Double Fight, Double Standard: Fascism Abroad, Racism at Home
The Golden Thirteen, The First 13 African American U.S Navy Officers. Photo from: National Archive
It’s hard to explain what it feels like to risk your life for a country that sees you as less than human. Lanier W. Phillips knew that contradiction all too well. After surviving kamikaze attacks and serving on a ship carrying half a million gallons of aviation fuel, he returned home in 1945 with the pride of a survivor—and the bruises of a system unchanged. “Spent the entire war from the beginning to the end,” he recalled, “and [they] wanted to kill me because I wasn’t trying to go in there to eat, I was trying to get information where I could go and eat.” The people treated as enemies—German and Italian prisoners—were eating inside. Phillips, an American sailor, was bleeding on the sidewalk.
That sense of betrayal wasn’t isolated. Walter Hill, a scholar and veteran, tied it together plainly: “To understand the civil rights movement, you’ve got to understand what happened during World War II.” Black soldiers fought Hitler overseas while dealing with segregation in their own units, and the hypocrisy didn’t go unnoticed. The “Double Victory” campaign—victory over fascism abroad and racism at home—became more than just a slogan. It was a wake-up call. As Black veterans returned from war, many didn’t just bring scars—they brought a new fire to challenge the injustice they’d seen all their lives.
Robert P. Madison was one of those soldiers. Wounded in Italy while serving with the 92nd Infantry Division, he found out about the Double V campaign only after returning home. He and his fellow soldiers weren’t even aware of it while overseas—they were too busy surviving. Madison remembered how the U.S. Army dumped its “misfit” white officers into Black divisions, treating them like expendable units. Still, Madison fought, was injured, and awarded a Purple Heart. “I’d have been dead today,” he said, had he not chosen to drive himself that morning. Even in the trenches, segregation found a way to creep in.
333rd Field Artillery Battalion African-Americans captured during the Battle of the Bulge, December 1944
Photo From: German Federal Archives
At home, the curtain of racism was just as literal. Dorothy Runner remembered sitting peacefully on a train ride home from Howard University when suddenly a black curtain dropped in front of her face as the train crossed into Virginia. It was the law. “A big black curtain came down to separate you.” She’d never been harmed, but the message was clear—you can fight for this country, learn in its schools, work in its factories—but you still aren’t equal.
Even as a child, Augustus F. Hawkins felt it. In Shreveport, Louisiana, streetcars were marked for “white” and “colored” sections. Hawkins, who often passed as white, said conductors would move the Jim Crow sign right in front of him. The lines weren’t just physical—they were mental, emotional, and generational. “Sometimes I’d get into the situation of being on the white hill, rather than the Black hill, and the white kids would chase me back.” These weren’t just stories of discomfort; they were lessons in survival.
And yet, there was pride. Alexander Jefferson—Tuskegee Airman and prisoner of war—recalled how his presence in a German camp stunned white American soldiers: “Negroes are flying P-51s? They’re Red Tails?” Despite facing disbelief and being treated with more equality by enemy captors than his own countrymen, he and his fellow pilots had a reputation: “We were damn good.” Jefferson’s story proved what was always true—Black excellence existed long before it was acknowledged. Even behind enemy lines, they soared.
Eight Tuskegee Airmen in formation
Photo From Afro-American Newspaper