SA wrote:
> I'd be interested in hearing an explanation of how the Cold War influenced Truman's decision on desegregating the armed forces.
If I'm remembering right, I read it in a book by the late economist Lynn Turgeon. It must have been State and Discrimination: The Other Side of the Cold War (Sharpe, 1989).
Doug
^^^^^ CB: Also, in the 20's, 30's and 40's, many US Communists were so outstanding in the double sense, including , whites who literally stood out somewhat alone from other whites as anti-racist activists and militants, that many white people who were anti-racist militants were stereotyped and accused as Reds or Communists by racists and anti-Communists. The flip side of this pattern was expressed in the saying "scratch a redbaiter and find a racehater". White Communists had earned by their activism and militancy a generally accepted, by both Negroes and racists, sense of some level of alliance between Communist and anti-racist struggles.
So, part of the answer to the above is that Truman was responding to the pattern of many years of "domestic" representatives of the "international Communist conspiracy, comrades of the Soviet Union" having the reputation as the fiercest, most vigorous, courageous, _white_ fighters against racism. He was trying to compete with the CPUSA on the issue of fighting racism, lynching, job discrimination, segregation/Jim Crow.
Another factor in the issue here might be sort of the opposite of the Cold War, i.e the fact that the Soviet Union and the US were allies in WWII. So, domestic Communists were the champions of fighting racism and the international Communists were our allies , comrades in arms, against fascist and Nazi racism. Truman was trying to compete with both domestic and foreign Communist high standards of anti-racism.