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Gerald F. Goodwin, "Race in the Crucible of War: African American Servicemen and the War in Vietnam" (U Massachusetts Press, 2023)
00:52:33
An interview with Gerald F. Goodwin
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A
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B
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to New Books in African American Studies, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. I'm Omari Averett Phillips, the host of the channel. Today we'll be talking to Dr. Gerald F. Goodwin about his new book, Racing the Crucible of African American Servicemen and the war in Vietnam. Dr. Gerald F. Goodwin, thank you for being here, and welcome to the show.
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C
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm really happy to be here.
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B
Absolutely. So, Dr. Gowen, I wonder if you could just begin the interview just by telling us a bit about yourself.
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C
Sure. So, you know, I think everybody has maybe like a. Everybody has a unique background in their own respect. So I actually was born and I grew up in Ottawa, Canada. And so which people usually then say, well, oh, you know, was it like. I don't know if they say what it was like to be Canadian, but they ask questions about that. And I do know something about that, but my. Both my parents are actually from the United States, so I kind of grew up as a son of immigrants in another country, but a country that's, you know, English is the first language, and there's a lot of similarities between the two countries. So my father is a history professor, so I. That's why he ended up in Canada. And so my Father's from. He moved around a lot as a kid, but he's from the south, so primarily Alabama, South Carolina, North. He lived in North Carolina as well. And my mother's from the Midwest, and her family moved around a lot. And both sides of the family, they were. My grandfathers were both World War II veterans. So I think I kind of had an interest in that from a young age. But also they had very different experiences. So my father's father served mainly stateside. He retired as a lieutenant colonel. So he had. He was older, too. So he. Interestingly enough, he taught or trained at Fort Knox, Kentucky. He trained black tank. A tank. You know, that's what. That's what he did. And so he has that. There was that kind of connection, which is just sort of a coincidence. And then my grandfather on the other side did, you know, very serious duty and was badly injured fighting in Europe. And so I think, like, I kind of have an interest in military stuff early on, but I also had an interest in history in general from my father. Now he's a retired. He's a retired history professor now. And so, like, I think I grew up in a family where history was discussed, where politics were discussed pretty freely and openly, and there was never any pressure to become a historian or anything like that. I think people assume that because I, you know, how the same job that my father had, but really they just created an environment where we could choose what we wanted to do. And I think, maybe, you know, I didn't realize it as a kid, but my dad was happy at work. He liked doing what he was doing. And, you know, we would learn about his background growing up during segregation in the South. And so I think we had kind of like an understanding about the way that other people were treated that didn't look like him in the South. And he gave us that appreciation. And I think for my mom's family, you know, I sort of learned that war isn't always a positive experience for people, that the story of someone going off to war and it going well and then coming home is not the truth necessarily. And additionally, on that side of the family, my uncle, who has since passed, unfortunately had down syndrome. So I think that that sort of. On both sides of the family, I was kind of. Both my dad and my mother sort of raised me to appreciate difference and people who might not be like you for whatever reason and might even be mistreated by other people, but that your role was not to do that, to be a good person. So I think, you know, often when People ask me, like, what motivates the work? Or, like, how did I get into it? I do think it starts there in a way. I think that maybe, maybe not for everybody, but I think for me anyways, like, history is kind of a personal thing. Like, there is a personal connection to it. And I don't think I could. Others maybe, but I don't think I could work on something if I didn't care about it with that kind of intention. And so growing up there, there's also a large refugee population of Vietnamese people. And so I, you know, I grew up with a lot of Vietnamese people. They were my friends, they were in the community. They went to my school, schools. And so I think I kind of saw that as well and sort of experienced that. And so it's. I knew about the Vietnam War, obviously, but it wasn't really. I think I was probably leaning towards doing something civil rights related. And then I went to university. So I went to Carleton University, which is in Ottawa, which is also where my father taught, and for my undergrad, and then I went to the University of Kentucky for my master's. And I think I was sort of, you know, you're trying to come up with a thesis topic, and I like civil rights stuff. And I was also interested in Vietnam. And so, like, well, there has to be some sort of cross reference. And, you know, I was trying to figure it out and a friend of mine gave Me Blood by Wallace Terry, which is oral history interviews with black Vietnam vets at Wallace Terry, who's a very prominent journalist