Keynote: African American Experience in WWI and Aftermath

The First World War occurred at the height of white supremacy, segregation, and lynching and race riots in the United States. Yet the wartime years appeared to offer African Americans the occasion to escape the oppression they suffered in the South for better jobs and living conditions in the North and West. African Americans further viewed the war as an opportunity to fight for their country again, as they had in all its previous wars, in order to prove to white Americans that they merited equal citizenship rights. When African Americans consequently participated in the war effort on the home and fighting fronts, how did white Americans respond to their efforts? Ultimately, how did the war affect race relations and the conditions of African American life in the postwar United States