When the Allies desperately needed cargo ships, women bravely stepped up to supply them by working at shipyards across the country, including in Brunswick, Georgia. 

US Marine Corps Women’s Reserve Sgt. and Museum family member Bernice Williams turns 100 years old on March 1, 2021. She says that her 1943-1945 service as a Marine made her a “better person.”

For civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, World War II was a crucial time when he explored nonviolent direct action as a philosophy and a method for challenging racial inequality.

In December 1944, Harriet Pickens and Frances Wills became the first African American WAVES officers.

Medgar Evers was one of more than a million African Americans who served in the US military during World War II. He returned home only to face daily discrimination and paid the ultimate price for his fight against inequality.
 

C.L.R. James (1901-1989) called for mass resistance to Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935.

After four years of cancelled celebrations, Mardi Gras returned in 1946. For the veteran flambeaux carriers—a dangerous and physically taxing job—the need for better wages resulted in a historic strike that caused “a post-war rude awakening.”

In the four years of war, Americans on the home front were asked to do their part and to go without certain items for the sake of the war effort. For residents of New Orleans, World War II also meant going without Mardi Gras.

Jackie Robinson is best known for breaking Major League Baseball’s color barrier. Less well known, but just as pivotal, is his 1944 court-martial after refusing to move to the back of a military bus.

In what was described as a “homey little ceremony on the back porch of the White House,” Franklin Roosevelt entered into his fourth term as President with stoic optimism.