with Time magazine and other places. And so I read that and I kind of was like, okay, like, maybe I could do something with this. And I sort of looked into the historiography on the subject, and there really wasn't very much done. There was, you know, there was oral interviews, there was stuff like that. And so I really started to, like, investigate it there. I wrote my master's thesis on that topic. And then I went to Ohio university for my Ph.D. and I just, like, it was by that point, I think it was kind of like a done deal that that was what I was going to be writing my dissertation on. And so I wasn't really someone who had to, like, look into, like, what they wanted to do for a PhD dissertation, because it's kind of right there in front of me. And so I ran with that and I wrote my PhD dissertation on that, and I graduated in 2014. And yeah, and then I just sort of had some. I lived in Bloomington, Indiana for a while. That's where my wife was getting her PhD in education at Indiana University. And yeah, just have slowly, some would say too slow, maybe put together a book which is now out and which I'm really proud of. And so, you know, and along the way I've been published in World History Connected, which is a world, which is a world history journal. And I had a piece that was featured pretty prominently in the New York Times. That, that New York Times piece, which is called Black and White in Vietnam, then led to a documentary that NPR did on Long Bend Riot. And yeah, and so all of these things kind of contributed to like strengthening of the book, I think. And so yeah, now, now the book was released at the end of January and I presently live in Syracuse, New York. I teach at a couple schools here, just like on a course by course basis, which a lot of academics and historians do. And then I write as well for just, you know, different people reach out for different articles for like textbooks and stuff like that. And then I live with my wife and my eight month old daughter, my wife Maria and my eight month old daughter Gabriella. And then I also spend a lot of time. Syracuse has a large refugee population and so my wife and I spent a lot of time advocating, mentoring, tutoring refugees, mostly from Africa, from sort of victims of the Congolese, various Congolese conflicts. So we spend a lot of time doing that. And so that's something we're extremely passionate about too.
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B
Awesome. Thank you for sharing.
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C
No problem. Yeah.
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B
And so on this book. So what makes the Vietnamese War significant in African American military history?
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C
Sure. You know, there's a few things I think that, and some of it comes from sort of misconceptions that people have. I think they think that maybe Korea was the first conflict that was fought with a desegregated force. And that's not really true. So Harry Truman issues an executive order which desegregates the military. Executive Order 99 81. And so that desegregates the military. That's in 48. But really a lot of units remained segregated until the end of 54. So the Vietnam War, first of all, is the first conflict in which blacks and whites servants and desegregated units from the beginning of the war until the end of the war. So in those terms, it's already unique for that simple reason that they're fighting as a desegregated force. It's also unique because this happens right as the major successes of the civil rights era are happening. So the Civil Rights act of 1964, obviously passes in 1964, in July, and then you have the first troops, first battalion, first two Marine battalions go into Vietnam in March of 65, and then in August of 65, you have the Voting Rights Act. So these things are kind of happening concurrently. And so to a large degree, you don't really know what's going to happen in the military with this newly desegregated force. You don't know what's going to happen in a sort of new, let's say, civil rights era in which people are hopeful. And, you know something, two major pieces of legislation, maybe the most major pieces of legislation of the 20th century in terms of civil rights have passed. And so you don't really know what's going to happen. So there's a little bit of a mystery, right, going into it about how this is all going to go down. The last reason, I would say is because the contribution African Americans is so significant, you know, that roughly 2.5 million Americans serve in Vietnam, and 300,000 of those are African American. So that's a very significant, you know, number. They're also. It's just much different, you know, in past conflicts, if you were to sum up from really the Revolutionary War until Korea, the, you know, the sort of trend was African Americans fighting to fight, they want to fight, you know, that the. The idea of, like, we're not being allowed to fight in combat. And, you know, the general crux of it was they wouldn't let them fight. They would only let them serve in menial positions until the conflict became too difficult and they needed more troops. And then they would say, okay, now we need you, because there was this fear of domestic repercussions that you would arm African Americans and then they would come home and they would do something. And so Vietnam is much different in that way because now you're not having to fight to fight. And in fact, as we'll probably get to, there's more questions about are we fighting too much? Are we being forced into combat service at disproportionate numbers? So I think that all those things make it quite a bit different.
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B
And what sort of sources did you use in the study?
