Double Victory (25 page)

Red Cross volunteers Jeannette C. Dorsey and Willie Lee Johnson join in some musical fun with Cpl. Robert Barttow and Pvt. James Montgomery in Assam, India, August 1944.
National Archives, AFRO/AM in WW II List #204

The Red Cross club located at Margherita, India, was a unique club that served both black and white servicemen. It was staffed by black Red Cross personnel. The facility looked like a country club situated at the top of a hill at the end of a winding road. Servicemen and Red Cross staff could sit on the balcony that overlooked fields of green tea plants. The club had a library, card rooms, and a canteen that offered sandwiches, doughnuts, apple pie, and ice cream. The club was a popular place. Between 400 and 1,200 servicemen visited every day. Willie Lee Johnson, Faye Sandifer, M. Virginia Bailey, and Jeannette C. Dorsey were Red Cross workers who served as staff assistants at the club.

As spring approached in 1945, the war was beginning to wind down in the European theater. And by summer, the war would be over in the Pacific region too. Red Cross workers who had been in war zones for years were beginning to think of home and postwar America.

Thoughts of Home

In May 1945, J. Pericles McDuffie was passing through London on her way home to the States. She carried her luggage through the train station and made her way through the city on VE Day (Victory in Europe Day) while all of London's train porters and taxi drivers were out celebrating. Pericles didn't mind the inconvenience though. She had reached London from her assignment in Paris in only 14 hours—amazing considering it had taken her 14
days
traveling from London to Paris at the height of the fighting a few months earlier. It was wonderful to get back to a city that was now free of bombs.

“At least 10,000 people were milling around Buckingham Palace, and everyone in the city was wearing red, white and blue,” said Pericles of her return to London. She was surprised to see the usually conservative Londoners in “a peace-happy mob that kissed the bobbies [policemen] 'til their faces were red from lipstick as well as embarrassment.”

While Pericles was on her way back to the United States, two other American women were still in Europe and only dreaming of home. Mary Stamper had enjoyed being stationed in France, but in her opinion San Francisco was the most beautiful city in the world. Henrine Ward Banks was operating the Canebiere Club in Marseille, France, and got word that she was going home after three years away. When she arrived at her mother's
house she planned to first kiss her mom and then head straight to the kitchen, where she would drink a big bottle of ice-cold milk from the refrigerator.

Lolita Espadron looked forward to going back home to New Orleans after the war. Even though it is known as a city with terrific food, fabulous music, and plenty of lively nightclubs, all Lolita wanted was to spend some quiet evenings at home listening to her radio. It wasn't that she didn't like socializing with her friends at clubs. But Lolita had filled an unusual role with the Red Cross in Sydney, Australia. After working her usual eight-hour day at the Booker T. Washington Red Cross Club, she organized outings for groups of servicemen and -women to nightclubs in the city. Most of the clubs that served black servicemen reserved a table for Lolita and her group of war-weary soldiers who were looking for a break from the fighting. Lolita was just the “organizer”—the soldiers brought their girlfriends. Everybody looked forward to an evening of good music, great dancing, and a meal that wasn't in the mess hall.

Lolita commented at the end of the war that she never knew going to nightclubs could be work. Many nights after working her long shift at the Red Cross club all she wanted to do was go to her room and relax, but she didn't want to let the fun-seeking soldiers and their girls down. By the end of her duty in Australia, Lolita had had her fill of the nightlife. She looked forward to returning to New Orleans to take up her old job as a social worker. But she did spend a little time wondering if she would be satisfied with her social work after the “glitter and glare” of the night life in Sydney. “I wonder how I'll fit in,” she said about her return to the postwar world.

Backing the Attack for Democracy

Segregation and discrimination were part of American life in the 1940s. It was a time when black people were intentionally excluded from civic organizations and government programs. It was a time when black people were forced to sit in separate sections of buses, trains, and public buildings. It was a time when black people were told their blood was inferior to white people's blood. Segregation and discrimination were two evils of American society in the 1940s. Most white Americans accepted and didn't question the racism that existed.

It was also an unusual time. The country was at war with forces that threatened the ideals of democracy. Many Americans feared their way of life was in danger. And when the country went to war, many Americans volunteered to help win the war and preserve their way of life.

Thousands of black women who had been victims of segregation and discrimination volunteered to serve their country in a variety of ways. Many of them were treated cruelly in return. Five black entertainers who volunteered to entertain American servicemen at a camp in Arizona were forced to sit up all night on a train because the rail company refused to give them sleeping berths. Marie K. Clarke volunteered to join a nurse aide class and was told she wasn't needed because she was black. Gabriel Jones and Ellise Davis volunteered to donate blood and learned it would be labeled “Negro blood.” And Mildred McAdory volunteered to organize a scrap drive only to end her day bruised and in a roach-infested jail cell.

