Consider This from NPR - Black Vets Were Excluded From G.I. Bill Benefits. Congress Could Fix That.

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

The G.I. Bill of 1944 provided free education, unemployment pay and home loans for millions of veterans returning from fighting in World War II. These benefits helped to expand the American middle class after the war.But many returning Black veterans were excluded because of segregation. And that exclusion helped widen the wealth gap between white and Black Americans. A bill in Congress would repair some of that harm by paying reparations to the families of nearly one million Black veterans who served in World War II. NPR's Quil Lawrence spoke with the family of Bill Dabney, who fought in the little known Barrage Balloon Battalion, about what that money would mean to them.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. Even as World War II was still raging on both the European and Pacific fronts, America was already looking for ways to welcome soldiers home whenever the war finally came to an end. The U.S. government was worried about the return of millions of unemployed veterans, specifically about the impact on the nation's economy, an economy that had only just been revived by the war after the Depression. And there was good reason for the returning soldiers to worry too. Just a few decades earlier, many

returning World War I veterans found themselves unable to make ends meet because so many of them flooded the labor market at once, and the government struggled to help them. So this time, the government resolved not to make the same mistake. In the White House at Washington, President Roosevelt approves legislation to provide for America's war veterans in the peace to come. On June 22, 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, more simply known as the GI Bill. It made sure basic opportunities were waiting for soldiers on their return. Americans were determined that this time, the men who fought for their country would find a place in it when they returned. Educational films were released to make sure

each soldier knew what was available to them, including job counseling and unemployment benefits. If they can't find you a job right away, you'll be given $20 a week up to a limit of 52 weeks. By 1949, nearly 9 million veterans had raised their hands for unemployment benefits. The GI Bill also provided millions of vets with the opportunity to go to college. The government pays all of your school bills up to $500 a year and living expenses of $50 a month or $75 a month if you have dependents. By 1947, nearly half of all U.S. college admissions were veterans, and there were loan guarantees for vets who wanted to borrow money for a business or a home. A returning serviceman who was starting his own business

would get a financial boost from the government. Money would be advanced to buy property or a home. As a result, huge chunks of the population swapped out city life for the suburbs. It reshaped America's socioeconomic and political landscape for decades to come. It was all part of that patriotic impulse to make sure no returning American soldier would be left behind. The GI Bill of Rights is not a reward, or a handout, or a gravy train, but rather an American way to make it easier for each man to take his place once again in the community and get some of those things for which he went to war. A job, a business, an education, a home. But some soldiers were left behind.

Black veterans returned home to a country where segregation was still the law in many states. GI Bill benefits were doled out by local and state veterans' administrations, and many banks and universities turned Black vets away. Consider this. The same legislation that expanded the American middle class also excluded many Black veterans and their families from that middle class. It widened the wealth gap between Black and white Americans. Now, a bill in Congress aims to repair some of that harm by paying reparations to families of Black World War II veterans. Coming up, we'll hear the stories of some of those veterans and what the money could mean for their families.

From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly. It's Thursday, October 27th. T's and C's apply. Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. More information at carnegie.org. It's Consider This from NPR. About one million Black veterans served in World War II. Along with being excluded from GI Bill benefits, many were excluded from the history books, including Alan Bo Price, who risked his life on D-Day on Normandy Beach. He told NPR in 2007 that Black vets were largely placed in service

organizations as engineers, quartermasters, or medical corps officers, but some did serve on the battlefield. We had a few infantry, the 92nd and the 93rd. They broke up the 2nd Cavalry unit and sent them to engineers. And then we had the 99th Pursuit Squadron, as you know, the Tuskegee Airmen. And then we had a few black artillery. And one is the 969 field artillery. They call them the Bastogne Bastards. They was up with the 101st and Bastogne. And they did a tremendous job, but you don't ever hear nothing about them. Price said he had no reservations about fighting for America. I felt good by going into the service.

By going into the service, I could help the cause of Afro-Americans. But back home, it was all too clear that Black and white soldiers were not treated the same. Price recalls visiting a Military Post Exchange store, or PX, and a newsstand with other returning Black soldiers from his unit. We came home on a ship, and we landed in Newport News, Virginia. And so we got off the ship and we went to our barracks and signed. So a group of us started over to the PX. And the white MP told us that we could not go into the PX. And then, again, when we got on the train and we stopped in West Virginia at the newsstand,

the fellow didn't want to serve us there. So we had problems all the way. George Brumell served in Vietnam with some Black World War II veterans who told him similar stories. They talked about some of the places that they were not able to go. I remember one gentleman talked about he was from Missouri. And while he was stationed at Fort Lindenwood, Missouri, he was told that African Americans should not be allowed to carry weapons. So he felt not only was he fighting the war during World War II,

but he was also fighting segregation in white America. NPR's Quill Lawrence takes it from here with the story of another World War II veteran who fought in the little-known Barrage Balloon Battalion. When we got to shore, the first thing we did was dig in, dig in in the sand. Bill Dabney fought with the battalion on its first mission, the D-Day landing in Normandy. And the Germans had a plane called the DO-217. Dabney and his men had cables attached to blimps packed with explosives high above, designed to prevent the German planes from strafing the beach where the Americans were landing. That was chute coming down, and when it went up, it was chute that was scraping the beach. So

the main purpose of the balloon was to stop the scraping and protect, you know, the anti-aircraft, the big guns. Still, Dabney said that he and his fellow soldiers were nearly pinned down by German gunfire from the cliffs above the beach. The fire was so heavy up in the mountains from the German side that we was really afraid there at one time. Dabney and the entire brigade were Black. It was a segregated unit, the first to land on Omaha Beach. And I think the highest ranking Black officer was a first lieutenant. And of course, you have white officers that would come around every so often to inspect and whatnot. But my platoon officers, they were black.

