"Investigate Everything": Federal Efforts to Ensure Black Loyalty During World War I
About this ebook
Fears that the black population was being subverted by Germans multiplied as the United States entered the war in April 1917. In fact, only a handful of alleged enemy subversives were ever identified, and none were found to have done anything more than tell blacks that they had no good reason to fight, or that Germany would win. Nonetheless, they were punished under wartime legislation which criminalized anti-war advocacy.
Theodore Kornweibel, Jr. reveals that a much greater proportion of blacks was disenchanted with the war than has been previously acknowledged. A considerable number were privately apathetic, while others publically expressed dissatisfaction or opposition to the war.
Kornweibel documents the many forms of suppression used to intimidate African Americans, and contends that these efforts to silence black protest established precedents for further repression of black militancy during the postwar Red Scare.
About the author
Theodore Kornweibel, Jr., Professor of African American History in the Africana Studies Department at San Diego State University, is author of No Crystal Stair; In Search of the Promised Land; and "Seeing Red": Federal Campaigns against Black Militancy, 1919N1925 (Indiana University Press, 1998).
