Hello, welcome to the History Hit World Wars Podcast, a podcast dedicated to that turbulent period in history

between 1914 and 1945. On this podcast we welcome Shammer Ams, a scholar from Cambridge University and a

Marshall scholar who has been conducting the most fascinating research into the over 1 million African American soldiers who served fighting fascism during the Second World War.

But Shama's findings are disturbing to say the least because

although these soldiers were fighting Naziism, they came back to an America that was still

segregated and they were targeted as veterans for racist terror lynchings.

Shama's in-depth research provides us with a lens through which we can analyze that post-1945 world, but also the more contemporary events of Black Lives Matter

and the killing of George Floyd in the United States. Thank you. Hi Shama, thanks for coming on.

Thanks, James.

That's to be here.

Now, I was in Montgomery, Alabama over MLK Day this this year and I saw tributes to the famed Tuskegee

airman who escorted US bombers in Europe and engaged in combat all over Sicily, in Italy and

in Germany as well.

But over the years I've been studying the Second World War, I've come across disturbing accounts

of how the 1.2 million African American troops who fought in the US forces against fascism were treated by their own comrades and their government during the war.

And I know this is your area of research, So how did systematic racism manifest itself during this wartime period?

Well, James, thanks so much for bringing up this topic and inviting me to speak on it. Indeed I have

covered this topic in my research on Civil Wars, focusing specifically on the

U.S. Civil War and indeed since the U.S. Civil War in the 19th century, it's my claim that wars in the US have

inescapably been intertwined with the country's racial politics.

And the Second World War was no exception.

And so I think in responding to your question,

...