I don’t pretend to be an expert about the lingering impacts of slavery in the United States. But information from History.com and other sources recently helps explain why the G.I. bill didn’t do as much for black Americans as their white counterparts.

The information helps explain the lingering disparity between the wealth of white Americans, some $171,000, and black Americans, one-tenth of that amount.

Rise to the Middle Class–For All?

About 1.2 million African-Americans served in segregated military units during World War II. And the G.I. bill was designed to help all returning soldiers with education, home mortgages and other benefits. I have always understood the bill was what created college degrees for returning G.I.s and helped them buy their first homes. My impression was the G.I. Bill elevated poorer Americans into a new post World War II middle class. While my father went to work after coming home, the bill helped my parents buy their first home.

 

But the G.I. Bill promises weren’t so true for black Americans.

Southern Democrats and Jim Crow

When lawmakers began drafting the G.I. bill in 1944, some southern Democrats feared that returning black veterans would use public support for veterans to advocate against Jim Crow laws. To make sure that didn’t happen, the southern Democrats used the same tactics employed to ensure some New Deal benefits would accrue to few blacks as well.

John Rankin’s Influence

Mississippi Congressman John Rankin insisted during that critical drafting that the states, not the federal government, would administer the G.I. bill. He got his way.  Rankin was known for his racism. He opposed integration and interracial marriage. He even proposed legislation in World War II to confine and then deport every person of Japanese heritage.

The G.I. Bill in Action–For African-Americans

So from the start, black veterans had difficulty obtaining their G.I. Bill benefits.  For example, they had trouble finding new housing developments that would accept African-American families.

When veteran Eugene Burnett saw the neat tract houses of the famed Levittown, New York, he knew this was for him, according to the History.com piece. But the suburb wasn’t open to black families. “Look at this house!” his wife Bernice said. “Can you imagine having this? And then for them to tell me because of the color of my skin that I can’t be part of it?”

Of the first 67,000 mortgages insured by the G.I. Bill, fewer than 100 were awarded to non-whites.

Education for Black G.I.s

When it came to education, the bill rang hollow as well. Black veterans in a vocational training program at a segregated high school in Indianapolis were unable to study plumbing, electrical work and printing because adequate equipment was only available to white students.

Those who wanted to seek a college degree faced difficulty as well. They often were shunted off to black institutions that lacked adequate funding. The black G.I.s also had come from segregated schools that had not prepared them well for higher education.

Most southern universities refused to admit blacks until the Civil Rights movement years later. Colleges accepting blacks in the South under the G.I. Bill numbered about 100, and they were generally considered of lower quality. Only seven states offered graduate education for African-Americans, while no accredited engineering or doctoral programs were available for black students.

The Need for Jobs

But for most returning black soldiers, the greater need was to get to work to support families. They didn’t have the advantage of taking time off to attend vocational training or college, according to History.com.

Rankin lost the battle to exclude black veterans from VA unemployment insurance. But those who applied for unemployment were kicked out if any other work were available to them, even work that provided less than subsistence wages. Southern postmasters were even accused of refusing to deliver the forms black G.I.s needed to fill out to obtain those benefits.

Lingering Impacts

While black veteran and civil rights groups protested their treatment, the racial disparity in the G.I. Bill implementation had already been set into motion. As years passed, white veterans and their families flowed into the new suburbs and the new skilled jobs that the black veterans weren’t qualified to obtain.

The effects remain to this day.