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C
So that's a good question. So I think when dealing with. With this type of history, right, you have to kind of come. And this might not be true for every subject in African American studies history, but I think you have to come at it from a perspective of traditional sources, may not get the full picture. There are certain things that just aren't kept in the record in the Same way. Right. And to a large extent, I think often that's the case in African American history, either because it's not been asked, it's not been listened to, or they're just not asking the right questions. So I started with the sort of idea premise that I would interview a lot of veterans. And so that's really what I did. I interviewed a lot of black veterans. I also interviewed white veterans. I interviewed doctors. I interviewed lawyers, The Lawyers Military Defense Committee, which was an organization that defended people charged with crimes in Vietnam. I interviewed a number of the people who worked with them as lawyers and staff because most of their clients were black, frankly. I interviewed psychologist, doctor, journalists. And so I think that was kind of this sort of initial, you know, like, I'm going to interview these people, see what they have to say. But then I also worked with traditional sources like newspapers, including newspapers that primarily appealed to the black community. I looked at magazines, I looked at documentaries. I looked at poetry, general writings. There's some diary entries that I was able to access from family members of people who served. And then I look at the archives, too. I looked at army archives at Army Heritage center in Carlisle, and I also looked at archives, too. And a lot of that stuff is sort of criminal reports. And then I also had access to stuff like with the long bin ride that nobody else has gotten access to. So, you know, like, there was a lot of, I think, digging. And, you know, I think the thing that's interesting when you do something like this is like, you might learn an account, and then you would go check it out against other accounts, and it would often prove true that one person experienced this and then somebody else experienced it and then a third person. So, you know, it wasn't just about taking one account and then running with it. It was very much about seeing, like, okay, what are the trends here? What were types of people now and what did they say 20 years ago and what did they say 30 years ago? A lot of this stuff. I tried to always corroborate information from different sources. It was a bit of digging, I guess, in its own way, but it was really enjoyable, too.
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B
Awesome. Well, I'm curious about you conducting the oral history interviews. So how did you go about that, conducting these oral history interviews with African American veterans? And do you have any stories that you want to share about those?
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C
Yeah, sure. I thought of a few. I could think of many, but I picked a few that. So, you know, I think that there's multiple ways somebody could do this. And honestly, throughout the years, many People have reached out to me, trying to do different things, like maybe an oral history collection or some project. And they've struggled to find black veterans, to be honest with you. So I think this is a kind of a constant problem. And sometimes it's a problem because black veterans have spoken, and then their accounts weren't taken seriously. They weren't listened to. You know, there's a book. There's, you know, you can read the book, obviously, and there's a few accounts that I take serious issue with in which someone is basically doing their best to take apart any black account or something. Right. And so the reality is you may be dealing with people who've already given their account, and then their account was. Was switched or changed to fit some agenda. So I think you have to recognize that there can be a mistrust between people that you may be trying to interview. And so I tried all sorts of different methods. I would put up flyers. I would contact organizations. I would, you know, if I saw somebody with a Vietnam veteran hat, I would, you know, talk to them. The only method that continually works is to talk to one veteran and ask him to reach out to somebody else. That's, you know, to be blunt, that's the only method that works effectively, I found. And so. And it. And it works really effectively. I think that when you gain trust in a community, it's a sacred thing, and it's a really important thing, and you should never take that for granted. And I would like to hope that I never did, but that's the most effective way. I can tell a few stories. There's a few people referenced in the book, and I think there's even a dedication to someone named Wes Gary, who was a chaplain in the First Division. He was one of the only black chaplains, and he was one of the first people I interviewed. And when I told him what my research is about and what I wanted to do, he immediately started reaching out to people that he knew and was just like, you need to talk to Gerald Goodwin. You need to talk to this guy. And so he's unfortunately passed, but someone that I really think of positively. And he was. He was a big Kansas City fan, too, so he would want me to congratulate them on the Super Bowl. I'm unfortunately a Buffalo Bills fan, and I once asked him he was going to Buffalo and asked him if he could go and pray at the stadium for them. And he said, some things are even beyond God. So, Wes, I hope you're listening and you like that wherever you are and Another one was George Brummell, who's was a long time member and leader of the Blinded Veterans Association. And he became a good friend and is still a good friend. And I remember talking to him, I interviewed him, and then my wife and I went to visit him and his wife, and he immediately got on the phone and just started calling people. And he wasn't like, would you talk to this person? You know, would you talk to this historian friend of mine? He just said, you are going to talk to them. You are going to be interviewed by them. It's George Brumal. Bye. And so, you know, those are very memorable because those are people that really didn't have to do anything for me. But as I said to them, they kind of acted as if they were getting, you know, a finder's fee for doing these, for getting interviews for me. And so I think those things really, really stick out in terms of people fighting for the project. You know, I had an unbelievable amount of support of people who wanted to see this project completed. And, you know, I hope it did them justice and the topic justice. In terms of stories, you know, I mean, there are so many stories told