Crossing the Divide: Jesse Owens

Some time back (Feb 17, 2011) Out Of This World featured a Jack Kirby Losers story where Kirby introduced an African American soldier, Mile-a-Minute Jones, who was based on the real life African American athlete Jesse Owens. The Catholic comic book Treasure Chest vol. 7, #20 (June 5, 1952) featured a biography of Jesse Owens in which his undermining of Aryan supremacy in Hitler's Germany at the Berlin Olympics of 1936 is recounted, as is his subsequent recognition by post-Nazi Germany. The scans here are low resolution:

The Ziff-Davis title, Bill Stern's Sports Book Vol. 2 #2, doesn't have a sequential art story about Jess Owens, but does have a 2 page illustrated text feature that is an interesting read:

Of all American sports personalities, Jesse Owens and Joe Louis, by virtue of their direct confrontation with, and victory over, Aryan supremacists, were at the forefront of the intellectual challenge to the racist philosophies of the Nazis.

Crossing the Divide: Satchel Paige

The Catholic comic Treasure Chest is actually a mini-gold mine for someone looking for Golden or Silver Age comic books featuring African Americans. In Treasure Chest there are a mixture of fictional and factual stories, and it is true accounts of the lives and activities of famous African Americans that are sometimes depicted. I picked this story about the baseball player Satchel Paige especially because of the last three panels, but generally because Paige is someone I had never heard of before, and it was interesting reading about him. Those last three panels really drive home the role that African American sports personalities played in bridging the racial divide. That they had to shoulder this responsibility speaks to the power of prejudice against difference that develops in unenlightened societies, as people allow themselves to be driven by their animal instincts instead of their intelligence. Unfortunately, the achievements of so many other African Americans remain unknown because of a color-filtered mechanism of apportioning worth to human activity. Anyway, this is a charming tale about someone who was, by this account, a good man and someone well worth knowing about. We know about him because of his success in baseball, something the majority in society recognized as an accomplishment and that earned him respect. "The Ageless Satchel Paige" is from Treasure Chest Vol. 8 # 17, April 23, 1953.

Published by George A. Pflaum of Dayton, Ohio, the original Treasure Chest series ran from 1946-1972 and was only available on subscription or through Catholic schools, where they were a classroom resource. Until the 1960s the comics were published bi-weekly, and thereafter were monthly and twice the size. More information on Treasure Chest is available in a Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Chest_%28comics%29

Crossing the Divide: The Harlem Globetrotters (1)

In the early 1950s, Ziff-Davis published Bill Stern's Sports Book, a comic book in the sports genre. Volume 2 # 2 (Winter, 1952) was a 100 page square bound 25c comic, and contained several stories featuring African American sports stars. The first in the book (and the hardest to scan!) was about the origins of the Harlem Globetrotters. Drawn by Everett Raymond Kinstler, it's an artistic gem, but it's also an interesting read as it follows the early exploits of the world's most famous basketball team. What's important to remember is that this comic was published during the period when segregation was still in force in the USA. The Globetrotters are another example of African American sports personalities who were able to induce members of the majority population previously entrenched in a dualistic stance on race, at least to some extent traverse the race barrier. Like all African American sports personalities of the time, in addition to having to make a name for themselves in their field, the Globetrotters had thrust upon them the responsibility of representing the African American community or 'race' as a whole, an unwholesome burden inflicted by a society divided along racial lines.

For sportsmen like the Harlem Globetrotters, that hard-earned recognition made its own contribution to breaking down the race barrier, even though such representation should never have been necessary in the first place. But that was how American society had evolved at the time, on its road towards making the words of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States become a reality. Looks like the Globetrotters also had the privilege of being some of the first people to have their portraits drawn by Kinstler, for whom several U.S. Presidents have subsequently sat! Kinstler nowadays is recognized as one of the greatest portrait artists of all time.

Minorities in Comics in a Segregated America: World's Finest 17 (Spring 1945)

 

Okay, I know the cover of WF #17 really doesn't look like it's going to say anything socially relevant on the inside, but appearances can be deceptive. Besides the main features, this issue included an 8-page Johnny Everyman story dedicated to exposing the plight of African American G.I.'s returning home after World War II to segregation. It is written by Jack Schiff (who wrote about a million public service announcement pages for DC for several decades), with pencils and inks by John Daly (worked on Congo Bill, Robotman, Sub Zero, and a variety of other Golden Age characters).

The first few pages show a segregated African American unit in action on the front line against the Nazis. The story then shifts to the USA, and Ralph, who's an African American soldier from that unit, is home on leave and meeting up with his buddy George outside the munitions plant where George works. Ralph is keen to sit and catch up with George over some food, but Ralph has been away a while and forgotten that eating places are segregated around there.

