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The War Within: Race and Vietnam with Dr. Beth Bailey at the National World War I Museum and Memorial

National World War I Museum and Memorial

2 Memorial Drive, Kansas City, MO
Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. CST

 

On Wednesday, February 26 at 6:30 p.m. the National Archives in partnership with the National World War I Museum and Memorial, will host Dr. Beth Bailey for a lecture titled The War Within: Race and Vietnam. This program will take place at the National World War I Museum and Memorial, 2 Memorial Drive, Kansas City, MO. Reservations are requested for this free program.

 

U.S. Army leaders in Vietnam were once proud of their record on race, especially as racial violence escalated back home. But by mid-1968 these same leaders, many of them white, were describing race relations as “a war within the war,” challenging the commonly held axiom that: “there’s only one color and that’s o.d. (olive drab).” Bailey is director at the Center for Military, War, and Society Studies at the University of Kansas. Her talk will discuss race during the war through the stories of those who lived it. Guests will learn about Major Merritt, who told newspaper reporters that the U.S. Army was a “citadel of racism,” about Vietnam’s Long Binh Jail Riot and of the Army’s efforts to address mounting racial tensions within its ranks.

This program is offered in conjunction with the exhibition, The Vietnam War: 1945-1975, a traveling exhibition from the New-York Historical Society currently available for viewing at the National World War I Memorial and Museum.

 

 

All events listed in the calendar are free unless noted.

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