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Herman Graham, III. The Brothers' Vietnam War: Black Power, Manhood, and the Military Experience Gainesville: U of Florida P, 2003. 179pp. $55.00.
During the 1960s, political movements that fought to express new racial awareness among African Americans in the United States rose amidst of the ideologies of Black militants such as Stokely Carmichael, Huey P. Newton, Malcolm X, and others. These ideologies sought to eliminate some, if not all, of the racial constraints that plagued African Americans since the first Africans set foot on New World soil as indentured servants in 1619. Activists began to crush some of the racial inequalities. For example, in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision that outlawed segregation in America's public schools; the 1957-58 school year at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, was perhaps the most radical and potentially far-reaching aspect of the Civil Rights Movement. Four years later, James H. Meredith, led by U.S. marshals, integrated the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi. Meredith believed that his enrollment at Ole Miss was "more for America than it was for me." With these triumphs, and many more to follow, African Americans had successfully prevailed over some of the Jim Crowisms that had plagued the South since Reconstruction. Their protest language was manifested in the forms of marches, sit-ins, freedom rides, and boycotts.
These movements had a major impact not only on blacks in America but also on Black GIs who served during the Vietnam War. Opposition to the war was expressed by African American leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Carmichael, and in numerous other dissenting voices, such as Black Women Enraged of Harlem, and the Nation of Islam's Muhummad Speaks. What impact did the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s have on Black GIs? What effects did the draft during the Johnson administration have on African American males? What influence did Muhammad Ali's resistance to Selective Service and the draft have on the African American community? How were intraracial tensions and rituals of unity personified among GIs? What role did race play in forging a sense of community during basic training for Black GIs? These are some of the fundamental questions that Herman Graham, III, sets out...