in terms of their experiences in Vietnam, in terms of, you know, the friendships that were formed and the difficult times that occurred for people. A few that I can think of, and I talk about these in the book. One was between a black. I think he. Yeah, I think he was in the army, so black soldier Thomas Brannan, and another and his friend who is white. His name is Tom Rogan. And there was an incident in Vietnam in which Tom Rogan saved Thomas Brannan's life. So you advance, you know, 25 years later or however long later, and they would call each other and refer to each other by their signal names on the phone. So they would call and say, oh, it's this person. I can't remember the number offhand. And they, oh, tell him it's this person, right? And so Tom Rogan, he called Thomas Brandon and said, you know, and his daughter, his young daughter answered the phone and he said, you know, tell Tom that so Forth is calling. And the daughter recognized the call sign and she said, she said, you saved my dad's life. Thank you. And, you know, to hear somebody who's now in their 70s tell that story however many decades later, and, you know, he was broken up on the phone and, you know, and he said, I don't even remember that happening. You know, like, I don't even remember the incident in Vietnam. But, you know, that'll stick with me forever. And so I think when you hear stories like that, you can only feel humbled to learn them, humbled to pass them on. And, you know, another one that's powerful that I can think of that's from the book involves Wes Gary, who I mentioned he became close friends with a guy named Jack Whitted, who was a hire. And Whitted's father was involved in the Elaine race riot, putting down the race riot, and was a, like, virulently racist man who likely, by the account, killed people. And he became very close with Wes. You know, Jack was obviously white. Wes was black. And a third person. I interviewed Sinclair Swann. And so to interview them all and hear them tell these stories and then match up directly with each other. And, you know, from Jack's history, he told the story about how he and Sinclair would wait up late at night and they would sing you're my Sunshine. I think that was the song to each other at night. And Jack told me, and he did this all ended up happening. He said he was in his 80s at this point, and he said he lived in a rural area of Florida. And he said that when I die, I have one instruction to my. To my daughters. I said that Wes will come as a chaplain and do the services for me. And he said that will probably get people mad in this area that a black guy is going to come in and give a white person's funeral. And he said, I don't like, I could care less. It matters not to me. And that's exactly what ended up happening. That they're both gone now. But I think hearing those stories and having somebody willing to share them with me, you know, is just such a powerful thing. And there's. Those are just two of many, many stories that I heard. And people just opening up about things that they had held onto for a long time. So that's what I would say.
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B
Awesome. So getting into the book some, I'll start with this question. What was the other war in Vietnam?
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C
So the other war was really the conflict that erupted between white and black service members. It was a racial violence and racial friction that really dominated the American military, not only in Vietnam, but on American military bases in Japan, Okinawa, which was actually a territory of the United States at the time, Germany and in the United States on military bases. And so sort of the unwritten story of racial conflict that existed in our military in the post 68, really between 69 and 71.
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B
Yeah. And what was the condition of. You've touched upon this a Little bit, but just sort of. To sort of expand on that a bit. What was the condition of race relations in America at the start of the Vietnam War?
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C
That's a really good question, and I think it's a sort of nuanced question, right. In one regard, you have the passing of the Civil Rights act of 1964. You have the Voting Rights act of 1965. And so maybe our image of it is like, as people that weren't there, right. As you could say, well, this is a very positive era. This is the era in which these great accomplishments were made. And certainly that's part of it. That's true. But there was also considerable signs of racial friction. It's also worth remembering that, you know, something like the civil rights movement was never. There was never majority support among whites for the civil rights movement. Never. So the best you could say about it is that a minority of people supported basic rights for African Americans among whites, which isn't really a huge endorsement. And I think people forget that there's. There's a romanticism that happens of this period, as if every person was marching in the streets. And I've actually seen that. Even I remember going to an event, maybe it was a viewing of Selma when I taught in Indiana, and there was somebody from that generation who was there, and she said, oh, well, you know, this generation can never. They'll never accomplish what we accomplished. And I mean, she was talking as if there was like an 80% support. And I was like, whoa, wait a second here. Like, that never existed. It never happened. The vast majority of the white people you knew did not support the civil rights movement unless you were in a very select group of people. So I think it's worth remembering that. That this legislation did pass, but that there was also this period of friction that existed. And it doesn't mean additionally that just because legislation passed. Others have talked about this. But systems of segregation, of racial discrimination are built upon decades and decades and decades and decades and decades of laws, behavior, both private acts of individuals and public acts of government and other institutions. And so two acts can't. Two significant acts can't destroy that permanently, Right? So it doesn't. And racism is something that reforms when challenged, just like any ism. And so I think there's that challenge. It's sort of like a time of great hope, which we don't want to say it's not. But there's also this basic principle, right, that, like in May 65. So this is before this, the. The Voting Rights act passes a few Months before you have 42% of whites support the question, do you support civil rights for African Americans? That's an all time high. A few Years later, by 67 of June, 82% of whites have an unfavorable opinion of the civil rights movement. So I think it helps to remember these things, right.
