Skip to Main Content

Home Front Battles: World War II Mobilization and Race in the Deep South

Online ISBN:
9780197655641
Print ISBN:
9780197655610
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Home Front Battles: World War II Mobilization and Race in the Deep South

Charles C. Bolton
Charles C. Bolton

Professor of History and former Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences

University of North Carolina-Greensboro
Find on
Published online:
23 May 2024
Published in print:
27 May 2024
Online ISBN:
9780197655641
Print ISBN:
9780197655610
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

Home Front Battles focuses on World War II mobilization and the battles it sparked in the Deep South. Economic mobilization reshaped agriculture and ushered in a new wave of industrialization. Rural migrants flocked to the new businesses, where they encountered an unfamiliar world of work. As war towns boomed, they faced a host of difficulties. Although the federal government tried to help solve these social problems, those efforts were only partly successful. One of the primary home front battles during World War II occurred along the color line. With the creation of the Fair Employment Practices Committee (1941) and the passage of the Selective Training and Service Act (1940), the federal government promoted the ideal of nondiscrimination as part of its mobilization efforts. In the Deep South, where race relations operated in an openly discriminatory manner, federal nondiscrimination directives and southern tradition clashed in war industries and in and around military camps. White politicians in the Deep South—ranging from the liberal Georgia governor Ellis Arnall to Theodore Bilbo, the reactionary US senator from Mississippi—disagreed about the long-term impact of wartime mobilization. At the same time, African Americans mobilized to change the southern system of race relations. The fight for Black rights culminated with the elections of 1946—when Black men and women in the Deep South tried to vote on a scale unprecedented in the twentieth century. White Southerners, however, closed ranks to beat back the effort with tactics ranging from intimidation to violence.

Contents
Close
This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Close

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

View Article Abstract & Purchase Options

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Close