was a large concentration of troops in remote places. The field services set up facilities near the troops using any buildings they could find—even if they were just huts. But the Red Cross workers rolled up their sleeves and made the facilities comfortable for troops who needed a break from the fighting. The clubmobiles were huge, specially designed “luxury” trucks. They traveled to remote places where soldiers were stationed and where there was no train service. The clubmobiles were outfitted with playing cards, chewing gum, cigarettes, and candy—and doughnuts freshly made by the female Red Cross workers who were assigned to the trucks.
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