African Americans and the U.S. Military | The History of Black Immigrants to the U.S.

Topic 1

Many of my extended family members have served and presently serve in the U.S. military, a connection that has led to my longstanding curiosity about the vastly important institution and its demographics. If I write a paper about the topic, I would want to explore more closely the complex relationship between African Americans and the U.S. military, specifically in regards to seminal events such as the 1944 passage of the G.I. Bill and the Vietnam War. The two communities have had a long relationship that has been at times disharmonious and at times rather symbiotic. Although two generations ago, African-American troops were banned from fighting alongside their white counterparts, merely two decades later, their proportional representation in the fighting force more than doubled their overall stake in the U.S. population. In the modern day, the overall population of African-Americans in the military has declined since the launching of the War on Terror. However, interestingly, the female population is surging as 31% of female soldiers are black, twice their percentage in the civilian female population.

Some of the questions that I hope to address are:

What are some of the factors leading to such overrepresentation of African Americans?

What has been the role of historically black colleges and their ROTC programs in the ongoing story?

What factors have caused the decline in African-American since the War on Terror?

How has the relationship evolved in the present day and what does this reflect on both communities?

Sources:

Astor, Gerald. Right to Fight: A History of African Americans in the Military. 

     Collingdale, PA: Diane, 1998

Butler, John Sibley, and Charles Moskos. All That We Can Be: Black Leadership

     and Racial Integration the Army Way. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1996.

Cox, Marcus. Segregated Soldiers: Military Training at Historically Black Colleges in the Jim Crow South

Wishlist sources:

• GI Bill documents for Black soldiers
• Internal government materials detailing the military integration strategies
• Documents from the Department of Defense outlining their strategies to recruit and enlist young Black Americans
• Documents between the government and historically black colleges during the Morrill Act

Topic 2

I would like to explore the history of Black immigrants to the United States and their children from various regions of the world, specifically Africa and the Caribbean, and how they define their identities as Black American citizens. I feel like in a nation that has been and continues to be so drastically shaped by immigration, this is one of the aspects that may be overlooked. The infusion of Black immigrants into the Black American culture, and the American culture more broadly, has become an important story to tell with significant consequences, our President being a prime example. In my paper, I would like to look more closely at the communities that these immigrants form, as well as their relationship with the extant Black American communities and cultures. I would also like to compare and contrast their experiences as Black people living in America with those of Black Americans as pertains to subjects such as education, socioeconomics, police brutality, religion, etc. I’m not sure if it would be a hindrance to my research that most of this immigration has occurred within the last 50 years.

Some questions that I would like to address are:

Do these identities tend to be fluid/changing over time or are they somewhat static?

How can the disparity in economic and academic achievement between American Black citizens and those immigrant backgrounds be explained?

How does American society tend to view and treat these immigrants in comparison to American Blacks? Do they see them as one and the same or a more distinct subgroup of Black people living in America?

Sources:

-- Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America by Eugene Robinson

-- Becoming American: Personal Essays of First Generation Immigrant Women by Meri Nana-Ama Danquah

--“Ethnic and Racial Identities of Second-Generation Black Immigrants in New York City” by Mary C. Waters

Wishlist Sources:

• Memoirs/journals written by first generation Black immigrant students
• Demographics of public school populations of Black immigrants 
• Any types of studies done on these populations within the U.S.