by Gerald Horne
49 Major General B. K. Yount to Chief, Training and Operations Division, 5 October 1940, 145.93–80, 145.93–92, Jan. 1936–Apr. 1936, June 1941–Sept. 1941, Air Force Historical Research Agency.
50 “Negroes in AAF,” n.d., circa 1956, K239.0441–1, K239.046–9, 1910–1960, 1956, Air Force Historical Research Agency.
51 William Varner to Hons. John Bankhead and Lister Hill, 23 April 1941, 145.93–80, 145.93–92, Jan. 1936–Apr. 1936, June 1941–Sept. 1941, Air Force Historical Research Agency.
52 Petition to Hons. John Bankhead and Lister Hill, 21 April 1941, 145.93–80, 145.93–92, Jan. 1936–Apr. 1936, June 1941–Sept. 1941, Air Force Historical Research Agency.
53 Lieutenant Colonel William Maxwell to Commanding General, 7 April 1941, 145.93–80, 145.93–92, Jan. 1936–Apr. 1936, June 1941–Sept. 1941, Air Force Historical Research Agency.
54 Report by Dr. Lawrence Kubie, 28 September 1943, 141.281–20, 141–0281–37K, 1945, Air Force Historical Research Agency.
55 Oral History, Benjamin O. Davis, January 1973, K239.0512–914, c. 1, 1016304, Air Force Historical Research Agency.
56 Release, ANP, July 1944, Reel 28, #1108, Part I, Series A.
57 Release, ANP, July 1944, Reel 28, #973, Part I, Series A.
58 Release, ANP, July 1944, Reel 28, #1054, Part I, Series A. On the Republic of New Africa, see Robert Sherrill, We Want Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama Right Now—We Also Want Four Hundred Billion Dollars Back Pay: These Are the Demands of the Republic of New Africa, a Growing Movement to Form a Black Nation within the United States (Chicago: Esquire, 1968), University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
59 Release, ANP, July 1944, Reel 28, #1079, Series I, Part A.
60 Release, ANP, September 1944, Reel 29, #435, Part I, Series A.
61 Oral History, Lee Archer, 13 March 2001, K239.0512–2580, 01156065, Air Force Historical Research Agency.
62 Memorandum from Britain, unclear correspondent, received 21 June 1943, 527.755, 527.7771 A, Dec. 1944–May 1945, 6 July 1943–15 Dec. 1943, Air Force Historical Research Agency.
63 Major General Henry J. F. Miller to Commanding General, 13 July 1943, 519.758–519.77151, Aug. 1942–July 1945, 1943–1945, Air Force Historical Research Agency.
64 Rudolph Dunbar to Claude Barnett, 20 November 1944, Box 200, Folder 1, Barnett Papers, Chicago History Museum.
65 Rudolph Dunbar to Claude Barnett, 28 November 1940, Box 200, Folder 1, Barnett Papers, Chicago History Museum.
66 Rudolph Dunbar to Claude Barnett, 20 November 1945, Box 200, Folder 1, Barnett Papers, Chicago History Museum.
67 Rene McColl, British Press Service, to Claude Barnett, 29 December 1942, Box 201, Folder 4, Barnett Papers.
68 Release, ANP, October 1944, Reel 29, #572, Part I, Series A.
69 R. G. Hersey, Adjutant General’s Office, War Department, Washington, D.C., to Commanding General, 14 February 1942, 519.758–519–77151, Aug. 1942–July 1945, 1943–1945, Air Force Historical Research Agency.
70 Cf. Richard Durham, “Negro Scientists Help to Split the Atom,” Chicago Defender, 18 August 1945, 1: “Many Negro workers get jobs at Tenn. Atom Bomb Plant. . . . A number of Negroes held highly technical positions in the vast plant near Knoxville.” In the same issue it was reported that “the highest ranking Japanese soldier captured in this war was taken prisoner . . . by Negro soldiers.”
71 “Clergy Calls Atomic Bombing Both Blessing and Curse,” Washington Afro-American, 18 August 1945, 1. See also Vincent J. Intondi, African Americans against the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Colonialism and the Black Freedom Movement (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), 1.
