African Americans And Double V

African American and Double Victory

The American Civil War is considered a milestone in the end of slavery in the United States. This civil war between the slave South and the industrialized North can only be beneficial to the situation of African American and Double Victory. In any case, what they imagine at the time. They are therefore many to engage in the northern army, following the proclamation of emancipation of Abraham Lincoln. Unfortunately, the situation turns against the blacks as soon as the war ends. With the reconstruction appears the segregation, which will dominate the American landscape for a long time.

During World War II, African American rallied around the philosophy of Double V (Double Victory. It meant victory over fascism abroad and racism at home because Blacks still win their battle, since the 13 th Amendment to the US Constitution, which came into force on 18 December 1865 proclaimed the abolition of slavery. But despite the victory of the North over the South, the freedoms of blacks are still limited and different owners are trying to establish "black codes" to circumvent the Constitution. The former Confederates do not accept the idea of ​​equality offered to former black slaves. In 1868 and 1870, however, were adopted the 14 th and 15 amendment of the Constitution, that any discrimination between US citizens is prohibited. The right to vote is also granted to blacks. It offers blacks, now theoretically American citizens, the opportunity to run for office in an attempt to fight for their rights.

According to the movie entitled, “The Negro Solider” explains that at the end of the Second World War, black Americans still belonged to the most oppressed, underprivileged part of the US population. Considering the Negro masses as a source of cheap labor, the monopolies sought to consolidate their powerless position, exacerbate the relationship between the black and white workers and in this way further strengthen the exploitation of those and others.The black population was deprived of elementary democratic rights, driven into overcrowded ghettos, surrounded by a “color barrier” of officially sanctioned and effectively established prohibitions and restrictions. This Jim Crow segregationist system covered all aspects of the life of black Americans from birth to death.

Unfortunately, the white population is predominant and hard-won black rights are being phased out. As early as 1877, Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes was elected, thanks in particular to the democratic voices of the South. This election serves as a compromise to try to reconcile the South and the North of the United States. An analogy runs through the United States: the analogy of fascism. It is practically impossible (outside certain sectors of the right itself) to try to understand the resurgent right without being described as -or comparing with the fascism of the interwar of the twentieth century. Like fascism, the resurgent right is irrational, narrow-minded, violent and racist. That's what the analogy says and there is some truth in it. But fascism did not become powerful simply by appealing to the darker instincts of citizens. Crucially, fascism also addressed the social and psychological needs of citizens, their protection from the ravages of capitalism at a time when other political actors offered little help.

The origins of African American and Double Victory which means fascism aboard lie in a promise to protect the people. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, an acceleration of globalization destroyed communities, professions and cultural norms while generating a wave of immigration. Movements of the nationalist right appeared promising to protect people from the pernicious influence of foreigners and markets, and frightened, disoriented and misplaced people responded. Those early fascist movements disrupted political life in some countries, but leaked out as they boiled on a relatively slow fire until World War II.

The First World War had devastated Europe, killing sixteen million people and mutilating another twenty million, crushing economies and sowing chaos. In Italy, for example, the post-war period combined high inflation and unemployment, as well as strikes, factory occupations, land seizures and other forms of social discontent and violence. The postwar Italian liberal governments failed to adequately address these problems. Benito Mussolini and his National Fascist Party (PNF) broke into that space, benefiting from the failure or ineffectiveness of existing institutions, parties and elites, and offering a mix of "national" and "social" policies. The fascists promised to promote national unity, prioritize the interests of the nation over those of any particular group and promote the international stature of Italy.

The fascists also called the desire of the Italians for social security, solidarity and protection from capitalist crises. They promised to restore order, protect private property and promote prosperity, but also protect society from economic recession and disruptions. Fascists stressed that wealth had responsibilities as well as privileges. These appeals allowed the fascists to have the support of almost all socioeconomic groups. Italy was a young country (founded in the 1860s), with deep regional and social divisions. By claiming that they served the best interests of the entire national community, the fascists became the first true "people's party" in Italy.

