Half American
By Matthew F. Delmont
- Genre
- History, Society & Current Affairs
- Publisher
- Viking (Penguin Random House)
- Publication year
- 2022
- ISBN
- 9781984880390
Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad is a work of history by Matthew F. Delmont, published by Viking in October 2022. It recounts Black Americans' military and civilian roles in the war. It won the 2023 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was a...
More than a million Black Americans served in the Second World War, fighting fascism abroad while enduring segregation and violence at home - a contradiction captured in the wartime 'Double V' campaign, victory over enemies overseas and racism within. Matthew Delmont's Half American finally centers that story, following soldiers, nurses, laborers, journalists and activists whose contributions were long minimized in the national memory of the 'Good War.' Drawing on letters, the Black press and oral histories, he restores both the heroism and the bitterness of serving a country that treated its defenders as less than full citizens. intendle recommends it as a necessary corrective to a sanitized history, vivid in its individual portraits and clear in its larger argument. Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and a New York Times Notable Book of 2022, it reframes a familiar war around the people history left in the margins. Overdue, authoritative and moving.