Present to Past
Military Service
![A real photo postcard of a group of military service men and women taken at the YMCA camp near Chambery, France, during World War I. The image depicts five women standing in a row on a lawn, with four men crouched in a row in front of them. Addie Waites Hunton is in the center of the back row; the other women and men are unidentified. In the background is a large building with a double staircased entrance. A temporary sign reading [Y.M.C.A.] has been placed on the portico at the top of the stairs. Other individuals are visible along the top and bottom of the stairs. The verso has printing reading [CARTE POSTALE] with spaces for [Correspondance] and [Adresse] and a horse and horsehead mark for the publisher Guilleminot. The postcard has not been sent, but there is an inscription across the back by hand in brown ink reading [From Sgt. Thomas, who / was on leave at colored, / Y.M.C.A. at Chamberry / France]. There is an inscription by a different hand in graphite above the [Adresse] label reading [(ALFRED JACK THOMAS)].](/static/a8a50cec61ab5e0102520bf511582008/4f091/2014_63_77_001.webp)
1955Black Experience During the Vietnam War
"A White Man’s War, a Black Man’s Fight"
Two American Soldiers Sitting on a Jeep in Vietnam, ca. 1967
The 1960s saw the first major combat deployment of the integrated military, to one of the most-debated wars in American history: Vietnam. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. condemned the war as "unjust, evil, and futile" and called it "a white man’s war, a Black man’s fight" due to the large number of African American soldiers sent to Vietnam. African Americans contended with fighting and dying on behalf of a country that also denied them basic human rights. Muhammad Ali expressed these sentiments when he famously said, "I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me nigger." African Americans who did serve in Vietnam served with soldiers who donned KKK robes, burned crosses and raised Confederate flags. In addition, symbols of unity, kinship, and survival among Black troops, such as the DAP (Dignity and Pride) handshake, were banned by the military.