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B
And to build on that. So what sort of views did African American and white servicemen sort of hold of each other sort of going into service together into Vietnam?
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C
That's a really good question. And again, it's a nuanced answer really, because I think, like I'll give you maybe some insider information here. When I first wrote about this subject, I thought it was more positive, like I vote. I kind of was like, oh, look at this really positive moment. You know, if you have all these expressions. But then as it's gone on, it's become more complex. It's definitely become more complex from my master's to my dissertation to now. And I think part of that too is that sometimes we have a skewed view of race relations, what it means, right, A black person and a white person can get along in a work environment, but if the white person gets paid $20,000 more than the black person for the same job, that's emblematic of a racial problem. Most likely, if they're doing the same job, they're hired at the same time. All those things. I think race relations could be very positive in one avenue and very negative in another avenue. It had to do with place, it sometimes had to do with leadership. So in combat where people had to depend on each other to survive and just depend on each other in general, that did led to breaking down of barriers often. But in rear line, the way I put it in the book, in rear line areas which are more like America itself and others have written on the sort of establishment of almost like a little America in Vietnam where you could get American products, you could do almost anything that you could do in the United States. And often more that that was more like the United States. And so a lot of this stuff like segregation, racial discrimination, that's often where it came out. So that's what I would say. It really just depends. It even depends on the era. Sometimes people who are more isolated may have experienced it one way. Some people in the Air Force may have experienced it in a different way than they did in the army or the Marines. But I would say too that one, I think misconception is that just because people are getting along, that that therefore is like the full crux of Race relations.
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B
And so usually this sort of dynamic is just sort of between African Americans and sort of white servicemen. But I'm wondering, so how did African American servicemen view Vietnamese citizens? Right. And how did they also sort of think that these Vietnamese citizens viewed them as well?
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C
So that's a question that really hasn't been addressed before. Right. That you have a certain racial environment that goes on in the United States. And often, though it's more complex. Often the paradigm is black and white, especially during this era. And so what happens when there's another group introduced and another group that's introduced outside of the United States? Right. And now, of course, there's millions of Vietnamese in the United States, but then there was almost none. So most, you know, servicemen in general didn't have any experience with Vietnamese people. And so African Americans had this new experience with this new group that they had little experience with and really had been told negative things about if they'd learned anything and been negative. But kind of remarkably, they tend to, and I'll quote somebody from the book, they sort of see themselves in Vietnamese civilians in a lot of ways. And so they pick up on the poverty of the vast majority of Vietnamese that they encounter, many of whom are either displaced people, refugees themselves, or, you know, rural people. And so they see a lot of the mistreatment of the Vietnamese, and it reminds them of the way that they're mistreated in the United States. So when Vietnamese people are attacked with racialized language, where they're mistreated violently, that reminds them of the way that not only their mistreatment, but also mistreatment of a historical perspective. You don't have to experience slavery personally to understand that that's a part of a person who's African American's background. Right. In most situations, a lot of situations, you don't have to personally have been around in Jim Crow to understand that there's a legacy of that that exists not only among black people, among white people, among everyone. Right. Among our country. And so I think that that is very powerful for African Americans who serve in Vietnam, not for everybody. There's always exceptions. But I think they often see these things, the racialized language, the violence against them, the poverty of them, the idea that white people in America is sort of pounding down the Vietnamese, that they're sort of making them lesser or treating them like they're lesser. Now, again, obviously, it's a more complex than that, because of course, in Vietnam, everyone is Vietnamese. So, you know, I mean, it's not the same because obviously Vietnamese are not technically a minority in Vietnam, they're the majority. But there's also African Americans who witness the mistreatment of some of the minority groups in Vietnam. There's a sizable Cambodian population, there's a sizable Chinese minority, and there's a sizable indigenous population which Americans knew as Montagnards. Monyards and Cambodians especially tended to be darker skinned. And so that often reminded African Americans who encountered those groups of even stronger sort of ties between them and these indigenous groups because they thought the Vietnamese often mistreated them. So the Vietnamese did and do have their own racial views. But in general, African Americans thought that the Vietnamese, you know, responded in kind. The Vietnamese civilians that liked African Americans. Some of this was just racial outlook, a sort of assumption that, well, these people aren't white and they're being mistreated by whites just like we are. So they probably like, like us. Some of it is also the actions of the Vietnamese. That's something that I bring up a lot in the book is that, you know, the connection between the home front in the United States and the connection and the connection between black servicemen in Vietnam. That connection is not only made by African Americans themselves. Right. It's also evoked by whites when they discriminate against them or, you know, military policy and those types of things. It's also evoked by the Vietnamese themselves who openly claim some form of kinship with African American service members. Now some of that is cynical, some of it is if you're asking somebody for money or food, you might use that for your advantage. Some of it may be kind of like a colloquial, just something to say. And it's possible some of it is genuine, but that's in terms of the civilian population, that's kind of, that's the way they viewed them, with empathy. And even, you know, I'd use polling and stuff in the book and that matches and shows it up. So I think one could say that this is just sort of a romantic vision of the self, right? Of saying, oh yes, I related, but I think there's quite a bit of evidence throughout time and throughout more modern interviews that that's the case.