72 Hughes, “Simple and the Atomic Bomb.”
73 George Schuyler, “Views and Reviews,” Pittsburgh Courier, 8 August 1945, 7.
74 Dower, War without Mercy, 9.
75 Robert L. Bennett to Dear Dad, 26 August 1945, Robert L. Bennett Letters.
76 Release, ANP, October 1949, Reel 41, #814, Part I, Series B.
77 Release, ANP, May 1946, Reel 32, #1214, Part I, Series B.
78 Release, ANP, June 1954, Reel 54, #884, Part I, Series B, Barnett Papers.
79 Claude A. Barnett to Harry V. Richardson, President, Gannon Theological Seminary, Atlanta, 10 August 1954, Reel 1, #90, Subject Files on Black Americans, Series I: Race Relations.
80 Release, ANP, 6 April 1955, Reel 56, #986, Part I, Series B.
81 Release, ANP, 5 December 1956, Reel 61, #599, Part I, Series B.
82 Horne, The End of Empires.
Chapter 8. Aftermath
1 William Yardley, “Rights Activist Who Befriended Malcolm X, Dies at 93,” New York Times, 5 June 2014, B19; Diane Fujino, Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005).
2 Revilo Oliver, “The Black Muslims,” 1963, Vertical File, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg; Horne, Paul Robeson.
3 Gerald Horne, Communist Front? The Civil Rights Congress, 1946–1956 (London: Associated University Press, 1988).
4 Release, ANP, May 1957, Reel 62, #767, Part I, Press Releases.
5 Release, ANP, February 1958, Reel 64, #674, Part I, Press Releases.
6 Release, ANP, 21 September 1960, Reel 71, #676, Part I, Series C, Barnett Papers.
7 Release, ANP, August 1959, Reel 68, #397, Part I, Press Releases.
8 Release, ANP, 14 August 1963, Reel 80, #252, Part I, Series C. Interestingly, in New Zealand, bias against the Maoris gave rise to the Ratana Movement in the era of World War I apparently. It was based on Christianity but was fervently pro-Tokyo. Horne, Race War!, 161–62.
9 Release, ANP, 25 November 1963, Reel 81, #66, Part I, Series C.
10 Quoted in Roger Baldwin, Race Relations in International Affairs (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs, 1961), Box 168, Folder 1, Barnett Papers, Chicago History Museum.
11 Release, ANP, January 1953, Reel 51, #752, Part I, Series B.
12 Homer A. Jack, “Bandung: An On-the-Spot Description of the Asian-African Conference, Bandung, Indonesia, April 1955,” University of South Carolina, Columbia. See also Brian Russell Roberts and Keith Foulcher, eds., Indonesian Notebook: A Sourcebook on Richard Wright and the Bandung Conference (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016); and Kweku Ampiah, The Political and Moral Imperatives of the Bandung Conference of 1955: The Reactions of the U.S., U.K., and Japan (Kent, U.K.: Global, 2007).
13 Kimberley L. Phillips, War! What Is It Good For? Black Freedom Struggles and the U.S. Military from World War II to Iraq (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012); Lawrence Allen Eldridge, Chronicles of a Two-Front War: Civil Rights and Vietnam in the African American Press (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2011).
14 Claude Barnett to General Julius Holmes, 14 February 1955, Box 208, Folder 1, Barnett Papers.
15 Release, ANP, 24 July 1963, Reel 80, #88, Part I, Series C, Barnett Papers. The “victor’s justice,” as exemplified by the war crimes trials of Japanese leaders, also inevitably altered the sentiment in Tokyo toward African Americans. See, e.g., Yuma Totani, Justice in Asia and the Pacific Region, 1945–1952: Allied War Crimes Prosecutions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
16 Release, ANP, 14 August 1963, Reel 80, #301, Part I, Series C.
17 Senator Bilbo to F. L. Dusenbery of New Orleans, circa 1945, Box 1084, Bilbo Papers.
18 Senator Bilbo to Ensign L. D. Jameson, 18 September 1945, Box 1084, Bilbo Papers.
19 See, e.g., Stuart Wexler and Larry Hancock, Killer King: The Multi Year Effort to Murder MLK (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2013); Clive Webb, Rabble Rousers: The American Far Right in the Civil Rights Era (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010). See his obituary, New York Times, 29 April 2005. See also Stuart Wexler and Larry Hancock, The Awful Grace of God: Religious Terrorism, and the Unsolved Murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2012).
20 J. B. Stoner to Senator Bilbo, 2 February 1944, Box 1084, Bilbo Paper
s.
