WWII - Wartime Experiences (Lesson)

Wartime Experiences

Photograph of instructions to Japanese Americans for relocation.

The March on Washington

Although opportunities for African Americans did increase during the 1930s and 1940s, they still faced discrimination. The United States military remained segregated or separated based on race. While African Americans could serve, their roles were limited to non-combat early in the war. As the war progressed African Americans were able to fight alongside their white counterparts; however they still served in segregated units unlike other minorities who were integrated. Many African Americans argued the ironic fate of fighting the threat against democracy in Europe when they and their families were limited in their own civil liberties at home.

A. Philip Randolph by John Bottega, NYWTS staff photographer, United States Library of Congress On the home front, African Americans again moved north in an extension of the Great Migration to see jobs at northern factories. When they arrived in northern cities, African Americans once again faced discrimination over manufacturing jobs and racial tension rose in those communities. A. Philip Randolph, a labor leader with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a distinctly African American labor group, urged President Roosevelt to intervene. In 1941, Randolph and other leaders began to organize the March on Washington to raise awareness about discrimination and equal rights. Fearing violence as well as potential fascist propaganda that could result from the March on Washington, Roosevelt chose to meet with Randolph and other African American leaders. The result of this meeting was Executive Order 8802 issued by Roosevelt to prohibit discrimination at any facility where government funds were being used—basically prohibited discrimination in factories that received federal funds for war production. This order set the precedent for future civil rights legislative efforts and for production efforts for the eventual war.

Japanese Internment

During the war steps were taken to control immigrants under suspicion of espionage and sabotage. Immigrants from Germany, Italy and Japan were required to register in 1940 to an immigration list. When war broke out in 1941, the government made attempts to detain immigrants registered. While some immigrants were detained, on the West Coast of the United States and Hawaii widespread fear prompted President Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 9066 which called for the indiscriminate internment or imprisonment of all persons of Japanese ancestry. Over 100,000 Japanese Americans were taken from the West Coast and Hawaii and relocated to internment camps throughout the United States. These Americans lost their jobs, homes and businesses as a result of their captivity. When the war ended, most of them were not able to return to normalcy they once enjoyed before the war. While the United States Supreme Court upheld their internment in the ruling of Korematsu v. United States, the United States Congress authorized reparation payments of $20,000 to each Japanese American who was placed in an internment camp in the 1988 Civil Liberties Act.

On left - Japanese Americans boarding a bus to a relocation camp. By Dorothea Lange - U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public Domain On right - Owner of a grocery store places “I am American” sign in storefront following Pearl Harbor but is later relocated to an internment camp. By Dorothea Lange , The United States Library of Congress, Public Domain

Map Japanese American Internment Camps

Map of Japanese Internment Camps by National Park Service Map - Public Domain


Which case was it?

Below you'll find 2 Supreme Court Cases. Drag the green lined boxes in the middle to the correct case they are describing.

JAPANESE RELOCATION NOTICE BY US GOVERNMENT-NARA, PUBLIC DOMAIN