UnwrittenTruce is a powerful depiction of Black Americans’ struggle for equality told through the lens of uniformed military service. Mosley uses superb story-telling, personal vignettes, and historical examples to show how millions of Americans have lifted themselves from oppression through opportunities gleaned from military service. Collectively these efforts exerted positive outward pressure on American society and by in large has resisted all forms of social change. One of the unique aspects of combat is that rarely are Americans more equal than when thrust into harms way. It has been said there are no atheists in combat; similarly, racism, sexism, and homophobia quickly go by the wayside when under enemy fire.Yet in the 19th century and well into the 21st century, America’s military policies regarding the use of manpower could best be described as an awkward attempt to balance the requirement to win the nation’s wars while supporting a socio-political caste system. President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948 in response to police violence perpetrated against Black veterans. His actions broke this trend and set the military on the path to true meritocracy. Today, retired general Lloyd Austin is the first black American Secretary of Defense in part due to the barriers broken down by men and women who served before him. The armed services fiercely resisted integration, gender equality, and LGBTQ equality but over time have grown to value America’s well spring of diversity as a strategic and operational advantage. Under the Trump administration many of the military’s policies supporting transgender inclusion were reversed, making the U.S. military one of many institutions caught in the ideological tug of war regarding social change, which is at the heart of the present day American polarization. For as far as America has come, we still have work to do for Truman’s vision of equality of opportunity to become a reality for all Americans. Join this thought-provoking narrative that celebrates the brave American military pioneers and challenges us all to continue the push for a better expression of America.

In order to win the Cold War, American presidents embraced the mantra of equality of opportunity to justify racial reform efforts within the US military. The problem was that equality of opportunity never guaranteed acceptance—nor was it designed to. In The Racial Integration of the American Armed Forces, Geoffrey W. Jensen clarifies our understanding of the political processes that fundamentally altered the racial composition of the US military. Jensen examines nearly thirty years of military integration that unfolded during the Cold War. America’s racial woes were grist for the propaganda mills in Moscow and their integration effort was intended to curb this assault and protect the nation’s image during this largely ideological struggle. But integration of the armed forces needed more than just Cold War justification. It also required the willingness of the president to lead. Military integration occurred as the result of the longstanding tradition of Congress to allow the executive branch to control the staffing and composition of the military. While past accounts of the integration of the armed forces have focused on the critical roles played by the burgeoning leadership of the civil rights movement and the Black population, Jensen is the first to emphasize the importance of presidential leadership and their staffs. Jensen contends that understanding the action—and inaction—of Cold War presidents and their administrations matters just as much as understanding the efforts of those outside of Washington and the West Wing, as it was the presidents who were the ones dictating the pace at which reform was carried out. Jensen has carefully situated this story within the milieu of the Cold War, the civil rights movement, and, looming over it all, the emergence of Southern resistance to desegregation in the United States. Desperately committed to upholding and expanding their vision of white supremacy, the South recoiled in horror at the prospect of racially integrating the armed forces. From this vantage point, Jensen shows how the use of Black military personnel during the Cold War, and throughout all American history, was not born solely out of humanistic beliefs or desires to improve the social status of the Black community, but out of the strategic necessity of winning the war at hand.