January 14, 1946 — US House of Representatives, Washington DC

Mr. Speaker:

It is about the Negro soldier I wish to speak today. I wish to pay him then respect and to express the gratitude of the American people for hiscontribution in the greatest battle of all time — the battle which decided whether or not we were to remain a free people.

We should be especially mindful of the Negro soldier, remembering that he fought and shed his blood for a freedom which he has not as yet been permitted fully to share,

The service record of the Negro in World War II began with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, and carried through to theday and the hour of the Japanese surrender,

Whether in the North African, European, or Pacific theater of war, the Negro service man responded to the call of duty to the fullest extent of his opportunity and to the very best of his ability.

The Negro soldier made his contribution in World War II as he has in every other war in which we, a free people, have fought. And he has again met the test of patriotism and heroism. The names of Negro heroes in this war are everlastingly recorded among the living and the dead. They won their citations in every combat area, on land, on sea, in the air.

It should never be forgotten that Negro heroes in this war achieved their proud records under handicaps that did not have to be overcome by most of their white fellow citizens.

This was the most mechanical of all wars. Training had to be based on the education and experience of the average man. The average American boy going into the service of his country had some knowledge of, some experience with the mechanical gadgets that contribute to our much boasted high standard of living. And at least he could read and write.

Three-fourths of all Negroes in the armed forces came from areas in this land of the free where their people had been held down for generations, denied education, denied the use of tools any more complicated than a hoe, denied the right to participate in self-government, denied even the right to self-respect. For them, equal educationalo pportunities, equal pay for equal work, practically any opportunity to work at skilled trades simply did not exist. They went into the armed forces ill equipped, through no fault of’ their own, for the tremendous job required of them. But they did the job, all the same, handicap or no handicap. And they did it magnificently.

They were men — with the heart and the will and the courage — the stuff of which heroes are made. They may, as did one group, have had tomemorize instructions because they could not read-them, But while letters may have been foreign to them, devotion was not; nor was courage foreign to them. The qualities that cannot be indoctrinated — the qualities of greatness — were there.

Some of the most outstanding units in all theaters were made up of Negroes who had been classified in the lowest Army classification categories — those very boys who had never had a chance to run a machine or even to learn to read and write before going into the Army.

Despite the Selective Service and Training Act, which established a basic policy of non-discrimination because of race or color in building up our Army, and in spite of improvement during the course of the war, it must not be forgotten that segregation, discrimination and race prejudice, in all of its varied forms, placed an added burden on the Negro in the armed forces and dogged his steps from the induction center to the front line.

Source: Extension of Remarks of Hon. Helen Gahagan Douglas of California, Congressional Record, 79th Cong., 2nd Sess., (US Government Printing Office, Washington DC), January 22, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, February 1, 1946.