During the Second World War the immense needs for labour and military manpower transformed American society and gave Black Americans an historic opportunity to advance themselves. This podcast explores the barriers they faced and the racial discrimination of segregated armies and workplaces, and the ironies of a military power based on racial discrimination conducting a moral crusade against Nazism. *****STOP PRESS*****I only ever talk about history on this podcast but I also have another life,
Reading time:
1–2 minutes

Explaining History Podcast
For more than a decade, the Explaining History Podcast has helped listeners around the world make sense of modern history. What began in 2012 as a simple experiment—short, accessible episodes explaining major historical events—has grown into a long-running library of carefully researched, thoughtful explorations of the 20th and 21st centuries.
If this was useful, there’s more where it came from.
Every week I publish one piece connecting a current event to its historical roots — free, every Tuesday. Paid subscribers get two additional deeper dives and full archive access.
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