"What surprised Smith most was that this battle wasn't against the Nazis. It was between Black and white U.S. soldiers stationed nearby.
When American troops deployed to Europe to fight Hitler, they brought Jim Crow with them. And when Black soldiers stationed in Bamber Bridge stood up to the racism and discrimination, one of them was shot dead, and more than 30 others were court-martialed for mutiny.
Eighty years later, they have yet to be exonerated.
The Battle of Bamber Bridge — which took place 80 years ago this weekend, on June 24-25, 1943 — was a precursor to battles that would unfold on American streets for decades to come, during the Civil Rights era. It horrified the mostly white local villagers, who were unaccustomed to segregation and had befriended their Black guests. But because of wartime censorship, the battle was virtually unknown outside the tiny English village where it happened."
"It wasn't until 1948 — after the war — that the U.S. government banned segregation in the armed forces. Before that, the military largely kept white and nonwhite soldiers apart. Military police were tasked with enforcing segregation rules — even while deployed abroad in the United Kingdom.
"In many places, the Army instituted a policy whereby white troops could go into town Monday, Wednesday and Friday and Black troops could go Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays — to keep them apart," says Gregory Cooke, a Black historian and educator from Philadelphia who helped make a 2013 documentary called Choc'late Soldiers from the USA, about Black U.S. soldiers who fought in World War II.
During the war, Black troops who volunteered for combat roles often had to give up their rank and take a pay cut.
"The Army did not want a Black sergeant commanding a white private," Cooke notes."
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/21/1183045605/black-army-soldiers-england-wwii-battle
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