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History Battle of Black Race for Liberty and Justice

Khalid Elhassan May 12, 2020 34 min

Deacons for Defense - Deacons for Defense and Justice — Black demonstrators arriving in Franklinton, Louisiana, after a two day march from Bogalusa. Face 2 Face Africa

23. Fighting the Nazis

GIs trudging through snow during the Battle of the Bulge. National WWII Museum

Edward Allen Carter was shipped to Europe in 1944, but with typical Army logic, he was not assigned to one of the black combat units – few as those were in the day’s racially segregated US military – but to supply duties. However, racism had to make way, at least partially, to the dictates of necessity and granted Carter another opportunity to fight in the front lines against the bad guys.

On December 16^th, the Germans launched a surprise offensive that caught the Allies off guard. As the ensuing Battle of the Bulge raged and the Army desperately fought to contain the Germans, it ran short of replacement combat troops. So General Eisenhower instituted the volunteer Ground Force Replacement Command for rear echelon troops of all races. Staff Sergeant Carter immediately volunteered for combat duty.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.