WORLD WAR II
PROPAGANDA IMAGES
African Americans and the War
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During the war, African Americans continued to face racial discrimination and segregation on the home front and in the military. Yet the overwhelming majority of black Americans participated wholeheartedly in the fight against the Axis powers and served with distinction. Read more about this at the National Archives Web Site.
Know Your Enemy
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The racial aspects of the war in the Pacific, as well as the intense American desire to punish the Japanese for the "sneak attack" on December 7, 1941, would guarantee that World War II, in the words of one historian, would be a war without mercy. As opposed to the portrayals of Germans and Italians in American war propaganda, Japanese were more often portrayed as sadistic and bloodthirsty, or as wild animals or vermin that needed to be exterminated.
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Not all Asians, though, were seen as the enemy. America and China were allies and America sought to encourage sympathy for the Chinese fighters against the Japanese. This included a partial repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, as well as naturalized citizenship to legal Chinese residents in America. |  |