“They saw them go away willingly, secure in the belief that their sacrifices would mean something to those who remained at home. “Black mothers and widows saw their sons sent to Jim Crow military camps and into Jim Crow units during the hectic days of 19,” The Chicago Defender reminded its readers. The NAACP and much of the Black press cried foul. Word of the War Department’s plan became public in March 1930, just before the first ships were set to sail. In early 1929, after years of pressure from such groups as the American War Mothers, the American Gold Star Mothers, and the American Legion, Congress passed a pilgrimage bill authorizing the War Department to sponsor trips to France for mothers and widows who had lost their sons and husbands in the war, so that they could visit their loved ones’ final resting places.Īlthough the law made no mention of race, when it came time to organize the sojourns, the War Department issued a memo stating that Black mothers and widows would travel in separate groups, reasoning that the women of both races would naturally prefer to mourn in the company of their own kind. Du Bois a reminder of the First World War’s bitter legacy. Along with the question of war guilt, another controversy in the spring and summer of 1930 offered W.E.B.
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