 

George and Ralph are in the process of being turned away at a second restaurant, by a waiter who knows he's in the wrong but just claims all the tables are reserved, when Johnny Everyman steps in and makes it impossible for the restaurant to deny them. Ralph is grateful, but it is still a bitter pill to swallow. Without their white-skinned friend coming to their aid, they wouldn't have been allowed to eat there. The real problem hasn't gone away, only temporarily thwarted in this small way. Probably the strongest lines in the story are when Ralph, twice decorated war hero, expresses his frustration:

"Sure I'm a hero! I almost gave up my life to help wipe out fascism. So what? I come back here and I can't even eat a meal where I want to... what's the use?"

Johnny launches into a long speech, reminding Ralph of gains that had been made towards eventually establishing racial equality, and encouraging Ralph to have faith that his will come about. It's a tough analysis to take, but it's probably accurate to the way things were in the mid-40s. There would be no overnight changes, only gradual movement in a more positive direction. Hard that a whole section of the population had to continue waiting for the rights that were theirs, and have to endure discrimination and abuse in the mean-time. Not difficult to see why some people might just get fed up with that situation, after how many generations since the Emancipation Proclamation, and take a proactive stance.

 

I can't say for sure, obviously, that this story is unique, but it's a contender until something similar shows up. Who was DC editor at this time? This isn't revolutionary old EC, but reliably mainstream mom's apple pie DC, taking an admirable very public stance against segregation, even if reluctantly conceding that it wasn't about to end that day. I liked the dedication at the beginning, which set the mood for the whole piece:

"Dedicated to the millions of American Negroes who are doing their share in the armed forces and on the home front, to win the war and usher in a new era of peace and understanding among men".

Not bad for 1945. I wonder if pre-code DC war comics used less of the racist terms referring to Asians in the 1950s than did those of other companies, e.g. Atlas. That would be interesting to find out.

I think this 'scan' was from Joshua Thirteen again, but it looks like it was actually a microfiche originally. I don't happen to have a copy of this one in my collection!

Anti-Racism in 1950s Comics: Weird Fantasy 18 - "Judgment Day"

EC's March-April 1953 issue of Weird Fantasy includes a 7-page story titled "Judgment Day", written by Al Feldstein, drawn and inked by Joe Orlando, and colored by Marie Severin. EC subsequently reprinted the story in Incredible Science Fiction 33 (Jan-Feb 1956) to fill in for an Angelo Torres alien planet jungle story that was rejected by the Code.

This (in my opinion) masterpiece of graphic storytelling takes the reader to a future other-world setting, in which humans have advanced beyond the solar system and out into the stars. This planet is one they have seeded with an artificial life form, and a representative of the human race, Tarlton, arrives to inspect the society that has evolved, to see if it is ready to join the Galactic Republic. As Tarlton is shown round, Feldstein uses the scenario as an allegory of the segregated society prevalent in the United States at that time. There are orange and blue robots, and facilities are designated accordingly. The blue robots are the ones that live on the other side of the tracks, and are denied the privileges accorded to the orange robots. Tarlton sees what he needs to see, and points out the flaws in the status quo that have developed in this civilization, citing these as the reason that this robot society is not yet qualified to move to a higher level of existence. The scene in the assembly plant is particularly poignant. That panel on page 6, where Tarlton likens the 'educator' to the family, environment, and societal institutions on Earth that condition a young person to look upon themselves and their relationship with the rest of society in a particular way, is stuff we teach undergraduates and graduates in 'Human Behavior and the Social Environment'. Who says EC didn't really mean Educational Comics!? I'll let the story say the rest for itself.

Again, though, this is EC making a bold statement against the situation that existed in society at that time due to the derailing of the intent of Emancipation Proclamation. The class prejudiced and racist structures in society that impose unequal opportunity for the poor, amongst whom minority groups, including African Americans, are over-represented, remain somewhat effective today, despite official desegregation. And while many, many more people today, especially young people, are free of the attitudes that support this inequality, they may not be the ones with the economic power to effect deep changes to the institutional racism that is still embedded in our society.

That said, I don't want to lose sight of the fact that the United States remains arguably the most advanced nation in addressing and overcoming this problem. We have what appears to be the most diverse society on Earth, and so problems like this have come to the fore first in our country. I'd say that where the US has trodden, others have yet to follow. Observe the inter-racial violence that has been erupting recently on the streets of the UK. Other countries in Europe have also been experiencing huge influxes of immigrants from their old colonies, and there are massive adjustment problems as a result. This EC story may have been revolutionary for America in 1953, but the fact that it existed here at all says a lot. I don't think there is anything even nearly equivalent to this in early 1950s British comics (although I would welcome correction on this point) - Britain was still a virtually monochrome society in 1953 and so was barely beginning to address the issue of racial integration. Demeaning images of non-whites were acceptable, perhaps not even thought about then as inappropriate. When I was a kid in England, golliwogs were standard in children's books, as toys, and even as collectible figures behind the label on your jar of marmalade. So putting it in perspective, it was that constitutional principle of freedom that allowed EC to publish this story in the first place (and why one can argue that the Comics Code was kind of unconstitutional), even though the climate of the times may not have been very much in tune with EC's stance on segregation and racism. But because reformers are allowed to speak out, change can eventually occur, and hopefully we haven't lost sight of that. I wonder if I'll live to see the time that Earth is ready for it's 'judgment day'.

