Experiencing Prejudice in the Army
Title
Experiencing Prejudice in the Army
Creator
Jacob Schlitt
Description
"I wrote a piece about my discharge from the Army 60 years before, but I did not write about race or religion"
Date
2016-11-25
Format
application/pdf
Type
text
Language
en
Coverage
1949/1956
Identifier
EXPERIENCING_PREJUDICE_IN_THE_ARMY
Text
EXPERIENCING PREJUDICE IN THE ARMY
I wrote a piece about my discharge from the Army 60 years before, but I did not write about race or religion: the black GI, living in the South, my being a Jew in a non-Jewish environment.
It was the mid-fifties. The Army had been desegregated in 1948, but the South was still segregated. The historic Supreme Court school desegregation decision, Brown vs. Board of Education, was handed down on May 17, 1954, but had not begun to be implemented. Public accommodations and public transportation were still segregated.
I had been actively involved in civil rights since I was a teen-ager. I lived in an integrated neighborhood, I supported the struggle for equal rights in college, I joined CORE, and participated in the 1949 student strike against Professors Knickerbocker and Davis, one an anti-Semite and the other a racist. As a union organizer, I fought for equal treatment of all workers, regardless of race.
What was my experience when I entered the Army? I was pleasantly surprised to note that almost all the non-commissioned officers, the Sergeants giving me orders, were black. True, the Lieutenants and Captains were white, but the Army had only been desegregated for six years. Personally, I did not experience anti-Semitism. There were a few other Jews in my basic training unit, but it was a true cross-section of the Northeast: Jews, Christians, blacks and Puerto Ricans. Just like in World War II movies.
Most of the draftees in my company were young—18 and 19—and I don’t remember hearing racial, ethnic or religious epithets. When I was sent South, the experience with regard to my fellow GIs was the same. I was initially assigned to Camp Rucker in Alabama, located between the towns of Ozark and Enterprise. It had once been cotton country, but the farmers switched to peanuts after the cotton crop was destroyed by the cotton boll weevil. The residents of Enterprise who were so grateful for the income they were getting from peanuts, put up a monument to the boll weevil. My first thought: Why didn’t they put up a monument to George Washington Carver who developed a variety of uses for peanuts.
From Rucker, I was reassigned to Camp Gordon, Augusta Georgia. Not too different from Enterprise, but bigger. It had something Enterprise did not: a Jewish community.
One of my first experiences with racism took place toward the end of 1954, more than a year before Rosa Parks. A group of us were leaving Camp to go into town. The local bus stopped at the Camp. We got on and sat down. The driver told the black soldier in our group to move to the back of the bus. We could not believe it. He asked him to repeat what he said. Move to the back of the bus. He was from New Jersey and he was stunned. We all were. And we all got off the bus. He never rode the bus again. I admit I did, and it was a strange experience. The younger black riders treated the “back of the bus” requirement as a joke. The sign “Colored” was movable, and when they got on, they moved it all the way up front, to the second of third seats. However, as more white passengers boarded, they moved the sign back. Nothing was ever said. I never observed any confrontations.
It was a strange world: an integrated Army base within a segregated city. I was the only Jew in my unit—statistical clerks assigned to The Southeastern Signal School. There was another New Yorker named George Hanc, who many believed was Jewish. It frustrated him, and he went out of his way to make it clear that he was not Jewish. Another member of our group, was a big guy from Chicago named Brown, who had played college football. I was shocked when he thought he was being funny, imitating a Jew, by pulling up his sleeve, saying, “Vanna buy a vatch?” I may have said that I did not think it was funny, but not more. I have always made my identity clear: a Jew, a liberal, a trade unionist. I was touched when a native Georgian, a civilian employee, asked me to remain in the area after I was discharged, saying they need people like me.
11-25-16
I wrote a piece about my discharge from the Army 60 years before, but I did not write about race or religion: the black GI, living in the South, my being a Jew in a non-Jewish environment.
It was the mid-fifties. The Army had been desegregated in 1948, but the South was still segregated. The historic Supreme Court school desegregation decision, Brown vs. Board of Education, was handed down on May 17, 1954, but had not begun to be implemented. Public accommodations and public transportation were still segregated.
I had been actively involved in civil rights since I was a teen-ager. I lived in an integrated neighborhood, I supported the struggle for equal rights in college, I joined CORE, and participated in the 1949 student strike against Professors Knickerbocker and Davis, one an anti-Semite and the other a racist. As a union organizer, I fought for equal treatment of all workers, regardless of race.
What was my experience when I entered the Army? I was pleasantly surprised to note that almost all the non-commissioned officers, the Sergeants giving me orders, were black. True, the Lieutenants and Captains were white, but the Army had only been desegregated for six years. Personally, I did not experience anti-Semitism. There were a few other Jews in my basic training unit, but it was a true cross-section of the Northeast: Jews, Christians, blacks and Puerto Ricans. Just like in World War II movies.
Most of the draftees in my company were young—18 and 19—and I don’t remember hearing racial, ethnic or religious epithets. When I was sent South, the experience with regard to my fellow GIs was the same. I was initially assigned to Camp Rucker in Alabama, located between the towns of Ozark and Enterprise. It had once been cotton country, but the farmers switched to peanuts after the cotton crop was destroyed by the cotton boll weevil. The residents of Enterprise who were so grateful for the income they were getting from peanuts, put up a monument to the boll weevil. My first thought: Why didn’t they put up a monument to George Washington Carver who developed a variety of uses for peanuts.
From Rucker, I was reassigned to Camp Gordon, Augusta Georgia. Not too different from Enterprise, but bigger. It had something Enterprise did not: a Jewish community.
One of my first experiences with racism took place toward the end of 1954, more than a year before Rosa Parks. A group of us were leaving Camp to go into town. The local bus stopped at the Camp. We got on and sat down. The driver told the black soldier in our group to move to the back of the bus. We could not believe it. He asked him to repeat what he said. Move to the back of the bus. He was from New Jersey and he was stunned. We all were. And we all got off the bus. He never rode the bus again. I admit I did, and it was a strange experience. The younger black riders treated the “back of the bus” requirement as a joke. The sign “Colored” was movable, and when they got on, they moved it all the way up front, to the second of third seats. However, as more white passengers boarded, they moved the sign back. Nothing was ever said. I never observed any confrontations.
It was a strange world: an integrated Army base within a segregated city. I was the only Jew in my unit—statistical clerks assigned to The Southeastern Signal School. There was another New Yorker named George Hanc, who many believed was Jewish. It frustrated him, and he went out of his way to make it clear that he was not Jewish. Another member of our group, was a big guy from Chicago named Brown, who had played college football. I was shocked when he thought he was being funny, imitating a Jew, by pulling up his sleeve, saying, “Vanna buy a vatch?” I may have said that I did not think it was funny, but not more. I have always made my identity clear: a Jew, a liberal, a trade unionist. I was touched when a native Georgian, a civilian employee, asked me to remain in the area after I was discharged, saying they need people like me.
11-25-16
Original Format
application/msword
Collection
Citation
Jacob Schlitt, “Experiencing Prejudice in the Army,” Autobiographical stories & other writing by Jacob Schlitt, accessed September 11, 2024, https://tsirlson.omeka.net/items/show/385.