So let's go back to World War II.

America goes to war, to save the homes and ideals of free men from access domination.

America was fighting a terrible dictator determined to take over Europe.

From the harbor, Nazi C-plane flies on some mission of war.

And to defeat him, everyone needed to play a role.

We all had to be pulling together and feeling good about the mission and about each other.

And so to better understand how the troops were feeling, the government turned to a sociologist named Samuel Stofur.

And they told him to go out and ask as many troops as he could about their morale.

What made them unhappy? What made them happy? What they liked to break the service and didn't like.

That was Thomas Petagrew, a social psychologist who worked with Stofur when he was a grad student.

And he says one of the main groups the government was concerned about, morale wise, was African-American soldiers.

I mean, it was tough. The army was still segregated.

There was enormous amount of discrimination.

And the army was concerned that black soldiers would be particularly unhappy, low morale, when they were based in southern camps.

Now, to be clear, it's not like life for African-American soldiers in the north was easy.

There was plenty of discrimination in the north.

It's just that the army was more worried about soldiers stationed in the south.

Because if you think about it, soldiers on the weekends they go out and have fun in the local community to blow off steam.

But for black soldiers in the south, this was practically impossible, given the realities on the ground.

It was intense. Intense segregation and dangerous.

I mean, lynching was still going on in the south. That was common practice.

We forget how bad it was unless you lived through it you wouldn't imagine it.

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