 

Good old EC with that last panel punch!

Note: my eternal thanks to Joshua Thirteen for the scans that facilitated the composition of this post.Thanks also to Aaron, The Ghost Who Blogs, for so liberally sharing his extensive knowledge of comics and pointing me in the direction of this story to help me out with my project.

Anti-Racism in 1950s Comics: Frontline Combat 15 - "Perimeter!"

 

I've had to revise my whole presentation on desegregation in comic books, based on my discovery of this 8-page Wally Wood story (written, drawn, and inked) from EC's Frontline Combat 15 (Jan 1954). I'd seen the cover before, and upon seeing it again re-noticed the African American soldier there depicted. So I gave it a read. "Perimeter" is set in the Korean War and features a 'mixed unit' of Americans plus their South Korean allies outnumbered by a combination of Chinese and North Korean troops. What makes this story stand WAY out is it's overt anti-racist stance and it's use of a character with racist attitudes in order to get the point across. Lots of 40s and 50s comics use disparaging terms and stereotypes to belittle the nation's enemies, but characters in those stories uttering racially abusive labels are made to look like that's an acceptable norm. Not so with this masterpiece. In this story the main target of racist abuse is an African American soldier, Matthews, who stands up for his South Korean allies when one of the other soldiers, a Yankee it seems, named Miller, refers to Koreans as 'gooks'. The sergeant in charge of the unit is a Southerner, from Texas apparently, and in this way Wood carefully avoids the stereotype that it's only Southerners that are racists, while clearly acknowledging that non-racist individuals also existed in that population. The sergeant remains silent on the issue of racism, presumably because of the racist contingent in his unit and the need to retain the respect and loyalty of all his men in combat. His silence is, however, interpreted by Miller as simply a cover for prejudice on the part of the sergeant, although he has no evidence to support his assumption, only that the sergeant is from the South, a belief which is revealing in and of itself.

 

Wood places the seed of his powerful punchline near the beginning of the story - Matthews carries and reads his Bible as a source of strength. After surviving a massive onslaught from the enemy, it's Miller who starts cracking up, convinced they're all going to die, and Matthews who offers him support, an offer which is met with scorn. The sergeant steps in and breaks up a potential conflict, and Miller reminds us that back home segregation is in full force. So here's an example of how the military was ahead of everyone else in terms of integration. Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, President Harry S. Truman, had signed Executive Order 9981 in 1948, after three years of build-up towards desegregation of the military. There was significant establishment of integration during the Korean War, but Vietnam is known for being the first fully integrated war. The military were years ahead of the Civil Rights Movement, and the G. I. Bill, which helped some returning African American soldiers carve out lives they would otherwise have been denied, was also an important factor in moving towards ending segregation at home.

Back to the story and the enemy mounts a new assault, and this time the Americans and their allies are forced to retreat, with the exception of the sergeant, armed with a Browning Automatic. Hearing a wounded American soldier nearby, in the rain and in the dark, he risks his life to pull him back to his foxhole, despite the soldier's insistence that he save himself and leave him to die. The soldier passes something, that we don't see, to the sergeant, asking him to give it to his family. The sergeant holds off one enemy attack after another, exhausting the B.A.R.'s ammo, and then his carbine's, until he's fending off North Koreans in hand to hand combat. Eventually day breaks and the worst is over. While waiting for reinforcements, the sergeant sits reading Matthews' Bible. Among those Americans who move back up to the sergeant's position is Miller, who scathingly derides the sergeant for risking his life for an African American (Miller obviously uses racist terminology, which Wood significantly turns into a deleted expletive). Matthews is hurt bad, but still alive thanks to his sergeant, who hands the Bible to Miller, commenting that he (Miller) is the one most in need of it. In classic EC fashion the last panel delivers the punch, or in this case the heftiest kick in the bal@& of racism imaginable - the Bible, by which many racists allegedly lived, is open, and we can just read the verse: Malachi 2.10 - "Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us?"

Being the industry leader, at least from an artistic point of view, in the early 50s, EC had a major impact on the style of writers and artists of many other companies. Had the witch hunts and the Comics Code not destroyed the gains EC had achieved with the medium, including their willingness to go out on a limb and broach subjects like this, maybe integration in comic books would have moved faster than it did. As it was, it looks like there's almost an 8 year gap between Frontline Combat 15 and DC's Our Army At War 113 featuring Jackie Johnson. Also of note is that DC don't actually bring the race issue out into the open until OAAW 160 a few years later, when Jackie fights the Nazi boxer, and then it's only an indirect reference to racism in the USA. You have to make the leap between racist Nazis of WWII and contemporary racists in 1960s America. So to say again that EC were ahead of their time is a real understatement. The storytelling and the art in "Perimeter" are just astounding. Wood does those night-time panels exquisitely, and Marie Severin did a totally amazing job of capturing the right atmosphere with the colors. So this one also has my vote for inclusion in the as yet non-existent comic book story hall of fame.

Note: my gratitude goes out to Joshua Thirteen for these scans.