21 Marquis Childs, “Washington Calling: West Coast Terror,” Washington Post, 24 May 1945, 6. See also Newsletter of the U.S. Department of the Interior, War Relocation Authority, Southern California Area Release Number 77, 8 October 1945, Box 1, McWilliams Collection: “A new outbreak of threats, intimidations, prejudice, discrimination and violence has taken place in Northern California Communities against returning Americans of Japanese descent, . . . shootings, incendiarism and vandalism. . . . These incidents may be the prelude to a program instigated by the residuary legatees of the late Adolph Hitler’s followers in the United States.” In the same collection, Box 2, see also “Community Analysis Report, No. 13, June 6, 1945. Prejudice in Hood River Valley”: “lengthening list of shooting into evacuee homes and destruction of evacuee property. . . . pattern of violence and lawlessness.” This was a continuation of the prewar pattern, as “white landowners in the area resented the better economic position and land buying activities of the Japanese.” It does appear that fear of falling behind economically was a force driving Euro-American racism targeting Japanese and Japanese Americans. In Box 3 of this collection, see War Relocation Authority, “Weekly Press Review, Week Ending March 23, 1943”: Congressman Henry Jackson of the state of Washington claimed that these two discrete Asian groups “controlled much of the hotel and restaurant business although always there was a white manager who would front for them. . . . They forced out their white competitors in the fruit and vegetable business. . . . There was a society within a society and a race within a race.” See also in same collection, Box 6: William Swain, “Sneak Attack: On Americans—by Americans,” April 1945: “In 1941, the year before Pearl Harbor, Japanese produce dealers in Los Angeles reported a gross business of about $30,000,000. In 1942, the year after Pearl Harbor, Los Angeles people paid about $50,000,000 for 10,000 carloads less of produce. The business in 1942 was wholly in the hands of Caucasian Americans because the Oriental Americans—citizen Japs and alien Japs together—had been [interned].”
22 J. A. Watkins to Senator Bilbo, 6 April 1945, Box 1090, Bilbo Papers.
23 Release, ANP, January 1948, Reel 36, #852, Part I, Press Releases.
24 Release, ANP, August 1959, Reel 68, #230, Part I, Series B.
25 Release, ANP, February 1952, Reel 47, #1139, Part I, Series B.
26 Charles Krause to Senator Bilbo, 3 June 1945, Box 1090, Bilbo Papers.
27 Senator Bilbo to J. N. Wiggo, 10 May 1944, Box 1067, Bilbo Papers.
28 Senator Bilbo to Grover Brewer, 13 December 1945, Box 1067, Bilbo Papers.
29 Luscious Casey to Senator Bilbo, 12 December 1945, Box 1090, Bilbo Papers.
30 Grover Brewer to Senator Bilbo, 5 December 1945, Box 1090, Bilbo Papers.
31 Release, ANP, November 1948, Reel 39, #196, Part I, Series B.
32 For a radical endorsement of the internment, see Michelle Malkin, In Defense of Internment: The Case for “Racial Profiling” in World War II and the War on Terror (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2004): African Americans should pay close attention to this endorsement. See also Scott Kurashige, The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); and Valerie J. Matsumoto, City Girls: The Nisei Social World in Los Angeles, 1920–1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
33 Indictment, International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Album: Trial of Major Japanese War Criminals . . . Tokyo, Japan, 1946–47, University of Georgia, Athens.
