Hillburn, Hattiesburg, and Hitler

Focusing on the wartime struggle against segregated education in Hillburn, New York, this chapter demonstrates the ways in a newly revived branch of the NAACP, framed their local struggle for a national and international audience by marshalling the rhetoric of the wartime era. Rather than just advocating the "Double V" call for democracy at home and abroad, though, northern activists deployed a much more powerful rhetorical weapon: the connection between fascism at home and abroad. Black Americans had learned the language of antifascism during the Ethiopian war, but the Second World War gave black antifascism wider traction in American society, allowing activists to launch an assault on segregation. Meanwhile, defense employment gave African Americans the economic security to fight for their rights. Winning the battle against state sponsored segregation in Hillburn highlighted the opportunities of the war. The removal of white children from the newly desegregated school showed the limits of wartime gains.