On this 80th anniversary of #DDay, remember that Black troops played a crucial role in the invasion of Normandy and fueled the Allies’ advances in Europe all the way through VE Day. This thread draws from my book Half American to honor these veterans 1/ penguinrandomhouse.com/books/624655/h…


About 1700 Black troops landed at Normandy on #DDAY June 6, 1944. Port Battalions, Quartermaster Companies & Engineer Dump Truck Companies prepared the landing zone and brought troops and supplies ashore, while facing heavy Nazi machine-gun fire 2/

For #BlackHistoryMonth I'd like to highlight Black WWII veterans. First up, Women’s Army Corps veteran Dovey Johnson Roundtree went to Howard Law & helped secure a ban on racial segregation in interstate bus travel in Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Co. 1/ blackpast.org/african-americ… For #BlackHistoryMonth I'm highlighting WWII veterans. Next up, Edward Allen Carter Jr., who saw combat in Germany as part of 56th Armored Infantry Battalion under General Patton. Carter was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/s… 2/

On this #DDay, remember that Black troops played a crucial role in the invasion of Normandy and fueled the Allies’ advances in Europe all the way through VE Day. Since the end of WWII they have been written out of this history. Here’s a short thread of Black troops and #DDay 1/ About 1700 Black troops landed at Normandy on #DDAY June 6, 1944. Port Battalions, Quartermaster Companies & Engineer Dump Truck Companies prepared the landing zone and brought troops and supplies ashore, while facing heavy Nazi machine-gun fire 2/

Today is the anniversary of a massive school boycott in NYC 1964. 460,000 students stayed out of school to protest school segregation and racial discrimination in the city's schools salon.com/2016/02/03/jim… Here is a great piece @yasmeenkhan did on the Feb 3, 1964 New York City school boycott for @WNYC wnyc.org/story/school-b…

Launching today – "Black Quotidian: Everyday History in African American Newspapers," an open-access digital book from @stanfordpress blackquotidian.org

Here is a thread on Black Quotidian’s motivations, structure, arguments, and influences… Black Quotidian explores how the black press popularized Af-Am history and valued the lives of black people. Introductory essays on the history of black newspapers are followed by over 365 short posts on individual historical newspaper articles blackquotidian.supdigital.org/bq/overview

The code word "busing" came to dominate discussions about school desegregation because white "antibusing" protestors were careful students of the civil rights movement and TV & print media were eager to broadcast their protests

More here whybusingfailed.com/anvc/why-busin… & in thread At a 1964 rally in NYC a white mother told NBC TV that they took their strategies from civil rights activists: “We feel like we can prove as much as our opponents using the same tactics...These are our civil rights and we’re taking advantage of them.” whybusingfailed.com/anvc/why-busin…

If school desegregation is “political poison” today it is in part because terms like “forced busing” & “de facto segregation” are repeated w/o context.

Here is some of what I learned in studying the history of “busing” for my book “Why Busing Failed" ucpress.edu/book/978052028…

https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1144637115952615425

First, school buses made the modern public school system possible. Number of students transported to school at public expense in US expanded from 600K in 1920 to 20M in 1970. Buses enabled multi-grade elementary schools and comprehensive high schools, rather than one-room schools

"Biden takes flak on race and busing. But his views may still mirror America’s" by @isaacstanbecker. This is a good piece that quotes historian Brett Gadsden, whose book "Between North and South" is the best place to start to understand Biden and "busing" washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/06… To understand the #DemDebate2 exchange between #KamalaHarris & Joe #Biden, you have to understand that "busing" has been used since the 50s as a code word to oppose school integration. I cover this history in "Why Busing Failed" & the book's website whybusingfailed.com/anvc/why-busin…