34 Release, ANP, March 1946, Reel 32, #764, Part I, Press Releases.
35 Clipping, April 1946, Reel 2, #859, Part III, Subject Files on Black Americans, Barnett Papers.
36 Edwin C. Gregory to “Dear Senator,” 4 August 1946, Box 1067, Bilbo Papers.
37 Release, ANP, February 1949, Reel 40, #18, Part I, Series B.
38 Robert L. Bennett to Dearest Family, 6 September 1946, Robert L. Bennett Letters.
39 Robert L. Bennett to Dearest Family, 17 September 1946, Robert L. Bennett Letters.
40 Release, ANP, October 1946, Reel 33, #1156, Part I, Press Releases, Barnett Papers.
41 Release, ANP, September 1946, Reel 33, #966, Part I, Press Releases.
42 Release, ANP, December 1946, Reel 34, Part I, Press Releases.
43 Clipping, circa 1946, Reel 3, #691, Part III, Subject Files on Black Americans, Series F: Military, Barnett Papers.
44 Release, ANP, July 1947, Reel 34, #88, Part 1, Press Releases.
45 Release, ANP, July 1947, Reel 35, #80, Part I, Press Releases.
46 Release, ANP, November 1947, Reel 36, #227, Part I, Press Releases.
47 Release, ANP, August 1948, Reel 38, #753, Part I, Series A.
48 Release, ANP, May 1948, Reel 37, #860, Part I, Press Releases.
49 Release, ANP, January 1946, Reel 32, #382, Part I, Press Releases.
50 Release, ANP, October 1949, Reel 41, #931, Part I, Series B.
51 Release, ANP, July 1950, Reel 43, #959, Part I, Series B.
52 Release, ANP, October 1950, Reel 44, #488, Part I, Series B.
53 Release, ANP, November 1950, Reel 44, #567, Part I, Series B.
54 Release, ANP, August 1950, Reel 43, #1105, Part I, Series B.
55 Release, ANP, February 1951, Reel 45, #306, Part I, Series B. For more on persecution of Negro soldiers in Korea, see Horne, Communist Front?
56 Release, ANP, January 1952, Reel 3, #354, Part III, Subject Files on Black Americans, Series C, Barnett Papers.
57 Alex Poinsett, associate editor of JET, to American Red Cross, 23 June 1953, Reel 5, #549, Part III, Subject Files on Black Americans, Series E: Medicine, Barnett Papers.
58 Release, ANP, August 1953, Reel 52, #411, Part I, Series B.
59 Charles S. Young, Name, Rank and Serial Number: Exploiting Korean War POWs at Home and Abroad (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 83.
60 Release, ANP, May 1956, Reel 60, #121, Part I, Series B.
61 Release, ANP, April 1951, Reel 45, #757, Part I, Series B.
62 Release, ANP, June 1951, Reel 45, #1136, Part I, Series B.
63 Release, ANP, April 1951, Reel 45, #757, Part I, Series B.
64 Release, ANP, February 1958, Reel 64, #701, Part I, Press Releases.
65 Release, ANP, March 1952, Part I, Series B.
66 Hugh H. Smythe and Mabel M. Smythe, “Report from Japan: Comments on the Race Question,” Crisis, March 1952, 159–64, 160, 161, Box 73, Hugh H. Smythe and Mabel M. Smythe Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
67 Release, ANP, June 1952, Reel 48, #964, Part I, Series B.
68 Release, ANP, October 1955, Reel 58, #374, Part I, Series B.
69 Hugh H. Smythe, “A Note on Racialism in Japan,” American Sociological Review, December 1952, 823–24, Box 73, Hugh H. Smythe and Mabel M. Smythe Papers.
70 Release, ANP, July 1953, Reel 52, #157, Part I, Series B.
71 Release, ANP, June 1957, Reel 63, Part I, Series B.
72 Josephine Baker, Official International Delegate of Propaganda against Racism, League of International Cultural Associations, “Why I Fight Racism,” Tokyo and Osaka, 1954, University of Georgia, Athens.
73 Release, ANP, January 1956, Reel 59, #109, Part I, Series B.
74 Release, ANP, March 1953, Reel 51, #55, Part I, Series B.
75 S. I. Hayakawa, “35th and State: Reflections on the History of Jazz,” Illinois Tech Engineer and Alumnus, May 1945, Box 116, John Steiner Collection, University of Chicago.
76 Leonard Feather, “No Hari-Kari for Hayakawa,” n.d., Box 8, Leonard Feather Papers, University of Idaho, Moscow. This tie between Japan and jazz merits further exploration. When Art Blakey, a famed drummer of African descent, toured Japan in 1962, he declared that this “was the first time I experienced real freedom. . . . We’ve played a lot of countries but never has the whole band been in tears when we left. My wife cried all the way to Hawaii.” See article, 1962, Box 8, Leonard Feather Papers. The spouse and manager of the
jazz giant Charles Mingus echoed this sentiment. “He has a huge following in Japan,” said Sue Mingus; the famed bassist and composer “probably sells more records there than anywhere in the world.” See Interview with Sue Mingus, in Mingus Speaks, ed. John Goodman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 178. The stubborn popularity of jazz in Japan to this very day is a lingering emblem of a past era of solidarity that united Japanese and African Americans. See also Morroe Berger et al., Benny Carter: A Life in American Music, vol. 1 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002), 379–80: “The Japanese are among the world’s most avid record collectors,” notably of jazz,