1939: Urban Growth, Tuskegee Airmen, and World War II
Big Idea
The advent of World War II changed the landscape of the country and of St. Louis. African American families migrated to cities looking for new jobs and better living conditions all while fighting for increased rights to serve their country as equals to their White countrymen.
World War II
Much as with World War I, African Americans responded to the United States’ entry into the war by volunteering in large numbers. Over 2.5 million African American men registered to serve. Much like with World War I, segregation followed them into the armed forces and Black men and women had to fight for their dignity even as they fought in and supported the war effort. This double fight became known as the “Double V” — victory overseas and victory at home.
"Capt. Wendell O. Pruitt..., one of the leading pilots of the 15th Air Force always makes sure that he leaves his valuable ring with his crew chief, S/Sgt. Samuel W. Jacobs." November 1944. Pruitt was a resident of Saint Louis’ The Ville. Read more about him here.
Source: National Archives, NAID: 535541
“We all were prepared to fight and die for our country, and after the war . . . we were prepared to fight and die for our rights. . . . I think that is the contribution that was made at Tuskegee.”
Tuskegee Airmen
Leading up to World War II, African Americans could not serve as pilots in the armed services. A 1925 war college study had concluded this about Black people, “"The negro… is by nature subservient and believes himself to be inferior to the white man… He can not control himself in the face of danger to the extent the white man can. He has not the initiative and resourcefulness of the white man. He is mentally inferior to the white man” (Moye, 2002, p. 584). This study became the policy of the Armed Forces and kept African Americans from serving in combat units and becoming pilots.
After intense lobbying by Black civil rights activists, then Secretary of War, Harry Stimson, approved a plan to train an all-Black air force and to construct an airbase in Tuskegee, Alabama (Moye, 2002, p. 584).
The Tuskegee airmen and the many African American men and women who supported them represented their strength of dedication to a nation determined to see them as inferior. The Tuskegee Airmen became a rallying point African Americans used to demonstrate their dedication to liberty and patriotism, and to seek to prove (again) their worth, dignity, and equality.
Watch
Watch two short videos about two of the Tuskegee Airmen:
Students
Want to learn more? Watch the video below on the Tuskegee Airmen.
Video about the Tuskegee Airmen from Crash Course Black history.
St. Louis’ Economic Transformation
World War II “also transformed Saint Louis’s economy. The area was becoming fertile ground for emerging industries in electronics, chemicals, aerospace defense, and research and development, particularly as the nation veered toward greater military spending.” (Lang, 2009, p. 75). African American men and women were hired to help in these emerging industries. However, they were often forced to work in segregated units and hired for menial jobs at lower rates.
Housing Shortage and Segregation
With the influx of African American workers came an increased need for housing. St. Louis had few houses to spare for Black people. Despite the expansion of some public housing established to support the massive influx of those contributing to the war effort, Black families were limited to densely populated neighborhoods. (Lang, 2009, p. 73).
Carr Square Village was built specifically to house the incoming African American migrants fleeing the South and looking for work in the new war-time industrial boom. A public-housing project, the city developed Carr Square Village to segregate incoming low-income African American families.
Other areas designated for African American families were the West End near Forest Park, Mill Creek Valley, and The Ville (Lang, 2009, p. 71). Mill Creek Valley in midtown was described as a occupying “the shadows of the Central Corridor skyscrapers and warehouses” (Lang, 2009, p. 71).
Lang noted that the neighborhood of “The Ville had also become an increasingly crowded Black district. Circumscribed by the city’s long history of restricted housing covenants, community residents had also been thwarted in attempts to expand the array of social opportunities available within its segregated boundaries” (p. 71). Yet “between 1940 and 1950, 38,000 migrants came, expanding the number of African Americans to 153,766, or 18 percent, of the city’s populace” (Lang, 2009, p. 72).
Whether it be the community of West End, Mill Creek Valley, or The Ville, Black families were forced to live in overcrowded and under resourced areas of the city.
Community Organizations
As African Americans in St. Louis struggled, community organizations formed and rallied for equal rights and equal pay. These organizations included the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and the March on Washington Movement, as well as local labor unions, such as, Local 688 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (Lang, 2009, p. 14). Together, these organizations made progress against segregation in some areas of workers’ rights, housing, and education.
Your Turn
How did ongoing segregation impact African Americans in St. Louis during the war? How does it still impact them?
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Explore The National Museum of World World II article on “African Americans in World War II.“
Read more about the Tuskegee Airmen from Tuskegee University.
Read about the Tuskegee Airmen from the National Air and Space Museum.
Historical Markers from the NPS.
Read about the Oral History Project associated with Tuskegee here.
Autobiographies by Tuskegee Airmen:
Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.: American: An Autobiography (Smithsonian Institute Press, 2000).
Charles W. Dryden and Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., A-Train; Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman. University of Alabama Press, 2002.
Alexander Jefferson and Lewis H. Carlson, Red Tail Captured, Red Tail Free: Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman and POW (Fordham University Press, 2017).
Harold H. Brown with Marsha S. Bordner, Keep Your Airspeed Up: The Story of a Tuskegee Airman (University of Alabama Press, 2017).
Lt Col Harry T. Stewart Jr. and Philip Hadleman, Soaring to Glory (Regnery Press, 2019).
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Teaching resources on World War II and Race from the National Archives.
Teaching about the Black experience in WWII from the New York Public Library.
Classroom materials from the National World War II Museum. (Middle School)
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Read the experience of an African American School Teacher from Sumner High School in The Ville who was drafted to serve in WWII.
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DuBois, W. E. B. (1969). The souls of Black folk: Essays and sketches. Chicago: McClug.
Hunter, A. G. and Rollins, A. (2015). We Made History: Collective Memory and the Legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen. Special Issue: Psychology, History and Social Justice: The Social Past in the Personal Present. 71 (2) pp. 264-278.
James Jr., R. (2014). The Double V: How Wars, Protest, and Harry Truman Desegregated America’s Military. Bloomsbury Press.
Jefferson, R. A. (2008). Fighting for Hope: African Americans and the Ninety-third Infantry Division in World War II and Postwar America. Johns Hopkins University Press.
——-. (2018). Brothers in Valor: The Battlefield Stories of the 89 African Americans Awarded the Medal of Honor. Lyons Press.
Scott, L. P., & Womack, W. M. (1994). Double V: The civil rights struggle of the Tuskegee Airman. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press.
Wynn, N. A. The African American Experience during World War II. Rowman and Littlefield, 2010.