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B
And so just sort of building off of that, then what did African American servicemen expect to gain from fighting in the Vietnamese War?
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C
I think it's different than other conflicts, like I think previous conflicts to this there was an expectation of kind of the double sided war. You know, you're fighting and you're going to prove yourself and you're going to come home and you're going to be, you know, rewarded in some aspect, I think by this point, especially due to the controversy of the Vietnam War itself, that I think a lot of those maybe thoughts and ideas are probably not as present. You know, it's also not that other. I mean, you know, most wars, of course, up until Vietnam are heavily draft based in heavily draftees anyways, so people aren't really deciding to go in the first place. In Vietnam, it's roughly a third of those who serve are drafted. This is a general, not a statement on African Americans. And then another third are draft motivated volunteers, people who know they're going to be drafted and are volunteering to try to get a better position or often a safer position. And then those who join. I think most of the studies on war in general, the biggest one is one by Samuel Stouffer, who does study of returning veterans from World War II among non draftees. The major reason, and I think this really goes through all conflicts, is money, is job security, is to get. So I think now even people who would have been drafted, you still see a kind of inclination to think, well, I'll go there and I'll get a better job when I get back and this will provide me some skill set that I can go forward with. So you can still be drafted and not really want to go and still think, well, something positive might come from this. So I don't think many would have liked. It's not the same thing where they're like, okay, I'm going to serve in World War I and then I'll come back and I'll have these rights. I think there's an understanding, a sort of not strictly economic incentive, but just a sort of incentive that, okay, I'll go. Something positive might come out of this.
- [35:52]
B
And so from that, from this idea of something positive might come out from this. So what was the reality like, what was life like for African American soldiers when they returned home, sorry, servicemen when they returned home from Vietnam?
- [36:06]
C
Yeah, I mean, the, the reality is much different. Right? You're serving in an unpopular war at a certain point and even early in the war, I mean, it's not a popular war. I mean to, you know, even if it's, you know, not entirely negative, it's not as if it's like wildly, you know, popular. Right. And the popularity goes by the wayside fairly quickly. And so it's much different. Right. I mean, the reality is, you know, the black veteran experience, there's a sad aspect to it. Obviously, African Americans come home, the country has not changed Right. So the racism that followed them to Vietnam is still widely present in the United States as it is today, as I make a point in the conclusion. And so they're coming home to a country more so maybe than in past wars that's not all that interested in them or the conflict. And so there's great struggle. The experience of black veterans coming home from Vietnam, unfortunately, is largely one of struggle and challenge. And so that takes place in terms of coming back, to use a terminology, of black servicemen. Right. You still face the beast at home. The beast is racism. It's white, racist. Right. And so that doesn't change. It doesn't mean that you're going to go, as I make a point. It doesn't mean that housing is going to be easier to find even if you're in the military. I give numerous examples where it doesn't mean you're going to earn a promotion or the respect of people in the military. Most traditional veterans groups were not all that welcoming. You know, for people who are more conservative, it was seen as, okay, you guys lost, you weren't as good as us. You know, sometimes the hostility from anti war groups can be exaggerated, for sure, but that also doesn't mean that everybody was waiting to help them. Right. Like so. And then you have problems with, you know, one of the major issues is jobs. Right. So we talked about thinking that you would come home and get a job. Well, most of the skill sets learned in the military most, you know, African Americans are disproportionately represented in combat duty. They're disproportionately draftees. They're disproportionately suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and did, you know, had inpatient services and stuff like that. Well, there's just not a lot of people, not a lot of jobs with the skill set that one learns in infantry, in the Marines or the army. And, you know, some stay in the military and, you know, I do account for that in the book. But the job and unemployment rate for African American veterans is much higher than it