“Do you see it?” An exasperated black soldier dropped his pants. A few residents of Skagway, checking the credibility of some white officer, had asked if black soldiers had tails.
White residents of Skagway didn’t know quite what to make of the Army’s segregationist policy. They reacted to the black soldiers with curiosity—cautious curiosity.
Link to another story on Skagway
Racism following the black soldiers of the 93rd Engineers to Yukon raised its ugly head long before they reached Canada. Recalling his trip on the Rock Island, Anthony Mouton remembered a one hour stop in a small Arkansas town. White soldiers climbed down from their trains, and a patriotic white woman moved along the tracks, passing out doughnuts. Officers on Mouton’s train hurriedly ordered the men to stay aboard—out of sight and without doughnuts.
In April of 1942, barely out of his teens, Eddie Waters found himself on a train going God knows where, passing through the Dakotas. On a train ahead of the one carrying Company B, officers ordered all the shades lowered so people along the tracks couldn’t see into the cars. B Company, though, hadn’t got the word. When Private Waters innocently raised a shade, a young white officer rushed over, slapped him, and shouted, “You will not pull shades up. We don’t want them to see you.”
Sgt. Albert France, a black non-commissioned officer in A Company recalled bitterly, “One thing I remember quite well is that segregation existed even though we were a part of the United States Army”. Pretty sure Sgt. France would have considered, “do you see it?” a great answer.
Sgt. John Bollin of F Company was 22 when he landed in Skagway. He had known the segregation in Louisiana and at Camp Livingston. “We didn’t exist before the war and we don’t exist now in a war.” It was the same in Skagway.
PBS on Racism in the WWII Army
Six year old Carl Mulvihill lived in Skagway in 1942. Black troops quartered across the alley from his house hurt his feelings, ignored his waves and smiles. He learned later that the army had forbidden black soldiers to talk or visit with any temporary white neighbors.
