African American Negro Colleges in Wwii (1943)

Synopsis

Negro Colleges in Wartime" was a short propaganda film produced by the Office of War Information in 1943. Other than in the screen title no reference is made to the students' race. The film begins with a shot of the famous statue of Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee, and notes that progress and industry has a new meaning for the present - winning the Second World War. A brief overview of the war related work at several different black colleges follows, starting with Tuskegee where the famous George Washington Carver was putting his brain to work for the war effort. Students are encouraged to join the Tuskegee Airmen or learn about aviation manufacture. At Prairie View College in Texas and Howard University in Washington, DC students learn the increasingly technical skills of war industry and agriculture. At Howard's medical school, training is also being offered to supply the field with nurses. Hampton University in Virginia is practically on a 24-hour basis training more war workers. Prior to WWII, African Americans had made some strides in the area of Civil Rights. The onset of the war meant that the dream of race equality would once again be deferred. During the war many African Americans served with honor, enabling some of the great strides forward in later decades. This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available…

Uploader's description on archive.org

Details

Running time

8 minutes

Collection

Ephemeral Films

Subjects on the Internet Archive

• Stock Footage