is for whites, which is actually, I mean, it's wrong, but it's expected because that's the same in the civilian world. But the thing that is very different is that the unemployment rate for white Vietnam veterans, for example, in comparison to just white civilians, it's higher for white civilians. So there, you see, okay, white veterans served and there was at least some impact you can kind of get from that statistically that, that it gained. It somehow helped them get better jobs or at least some job. It's the opposite for African American Vietnam veterans, where the unemployment rate is higher for African American Vietnam veterans than people of the same era who never went to Vietnam. So that's a pretty stark difference. It's actually shocking because there's no other conflict where that would seemingly match up and it doesn't match up for any other group. So. So yeah, the jobs that they hope are there for them really are. Right. And then you also just have a very quick. Moving on. I think most people even today don't really want to think about the Vietnam War. They don't want to think about the racism of this country a lot of the time. And so it's really to the service of organizations that formed to represent Vietnam veterans that really were the most active defending these groups. Right. And so I talk a little bit about Vietnam Veterans of America, Vietnam Veterans against the War, Veterans for Peace, and then other black led organizations as well who do a lot of good work. And I think that these like national association for Black Veterans is one that, that I bring a lot of attention to. And so they do a lot of advocacy for black veterans themselves. But you know, unfortunately it is kind of true that a lot of people just want to move on and don't really want to address these things. And there's a GI Bill, but it's not very robust. African Americans are overwhelmingly working class who serve in the conflict. And so the GI Bill went in and afford somebody the ability to just go to school and focus on that where In World War II it did. You know, my grandfather went to, went to, got a college degree based on the GI Bill. Right. And so it just didn't pay enough. So those were some of the challenges they faced. Yeah.
- [41:37]
B
And so what sort of audience did you imagine for this work?
- [41:42]
C
I tried to write it in a lens of, you know, I sort of pride myself on trying to appeal to both people who might have an expertise in something or interested in the subject. And that could be Vietnam War, it could be African American history, that could be military history. But also I really pride myself on making the work readable to just a general audience. I don't want somebody who may be working out of, you know, maybe not in academia, maybe they're a student, maybe they aren't a student. I don't want to write something that they couldn't also just pick up and learn something from. I have a strong belief that history and education should be for anybody. And I don't view it as any different to teach. I mean, at least in terms of explicitly who deserves knowledge? I don't think it's any different to teach in a college class. You know, teach at whatever school or teach at a prison or teach at a. To a bunch of school kids, or just teach a grocery store or barbershop. You know, you can come up with whatever you want that I don't think knowledge should be rated on. You know, like, this is so complex that nobody can understand it except for Amari. I don't value that. No offense to you, but, you know, I think that, you know, that they're unfortunately, is often a privilege to knowledge. And, you know, I don't. You know, I was going to say, not to bring up with recent issues, but why not?
- [43:10]
A
Right.
- [43:10]
C
Like, I mean, I think we're seeing that right now in our own country in which African American history, LGBTQ history is being erased and we're told not to study stuff. Right. And to some extent it's because, you know, they view it as dangerous, and to some extent, it is dangerous to their view of life. But from my perspective, you know, knowledge is a powerful thing, and it's a thing that people should have access to and we shouldn't limit, especially in this type of way, you know, the type of access. Now, I wouldn't run into kindergarten class to read this book because the, you know, the language in it and stuff like that, but I definitely think they should have the same access to information and knowledge, you know, maybe in a. In a slightly more appropriate way of explaining it. Right. But so I think that, that's, That's. That's a lot of it. I want everyone to read it. And just because I think it's important information, it has nothing to do with me. You can take my name off it. But I think that it's important for people to read the story and get a better grasp of what people went through.
- [44:17]
B
Absolutely. Very, very well said, by the way, too. And so what do you want readers to sort of take away from this book then, after having read it?
