“War! What Is It Good For? : Black Freedom Struggles and the U.S. Military from World War II to Iraq” by Kimberley L. Phillips

African Americans’ long campaign for “the right to fight” forced Harry Truman to issue his 1948 executive order calling for equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces. Kimberley Phillips examines how blacks’ participation in the nation’s wars after Truman’s order and their protracted struggles for equal citizenship galvanized a vibrant antiwar activism that reshaped their struggles for freedom.