LibGuides: African American Experience in the World Wars: In the Arts

World War 1--Visual Arts

History Detectives (Season 10, Ep. 7)
This episode segment (14 min.) investigates the story behind the American poster shown above from 1918 showing African American soldiers in World War 1.

World War 1--Literature

Page from War Poems by the Peters Sisters (1919). Text available from Hathi Trust.

War Poems by the Peters Sisters
The story and complete text of a book of poetry written by African American sisters Ada Tess Peters (age 18) and Ethel Pauline Peters (age 17). "Overcoming the persistent obstacles of the Jim Crow era in addition to gender, age, and geography, the women published this volume 'to show the need of unity of all men in the fight for democracy' and to comment boldly on the issues of racism in the context of war."

"African American World War I Soldiers, Claude McKay, and the Harlem Renaissance" by Jane Elizabeth Fisher
Call Number: Available online
Publication Date: 2020
From: Afro-Americans in New York life and history, 41.1 (2020): 25–52.
Mine Eyes Have Seen by Alice Dunbar-Nelson
Call Number: Available online
Publication Date: 1918
One-act play published in the magazine The Crisis, Vol. 15, no. 6, April 1918, pp. 271-74.
The Black Soldier by Koritha Mitchell
Call Number: Available online
Publication Date: 2011
Chapter in: Living with Lynching. University of Illinois Press, 2011. About Alice Dubar-Nelson's play Mine Eyes Have Seen, a play that compares lynching to black military service in World War I. This one-act soon inspired Mary Burrill's similarly themed script, Aftermath, published in 1919.

World War 1--Music

Image from the sheet music for "Please let your light shine on me." Lyrics by Sergeant Allen Griggs and music by Lucie Eddie Campbell (1919). Library of Congress.

World War I Sheet Music
Music about African American soldiers from the Library of Congress collection.

A Life in Ragtime: A biography of James Reese Europe by Reid Badger
Call Number: Available online
ISBN: 0195345207
Publication Date: 1995
James Europe was a musical pioneer who took jazz to France as bandleader for the Harlem Hellfighters regiment as well as serving on the front lines of World War 1. He was a man of tremendous depths and ambitions, constantly aspiring to win recognition for black musicians and wider acceptance for their music.

The Jazz Kings Go to War [podcast]
1917, and America enters World War I. This BBC Sounds podcast tells the story of how an African American regiment brought jazz to France.
“Trench Blues”: An African American Song of World War I
Blog post about a World War 1 song composed by African American soldier John Bray. Includes recording.

World War 2--Music

Jazz in Occupied China: Black Jazzmen at the Japanese Prison Camp in Weihsien, China during World War II
Personal experience narrative by Desmond Power from the BlackPast.org website.

Bands of Sisters: U.S. women's military bands during World War II by Jill M. Sullivan
Call Number: Available online
ISBN: 0810881632
Publication Date: 2011
See especially in Chapter 2 about the 404th WAC Band of African American women musicians. Today, few remember these all-female military bands. The novelty of these bands--initially employed by the U.S. military to support bond drives--drew enough spectators for the bands to be placed on tour, raising money for the war and boosting morale.

World War 2--Film

Making Movies Black: The Hollywood Message Movie from World War II to the Civil Rights Era by Thomas Cripps
Call Number: Available online
ISBN: 9780195360349
Publication Date: 1993
Shows how movies anticipated and helped form America's changing ideas about race. From the liberal rhetoric of the war years--marked as it was by the propaganda catchwords brotherhood and tolerance--came movies that defined a new African-American presence both in film and in American society at large.

World War 2--Literature

The World of Gwendolyn Brooks by Gwendolyn Brooks
Call Number: Available online
ISBN: 9780060105389
Publication Date: 1971
This omnibus volume includes 4 collections of poetry and a novella. See especially the collection A Street in Bronzeville.
Gwendolyn Brooks by Salem Press Editors; Mildred R. Mickle (Editor)
Call Number: Available online
ISBN: 9781587656323
Publication Date: 2009
The essays in this volume pay tribute to Gwendolyn Brooks's legacy, including her sustained dialectic with American historical events such as World War II and the Civil Rights movement.

African American Experience in the World Wars: In the Arts