- [44:26]
C
I think that, you know, I mean, first and foremost, I think just that the accounts of African American veterans speak for themselves. You know, they think that it's important to get these accounts out there. And I remember my advisor said that. I think he said this to the whole class. He said there's. There's quotes that, you know, Gerald has written or not written, but that he's. That he's gotten from interviews, that there's no way that he should paraphrase that or put that in his own words, because this is the people Themselves speaking. And so the power of the words, the power of the experience, and really what people went through. But I think I'd also like people to understand the power of hatred and racism and also the power of the opposites of those, because you have stories of great friendship across any barrier that we can create, but then you also have considerable barriers. And so I think I'd want people to understand not only about the black experience as it pertains to African American veterans, but I want them to understand a larger experience of racism and discrimination and how strong it is and how affecting it is. And so I don't think, you know, there's a reason why the conclusion is written in the way it is, which is to bring it right up until the present. It's not a mistake. Right. I wrote like that for a reason, to say that these things are still happening. And whether it's the devaluing of black lives in Vietnam or the devaluing of black veterans in the United States or the devaluing of black people in general. Right. That I don't think. I don't think you just write this book and then it stops at a period, and then you just go, okay, it's all over. Right. Like, and I never. I was teaching my class that history is today. It's connected. You can't disconnect it. So whether that's the erasure of African American studies and those subjects, or it's police brutality or it's any of those things. One thing that I spent a lot of time on in the book is talking about the justice system in Vietnam and how it targeted African Americans and disproportionately were in prison, disproportionately were charged with stuff and held pretrial for crimes that they shouldn't have been held pretrial for. And a lot of that is just done over in the United States and you replicated. And so I think when we know the origin of these things, we gain a greater understanding of it and hopefully greater empathy. It is a book that's directed towards empathy. And to think of this as all connected, that you might not be black, you might not be a veteran, you might not know anything about these subjects, but we're all connected in a way. And so I think that's a real message, too, that, like, you know, we can do better as a country. We don't have to. We don't have to do this. Like, which. I mean, really, that's what I'd like to say. And hopefully, like, that's a More expansive kind of view that the book gets too.
- [47:35]
B
Yeah. And that definitely comes across too, in the book. Well, Dr. Goodwin, thank you so much for being here. We've taken up a lot of your time. So one last question here. What are you working on now?
- [47:50]
C
So, you know, that's a good question. What am I working on now? So, you know, like, I'm obviously just trying to, like, sort of publicize this book. And so I'm doing things like this podcast. I've done other podcasts and I'm hopefully going to do more podcasts. And, you know, one thing that's really cool about this work is, like, sometimes it opens up other opportunities. So there are other opportunities, possibly. I don't want to mention any details because they're not all set in stone, but just in terms of documentary stuff. But it's also one really cool thing about this is to some extent, the legacy of this study just goes on and it continues because often now what I found a lot of is that people whose parents are Vietnam veterans, black Vietnam veterans, or grandparents have started reaching out to me, you know, to say, like, you know, I understand something a little bit better. I had a. I gave a presentation right before COVID at Salisbury University in Eastern Shore, Maryland. And so. And a young black female student came up to me and she said, you know, like, I didn't. I never understood because my one grandfather stayed in the military and he was pretty stable, and the other one never worked again after, and he was, you know, like, and very struggled with all mental health problems. And she said, now that I saw what you had to say, I understand them better. And that wasn't the intention of writing the book, but I'm finding that that is more and more what I hear, which is kind of nice to think that I would help people maybe understand their parents or their grandparents a little bit better. And so I never really know what opportunities this will lead to. I'm going to keep working on this sort of information. I don't have any kind of, like, projects, our next book in my back pocket. Like I said, I have a b. I have 8 month old in the other room. So, you know, I assume she'll probably want me to help her a lot. And then I do a lot of advocacy work in the community. So a lot of it is sort of community engagement, you know, promoting the book, continuing to teach, and then family time, which goes with the community engagement stuff. So those are kind of quite awesome.
- [49:55]
B
Yeah, that's absolutely awesome. And that's great. I think there's more community work that can be done around this. I'm sure we'll look out for some of those projects that you can't talk about when those actually happen.
- [50:05]
C
They're not mine so I just don't want to throw it out there. And then they're like, hey, get out of here. We don't want you to work. You keep telling everybody.
- [50:12]
B
Absolutely. We'll just keep tabs on you. It's fine.
- [50:14]
C
Thank you.
- [50:16]
B
Well, Dr. Gowen, again, thank you so much for being here. I really enjoyed it. I hope everyone actually goes out and buys this book Race in the Crucible of War. It's a wonderful book. I enjoyed it. I do think that you helped me sort of understand sort of some of my own family's engagement with the Vietnam.
- [50:32]
C
That really means a lot. Thank you.
- [50:34]
B
No problem. Thank you very much again. I really enjoyed it. And take care.
- [50:38]
C
Okay? Thank you.