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Nearly 8 million servicemen and servicewomen were educated under the provisions of the GI Bill after World War II. But for blacks, higher educational opportunities were so few that the promise of the GI Bill went largely unfulfilled.
SINCE THE Serviceman's Readjustment Act, commonly known as the GI Bill, became law over 50 years ago, in June of 1944, it has been widely celebrated as a benchmark of opportunity for Americans who have served in the armed forces. A recent study conducted by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress estimates that military personnel who used their benefits to complete a college degree or vocational training program earned an average of $10,000 to $15,000 more annually than those who had not. And those increased earnings have generated tax revenues eight to ten times greater than the total cost of the program. Many analysts call it the best investment the U.S. government has ever made. All together, 7.8 million servicemen and servicewomen were educated under the GI Bill after World War II.
It is not difficult to understand why the GI Bill is held in such high regard. But did the Serviceman's Readjustment Act present black ex-servicemen with a level playing field? The consensus among both scholars and soldiers is "no." Given the obstacles facing blacks in 1944, one must acknowledge that the GI Bill provided a more level playing field for blacks seeking education and a more dignified means of living than the almost perpendicular slope most American blacks had known since Reconstruction. But that is not saying very much.
Race was contested terrain in the very inception of the GI Bill. One of the sponsors of the measure, Senator John Rankin, a Democrat from Mississippi, was notorious for his prosegregationist and racist position on all issues relevant to blacks. Despite his advocacy of veterans' concerns, Rankin's agenda regarding black soldiers was ensuring that they would be relegated to their proper position of servitude after the war. Rankin's views on blacks are best illustrated by his remarks: In a 1920 editorial on the epidemic of lynching following the 1917 Armistice, Rankin attributed the problem to black soldiers having passed themselves off as "sunburnt Yankees" or American Indians while serving in Europe, and returned to America...