Although over a million African-American men and women served during World War II, they continued to experience discrimination in the armed forces. In addition to being relegated to segregated combat units, often in service-and-supply capacities,…

In his 1941 State of the Union address to Congress, President Franklin Roosevelt identified "four freedoms" (freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of speech, and freedom to practice religion) that the U.S. needed to defend by entering into…

When Los Angeles resident Beatrice Morales Clifton went to work at the Lockheed Aircraft plant in Burbank, California, she was a married mother of four children. In this excerpt from a longer interview, Morales Clifton, the daughter of Mexican…

Beaumont, Texas, like many U.S. cities, became a boomtown during World War II, as new residents flooded in to take jobs at the city's shipyards and petroleum production facilities. Between 1940 and 1943, population rose by 35% and the city suffered…

In this rare color photograph taken for the Office of War Information, a "real life" Rosie drills on the side of a dive bomber plane. Nearly three million women worked in defense industries during World War II, including thousands of African…

This photograph, made for the Office of War Information, is part of a larger series documenting racial conflict surrounding the construction of the Sojourner Truth homes in Detroit, Michigan. White neighbors and tenants of the new federal housing…

The Japanese distributed leaflets over the South Pacific that asked, "If Americans are fighting for the freedom and equality of all people, why aren't Negro Americans allowed to play big league baseball?" Ben Davis, an African-American candidate for…

Over one million black men and women served in the military during the second World War. Artist William Henry Johnson's images of the war often pictured soldiers in training camps, but this piece shows a family separating as a soldier departs for the…

Joe Louis, the famous heavyweight boxing champion, served in the Army from 1940 to 1942, appearing in exhibition matches as well as this recruitment poster. A few years earlier, Louis had defeated German heavyweight Max Schmeling, a symbol of the…

One of the most famous posters of World War II, "Someone Talked" urges Americans to prevent sensitive information from falling into enemy hands. Closely associated with the "Loose Lips Sink Ships" series communicating the same idea, the image of a…