After coming to power, the Italian fascists created recreational circles, study groups and youth groups, sports activities and excursions. These organizations promoted the fascist objectives of building a true national community. The desire to strengthen a national (fascist) identity also forced the regime to extraordinary cultural measures. It promoted public architecture, artistic exhibitions and spectacular radio and film productions. As one fascist said: "There can be no economic interest that is above the general economic interests of the State, no individual economic initiative that falls under the supervision and regulation of the State, no relation of the different classes of the country that is not competition. of the State. "These policies maintained the popularity of fascism until the late 1930s, when Mussolini allied with Hitler. It was only the country's participation in the Second World War, and the passage of the Italian regime towards a more clearly "racialist" idea of ​​fascism, which began to make Italian fascism unpopular.

Italian fascism distinguished itself from its German counterpart in important ways. Perhaps the most notable was that anti-Semitism and racism were more innate in the German version. But Italian and German fascism also shared important similarities. Like Italy, Germany was a "new" country (formed in 1871), prey to deep divisions. After the First World War, Germany found itself burdened with punitive conditions of peace. During the 1920s, he experienced violent uprisings, assassinations, foreign invasion and a famous Great Inflation. The response of the government, and of other political actors, however, must also be remembered. For various reasons, the conservative governments of the time and their socialist opponents favored austerity primarily as a response to the crisis.

The German National Socialist Workers Party (NSDAP) of Hitler promised to serve the entire German people, but the German fascist vision of the "people" did not include Jews or other "undesirables". They promised to create a "popular community" that would overcome the country's divisions. The fascists also said that they would fight against the Depression and contrasted their activism in the name of the well-being of the people with the lukewarmness and austerity of the government and the socialists. In the elections of 1932, these calls to protect the German people contributed to the Nazis becoming the largest political party, and the one with the broadest socio-economic base.

When, in January 1933, Hitler became chancellor, the Nazis quickly began programs to create jobs and infrastructure. They exhorted the companies to accept workers, and distributed the credit. The German economy rebounded and unemployment figures improved dramatically: unemployment in Germany fell from almost 6 million at the beginning of 1933 to 2.4 million at the end of 1934; in 1938, Germany essentially enjoyed full employment. At the end of the 1930s, the government controlled decisions about economic production, investments, wages and prices. Public spending grew spectacularly.

Nazi Germany remained a capitalist country. But it also carried out state intervention in the economy that was unprecedented in capitalist economies. The Nazis also supported an extensive welfare state (of course, for "pure ethnic" Germans). It included free higher education, family and child support, pensions, healthcare and a set of entertainment and vacation options. All spheres of life, including the economy, should be subordinated to the "national interest", and the fascist commitment to increase equality and social mobility. Radical meritocratic reforms are not something that comes to mind when we think of Nazi-like measures, but, as Hitler once pointed out, the Third Reich had "opened a way for every qualified individual-whatever his or her origins-to reach. the highest if qualified, is dynamic, industrious and determined. "

Largely by these measures, until 1939 the experience of most Germans with the Nazi regime was probably positive. Apparently the Nazis had conquered the depression and restored economic and political stability. While they could demonstrate their ethnic "purity" and stay away from open displays of disloyalty, the Germans typically experienced National Socialism not as a tyranny and terror, but as a regime of reforms and social enthusiasm.

To conclude, there is no doubt that violence and racism were essential features of fascism. But for most Italians, Germans and other European fascists, their appeal was not based on racism, much less on ethnic cleansing, but on the ability of the fascists to respond effectively to the crises of capitalism when others political actors could not do it. The fascists insisted that states could and should control capitalism, that the state should and could promote social welfare, and that national communities should be cultivated. Ultimately, the fascist solution was, of course, worse than the problem. In response to the horror of fascism, in part, the Democrats of the New Deal in the United States, and the Social Democratic parties in Europe, also began to renegotiate the social contract.

Bibliography

Bailey, Beth, and David Farber. "The" Double-V" campaign in World War II Hawaii: African Americans, racial ideology, and federal power." Journal of Social History (1993): 817-843.

Cripps, Thomas, and David Culbert. "The Negro Soldier (1944): Film Propanganda in Black and White." American Quarterly 31, no. 5 (1979): 616-640.

Mullenbach, Cheryl. Double Victory: How African American Women Broke Race and Gender Barriers to Help Win World War II. Chicago Review Press, 2013.