3 pages history paper

Second Writing Assignment

This three-page paper should be based primarily upon the 1945 novel by Chester Himes, If He Hollers Let Him Go. In addition, you will find much complimentary material on wartime race and gender relations in the essays found on pages 102 to 118 of the Course Reader, Lichtenstein: The United States in the 20th Century. (The essay by Eileen Boris is particularly useful in illuminating the racial and gender tensions in wartime industrial workplaces). In addition, Chapter 2 of Lichtenstein’s State of the Union, found on pages 54-97 of his book, will provide good background material.

In your paper take an incident from the work life of Bob Jones, the fictional shipyard worker in If He Hollers Let Him Go, and explain how this episode in a big wartime workplace reflected the larger set of racial tensions, expectations, triumphs and disappointments experienced by African-Americans at work during World War II. Connect events and emotions found in the novel to the larger set of developments – the formation of the Fair Employment Practices Commission, the wartime migration of blacks and whites out of the South to the North and West, the rise of the unions, the war against fascism, the protests and race riots of the era – described in the relevant documents, essays, chapters, and lectures. Explain how and why an African-American figure like Bob Jones can feel so frustrated and enraged in an era that most historians consider the birth of the modern civil rights movement and a time of high employment, good wages, and opportunities for African-Americans.

Sample citations:

Chester Himes, If He Hollers Let Him Go, (New York: Thunder’s Mountain Press, 1945, 1986), p. 23.

Eileen Boris, “Racialized Bodies on the Homefront,” Course Reader, p 113.

“The War Labor Board Assails Workplace Racism, 1943,” Course Reader, p. 104.