This book is a revision, with greatly expanded inclusion criteria, of the 1993 African American Generals and Flag Officers: Biographies of Over 120 Blacks in the United States Military. It offers detailed, career-oriented summaries for men and women who often overcame societal obstacles to become ranking members of the armed forces. Persons from all branches are now included (Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps), as well as the National Guard and Reserves.

This reference profiles every active duty, African-American general officer currently serving in the U.S. military, as well as the men and women who served as the vanguard for today's black officers, including Gen. Colin Powell, Gen. "Chappie" James, and Gen. Roscoe Robinson. Includes a chronology of major events in black military history, a list of black Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, and a select bibliography.

Many black soldiers serving in the U.S. Army during World War II hoped that they might make permanent gains as a result of their military service and their willingness to defend their country. They were soon disabused of such illusions. Taps for a Jim Crow Army is a powerful collection of letters written by black soldiers in the 1940s to various government and nongovernment officials. The soldiers expressed their disillusionment, rage, and anguish over the discrimination and segregation they experienced in the Army. Most black troops were denied entry into army specialist schools; black officers were not allowed to command white officers; black soldiers were served poorer food and were forced to ride Jim Crow military buses into town and to sit in Jim Crow base movie theaters. In the South, German POWs could use the same latrines as white American soldiers, but blacks could not. The original foreword by Benjamin Quarles, professor emeritus of history at Morgan State University, and a new foreword by Bernard C. Nalty, the chief historian in the Office of Air Force History, offer rich insights into the world of these soldiers.

Guide for social studies teachers in using primary sources, particularly those available from the National Archives, to teach history.

This book is a revision, with greatly expanded inclusion criteria, of the 1993 African American Generals and Flag Officers: Biographies of Over 120 Blacks in the United States Military. It offers detailed, career-oriented summaries for men and women who often overcame societal obstacles to become ranking members of the armed forces. Persons from all branches are now included (Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps), as well as the National Guard and Reserves.

“A must-read book that explores a vital pre-war effort [with] deep research and gripping writing.” —Washington Times In The rise of the G.I. Army, 1940–1941, Paul Dickson tells the dramatic story of how the American Army was mobilized from scattered outposts two years before Pearl Harbor into the disciplined and mobile fighting force that helped win World War II. In September 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland and initiated World War II, America had strong isolationist leanings. The US Army stood at fewer than 200,000 men—unprepared to defend the country, much less carry the fight to Europe and the Far East. And yet, less than a year after Pearl Harbor, the American army led the Allied invasion of North Africa, beginning the campaign that would defeat Germany, and the Navy and Marines were fully engaged with Japan in the Pacific. Dickson chronicles this transformation from Franklin Roosevelt’s selection of George C. Marshall to be Army Chief of Staff to the remarkable peace-time draft of 1940 and the massive and unprecedented mock battles in Tennessee, Louisiana, and the Carolinas by which the skill and spirit of the Army were forged and out of which iconic leaders like Eisenhower, Bradley, and Clark emerged. The narrative unfolds against a backdrop of political and cultural isolationist resistance and racial tension at home, and the increasingly perceived threat of attack from both Germany and Japan.