Why did these women, and so many others like them, volunteer to serve a country that tolerated segregation and discrimination? The black Red Cross volunteers who took the pledge of nurse aides hoped to make a “contribution to civilian defense
and to suffering humanity.” Eva White, the mother of six who volunteered as a nurse aide when her children were in school, said she got great satisfaction knowing that she was doing something for her country. Henrine Ward, who served with the Red Cross in England and France, said she wanted to “make our colored warriors comfortable” when they were 3,000 miles from home. Hazel Payne, nicknamed the First Lady of the Alcan, said she volunteered because “this democracy is worth fighting for.”

We don't take Negroes here. —Hotel clerk in Ohio

I'm sorry, we don't take your kind.

—Hotel manager in Washington, DC

You'll have to eat in the kitchen. —Waitress in Missouri

All across the United States in the 1940s black citizens met with discrimination when they tried to stay in hotels and eat in restaurants. It meant that black people planned ahead when they took trips. Travelers prepared sack lunches at home so they wouldn't have to face the possibility of being turned down for service in a restaurant. Friends and relatives were contacted along the route to provide overnight lodging for travelers. And it didn't make a difference if the traveler happened to be one of the most well-known and talented entertainers of the time or that she had raised thousands of dollars for the war effort.

By the fall of 1945, when Hazel Scott entered a café in central Missouri and was told she'd have to eat in the kitchen, she had won acclaim as a Broadway performer and Hollywood film star. Trained as a classical pianist by a Juilliard teacher, she had made a name for herself by “swinging the classics”—uniquely blending classical music with jazz in her performances: Beethoven with Basie, Tchaikovsky with jive, Chopin with boogie-woogie. She said she just couldn't resist the temptation to jazz up her classics. And she did it with such success that audiences couldn't resist her. She reportedly made $5,000 a week and dined at New York hot spots such as Sardi's and El Morocco.

Hazel's star status granted her access to some of the best restaurants in the country. But for those out-of-the-way roadside diners where the workers didn't recognize her, Hazel was just another “colored” trying to eat with whites.

It was while she was on her way to a performance in St. Louis, Missouri, in October 1945 that Hazel and her companions entered a small café along the way. When she approached the counter and asked for service, the waitress said, “You'll have to eat in the kitchen.”

“I'm sorry, but I don't eat in kitchens,” Hazel replied.

When Hazel asked if she could get some sandwiches to take out, she was told she could but that she couldn't stand at the counter to wait for them. Hazel Scott, a star of stage and screen, remained at the counter as she waited for her food.

Later someone asked Hazel why she didn't identify herself to the café workers—surely she would have been served if they had known who she was. Hazel explained, “I don't want any special privileges. There are 13 million Hazel Scotts in America. They just don't play the piano.”

Star Power

Throughout the war years, Hazel Scott made valuable contributions to the war effort. It wasn't unusual for her to make as many as five benefit performances for wounded servicemen in a week. And she visited hospitals that others chose to forget. “I have played in many tropical disease wards where the fellows are so badly mangled that screens are kept in front of them,” Hazel said. “I know I'm using what talent I have to do something for America and my people too.”

In January 1942, Hazel performed in a show titled “Salute to Colored Troops” where she helped raise funds for a recreation center for servicemen and -women in New York. Although she could command a lucrative sum for her appearances, Hazel refused to take any money for her work. Later in the same year Hazel performed at a “monster bond rally”—called “Win the War”—in Carnegie Hall in New York. Early in 1943, Hazel volunteered again in a Carnegie Hall concert—this time to raise funds to help an ally of the United States. Five hundred seats were reserved for anyone who brought a watch in good working condition. The donated watches were sent to the Soviet Union for army officers, soldiers, doctors, and nurses at the front. In February 1944, Hazel performed in the “Million Dollar War Bond Show” at the Roxy Theater in New York. And on July 4, 1944, at Lewisohn Stadium in New York, Hazel took part in a four-hour-long bond rally that required anyone who wanted to attend to purchase a war bond.

Hazel Scott was one of thousands of entertainers who used their star power to help win the war. Musicians, singers, dancers, actors, and comedians were eager to do their part to support the war. Many famous Hollywood stars helped raise money for
the war by participating in war bond rallies. Providing soldiers with wholesome entertainment was a major part of the war effort. The nation's leaders knew it was important to provide US soldiers with uniforms, food, weapons, and ammunition, but they also recognized it was important to keep morale high. One way to do that was to give soldiers opportunities to rest, relax, and forget the war for a short time. President Franklin Roosevelt understood the importance of entertainers to the war effort when he said, “Entertainment is always a national asset; invaluable in time of peace, it is indispensable in wartime.”