TOPIC 7.12 World War II: Mobilization

WW2: Broken Promises, The GI Bill, and REsistance

KC-7.3.III.C.i Mobilization provided opportunities for… minorities to improve their socioeconomic positionS…while also leading to debates over racial segregation…

Objective 1: Students will evaluate the extent to which the War provided opportunities for socioeconomic advancement to the Black community.

Objective 2: Students will be able to describe Black resistance movements to Jim Crow and the government’s refusal to live up to its wartime promises.

This Key Concept in an Antiracist classroom:

Yet you say we’re fighting for democracy, Then why don’t democracy Include me?… How long I got to fight BOTH HITLER – AND JIM CROW” - Langston Hughes

“There was no greater instrument for widening an already huge racial gap in postwar America than the GI Bill.”- Historian Dr. Ira Katznelson

One of the most important antiracist lessons is that modern racial disparities and the large wealth gap are not normal nor are they the outcome of a natural process. White middle-class wealth is largely a byproduct of government policies, especially in the World War 2 era, that were extended to white families but denied to Black families. This lesson will show how Black heroes of World War Two were systematically left out of postwar economic growth. This challenges the simplistic College Board key concept on the topic.

Trufiktion:

This lesson was created with the help of fantastic resources from Steph Manuel, founder of TrueFiktion. TrueFiktion is an ed-tech company that uses comics, curriculum, and community to deliver learning experiences around the untold stories of marginalized groups. TrueFiktion exists to humanize marginalized groups' history and helps students, teachers, and adults understand how to improve our society. Reflecting on his own education, Manuel was frustrated by the lack of diverse stories in history education and partnered with award-winning comic artists to bring history to life.

Notes

The powerful comics from TruFiktion will help to “hook” the students before they use the work of historians Dr. Joe William Trotter Jr. and Dr. Ira Katznelson to critically assess the claims made by the College Board about the War’s uplifting impact on Black communities.

These materials can be used in a short 30-minute partial lesson so that other class business can be attended to, or can be extended to fill an entire hour (with an addition of a thesis throwdown among other things). The materials in this lesson are also designed for students to be able to guide themselves along through most of the material on their own before an important whole class processing discussion.

Make sure to make a copy of the Slides and TruFiktion comic available to your students!