Dabney died in 2018, but he told his story to historians at the National World War II Museum. He did not really tell his story to his family back home in Virginia. He never, he didn't talk much about his time overseas. Beulah Dabney married Bill in 1951, and she still lives at their home in Roanoke. Otherwise, he talked very little about it. He didn't keep his uniform or any of those things. In other words, he was through with the service. Like a lot of Black veterans were.

Dabney says her husband came home from Europe, where the French treated him like a hero, to the Jim Crow South. They treated some of the prisoners who were brought to the United States better than they were treating the ex-soldiers, the GIs. And of course, you can imagine how that made them feel. Their son Vinnie Dabney explains. One reason why we never had pictures of my dad in uniform was that coming back from the West Coast, after they had been deployed to go to the Pacific Theater, after they fought all the way through the European Theater, they noticed that they had to ride in the back of the train. But Nazi POWs got to ride in first class in the front of the train. Nazis were getting treated better than Black veterans who had put their lives on the line.

So that kind of pissed my dad off. Returning home, Black veterans quickly learned that just wearing a uniform could be a provocation, says Matthew Delmont, the author of Half American, about Black soldiers in World War II. Eugene Bell, who was the father of two young children and was honorably discharged from the army, was lynched in Liberty, Mississippi. Sam McFadden was taken into custody by a white sheriff and killed in Suwannee County, Florida. Timothy Hood, who was an honorably discharged Marine, was shot and killed by a white streetcar conductor in Bessemer, Alabama. The list goes on. Delmont teaches history at Dartmouth. He says many Black GIs also faced a less violent form of racism, which hit their benefits. The GI Bill was one of

the best pieces of policy that the United States ever created. At least it was for white veterans. The fact that Black veterans weren't able to benefit from the bill in the same way is frankly a disgrace. The GI Bill, with free college and an easy home loan was federal, but administered locally. Segregation was still the law in 18 mostly southern states. In 1950s Roanoke, Virginia, Beulah Dabney and her son Vinny say their family couldn't get a loan. They didn't actually say that they wouldn't give me a loan, but they kept dragging it out. You know, there was always some excuse as to why it didn't go through. Nobody would honor the GI Bill because they were black.

Roanoke had a reputation as being one of the most segregated cities in the South for a long time. No banks would give them a mortgage. The Dabneys eventually found a loan through a black insurance executive they knew. But even then, there was redlining, so the houses they were allowed to buy were in poorer parts of town and worth less. The same goes for the GI Bill's college funds. Many universities wouldn't accept them. For white veterans, it built generational wealth, says Richard Brookshire with the Black Veterans Empowerment Coalition. Black folk were largely locked out of this really important social welfare program.

Because of it, it planted a seed for longstanding economic inequality that persists today. Brookshire's group is getting behind a bill in Congress called the GI Bill Restoration Act that would try to repair some of that harm. Now, Brookshire knows that the word reparations sets off all sorts of heated rhetoric on cable news. Veterans issues are supposed to be above politics, though, he says, and so maybe helping Black veterans can be a beachhead. Black vets are the most well-positioned group to push forward the conversation about reparations in this country, not only because they've been affected, but because of the ways in which, you know, the United States holds up veterans

and what they purport to believe veterans are owed. And so, you know, you kind of force an uncomfortable but necessary conversation. Paying back Black veterans involves a concrete number, not like the vast and calculable harm of slavery. Researchers at Brandeis University found that the amount owed to descendants of a Black World War II veteran is $180,000. Adjusted for today's dollars, that's how much more white veterans got out of the GI Bill compared to black veterans in 1944. Beulah Dabney says, sure, that money would be welcome, but at 93, she won't dwell on it. Probably would have been able to live a little bit better. I mean, financially, we wouldn't have had maybe as many problems as we did, but we were able to overcome

problems that cropped up. I'm not a person who likes to revisit a lot of negative things, so I don't have a whole lot, you know, to say about it. Her son, Vinnie Dabney, says some of the damage was repaired for his dad when he got a call inviting him to return to Normandy 65 years after D-Day. My dad thought it was a gimmick. He didn't want to go. He thought it was somebody pranking him. So I had to talk him into going. I said, Dad, this is historic.

You can't not go. It was quite an event. My dad got the Legion of Honor, which is equivalent to our Medal of Honor. France treated him royally when he went back. And they were very happy to have him come back, showed their appreciation for what he had done. And so, of course, that stirred up a whole lot of memories. And then he started talking more about it. About one million Black veterans served

during World War II. Not all of them lived long enough to get that sort of recognition, or the benefits they were promised. NPR's Quill Lawrence reporting. From NPR, it's Consider This. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Kauffman.org.