ABSTRACT

This chapter provides the focus to the groups on the other side of the struggle, more specifically to the American Legion, the largest and most influential veterans' organization in the twentieth-century United States. One can approach the problem of race and military veterans from a different and less well-trodden angle. Just as Donald Glascoff had expected, the influx of Second World War veterans brought renewed urgency to the calls for racial integration. The Legion leadership steadfastly denied that the resolutions had anything to do with racial segregation and always pointed to the fact that they never mentioned race. The relationship between African Americans and the Legion only further deteriorated with the rise of the civil rights movement. Instead of helping make veterans' benefits accessible to all former soldiers; they played a key role in enforcing conformity to their own model of who counted as a veteran.