Abstract

This essay attempts to make a contribution to the literatures of African American history, Military history and that which seeks to re-conceptualize the political history of women during the Second World War. Focusing on the migration experiences of African American service families whose loved ones served in the U.S. Ninety-third Infantry Division, the piece explores the creation and development of service-related groups in military areas of the American Trans-Mississippi West during the early stages of the war. Based on extensive interviews and documentary evidence, the essay examines the laboring struggles of black women, children, and men to carve out living spaces in Arizona and California while enduring racial discrimination and gender antagonism in areas adjacent to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and Camp Clipper, California, during the period. Highlighting the unique political organizing and networking strategies developed by black women on behalf of those who trained at the military installations, the essay contends that by linking grassroots concerns to public debate over the very nature of black participation in the war effort, the women became powerful political actors in their own right. The piece concludes with an analysis of the ways in which gender and class rifts within the black community and the shifting social and political climate exposed limitations of the organizing activities and political and social reform strategies adopted by service relatives living in defense areas at the time.