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Page 10 The Skanner BLACK HISTORY EDITION February 21, 2018 Black History Thomas A Gugliel- mo, George Washington University (The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commen- tary from academic experts.) (THE CONVERSATION) In December 1941, a few days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into World War II, a Detroit mother named Sylvia Tucker visited her local Red Cross donor center to give blood. Having heard the “soul-stirring” appeals for blood donors on her radio, she was deter- mined to do her part. But when she arrived at the center, the supervisor turned her away. “Or- ders from the National Offices,” he explained, “barred Negro blood do- nors at this time.” “Shocked” and “grieved,” Tucker left in tears, later penning a let- ter of protest about the whole ordeal to first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Today, this discrimi- natory blood program and African Americans’ determined opposition to it are long forgotten, despite the fact that a few scholars, including Spen- cie Love, Susan E. Leder- er, Sarah E. Chinn, and myself, have explored the topic. This history is worth re- membering. It provides an antidote to facile, feel- good stories about the “Good War,” stories that scholars such as Michael C.C. Adams and Kenneth D. Rose have long refuted but that live on in muse- um exhibits, blockbuster films, best-selling books and war memorials. The story of how blood got desegregated also re- minds Americans that, as novelist Ralph Ellison wrote nearly a half-cen- tury ago, “The black American … puts pres- sure upon the nation to live up to its ideals.” Historian Robin D.G. Kelley puts it more broadly: “The marginal and excluded have done the most to make democ- racy work in America.” In an age of resurgent racism, Ellison’s and Kel- ley’s words are especial- ly important and timely. ‘A tremendous thing’The Red Cross Blood Donor Program began in early 1941 – and went on to collect blood from millions of Amer- icans that the military shipped to soldiers fight- ing overseas. “If I could reach all America,” asserted Gen- eral Dwight D. Eisen- hower at the end of the war, “there is one thing I would like to do – thank them for blood plas- ma and whole blood. It has been a tremendous thing.” Tremendous indeed: The blood program saved many lives. But it also initially excluded Afri- can American donors like Sylvia Tucker. When it did accept them, in Jan- uary 1942, it did so on a segregated basis. Never mind that sci- entists saw no relation- ship between race and blood and that one of the world’s leading authori- ties on blood banking at the time, and the director of the Red Cross’s pilot blood program, was an African American sci- entist named Dr. Charles Drew. Never mind that Nazi Germany had its own Aryan-only blood policy or that America’s principal rhetorical war aims concerned democ- racy and freedom. To what extent military commanders segregat- ed blood in the field was, during the war and after- wards, a matter of some debate. Officially, at least, the distinction between bloods remained in place for years. It was not un- til 1950 that the Red Cross stopped requiring the segregation of so-called Negro blood. And it was not until the late 1960s and early 1970s that Southern states such as Arkansas and Louisiana overturned similar re- quirements. A forgotten civil rights struggle In one internal mem- orandum, the Red Cross called its donor pro- gram democratic, since “the point of view of the majority … ” – which its leaders assumed de- manded blood segrega- tion – “must be taken into account in a democ- racy.” But many Blacks and their allies had a very dif- ferent idea about democ- racy, one that required PHOTO: NARA Desegregating Blood: A Civil Rights Struggle to Remember Sicily, 1943: Whose blood was this U.S. soldier getting? all citizens be treated equally and without re- gard to race. They fought tirelessly throughout the war years to make that idea a reality, not simply in the military, in the workplace and in Holly- wood films but also in the blood program. These many battles constituted a nascent, surging, and, today, too-often-overlooked civil rights struggle that helped pave the way for the more famous move- ment of the postwar years. Nearly all the major civ- il rights organizations of the day, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the A career you can be proud of. Being a carpenter isn’t just a job. It’s a way of life. We’re devoted to strengthening the lives of our members with steady work, wealth and personal growth. We take a stand for our members and all workers. We work together to lead the building industry in safety, training and compensation. We create rich lives for our members and partners. To learn more about becoming a union carpenter, go to NWCarpenters.org. PORTLAND: 1636 East Burnside, Portland, OR 97214 | 503.261.1862 HEADQUARTERS: 25120 Pacific Hwy S, #200, Kent, WA 98032 | 253.954.8800 More than 20,000 members in the Pacific Northwest. March on Washington Movement and even the upstart Committee (lat- er, Congress) of Racial Equality, made changing blood policy a top prior- ity. One statement from a group of the nation’s most prominent Black leaders put it this way: “In justice to what we know to be the practi- cally unanimous senti- ment among Negroes in America, we affirm the need for alteration of the segregated blood plasma policy.” Black newspapers also protested blood segrega- tion and exclusion, reg- ularly featuring front- page stories, boldface headlines and blistering editorials on the subject. In January 1942, for example, the African American weekly the Cleveland Call and Post published an “editorial in rhyme”: The cross of Red, that burned so bright In fire, storm and flood Is now the crooked Nazi sign That spurns a Negro blood! Wide-ranging activists Activism on this issue extended well beyond these traditional places. Labor unions, Chris- tian and Jewish groups, local interracial commit- tees, scientific organi- zations and the New Jer- sey State Legislature all spoke out against blood segregation. The Communist Party of Cuyahoga County in Ohio held a rally of 3,500 people, condemning blood policy as “Barbar- ian Hitlerism.” An interracial group of precocious junior high schoolers at Harlem’s Public School 43 tested (with the help of their sci- ence teachers) the blood of a Black student and of a White student. Find- ing no difference, they wrote an article in the school paper, made and distributed hundreds of posters, and held a public meeting – all in opposi- tion to the Red Cross pol- icy. The most widespread form of protest, however, came from thousands of ordinary African Amer- icans who refused to do- nate blood and money to the Red Cross. While roughly 10 per- cent of the U.S. popula- tion at the time, blacks made up less than 1 per- cent of all blood donors. African Americans contributed generously to the Treasury Depart- ment’s Defense Bonds: It is not a lack of patrio- tism that explains their halfhearted response to blood drives. The reason was a determined oppo- sition to race-based ex- clusion and segregation. Expressing these feel- ings best was a high school student from Cleveland named Geral- dyne Ghess. Her poem appeared in the local Black newspaper: Had I wealth, I’d burn it all; Not one cent for the Red Cross call. Our money is good … our blood is bad. But, still that shouldn’t make us mad. Are they afraid they’ll all turn black? Is that why our blood they lack? Their skins are white as snow … it’s well. Their souls are tar- nished, black as hell. In the end, this wide-ranging activism may have failed to de- mocratize the blood program fully – at least during the war.
