THE DOUBLE V (PT. I)
by: Todd Steven Burroughs
Victory at home, and victory abroad.
Winning the fight against Jim Crow as well as against the Axis.
Between 1827 and 1941, the Negro press collectively had developed a well-deserved reputation for militancy. It was not going to turn its cheek while its Negro boys joined a Jim Crow Armed Forces in a Jim Crow country to "make the world safe for democracy" for the second time in three decades. Negro soldiers were being segregated against and harassed by White soldiers and White civilians, and Negro labor leader A. Philip Randolph had to scare President Roosevelt with the idea of a Washington march before White America allowed Negroes to work in the defense industries.
So when a Negro man wrote to The Pittsburgh Courier, then the nation's most powerful Negro newspaper, and suggested that the White America's "V" (for Allied Victory) campaign be doubled for the Negro, The Courier, with at least a decade behind it as a muckraker, seized on the idea as a campaign.
It created a design of an eagle sitting on a banner that said "Double Victory." Above the eagle was the word "DEMOCRACY." Under the eagle and between the banner were two "V"s on top of each other. Under the "V"s were the words "AT HOME--ABROAD."
Historian Frederick S. Voss writes that the paper "gave birth to the 'Double V' campaign by featuring [the] emblem on its front page, on February 7, 1942, with no explanation of what it meant. Readers nevertheless grasped its meaning immediately, and letters poured in congratulating The Courier on its double-barreled challenge to oppression at home as well as abroad."
Almost immediately, other Black newspapers followed. Then the slogan began to move outside the world of newsprint.
"As this wartime theme took hold in the African-American community," wrote Voss, "the 'Double V' insignia began appearing on posters and sheet music," as well as other items.
In the documentary, "The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords," you can even see sisters sporting "The Double V" hairstyle.
For the Black press, the slogan was more than a design; it was also a philosophy.
Its blistering coverage of the horrible treatment Negro soldiers were receiving caught the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the War Department, and the Justice Department. Voss writes that Negro newspapers began to be banned at some Army posts and were stopped in the mail.
The question was beginning to be asked: could the Negro press be charged with sedition (read: treason)?
Charged with telling the truth?
A June 1942 meeting between Attorney General Francis Biddle and Chicago Defender publisher John Sengstacke cooled the matter.
Wrote Black press historian Patrick S. Washburn: "Biddle, an outspoken advocate of Blacks, unusual in Washington's southern atmosphere, promised that the Justice Department would not indict any Black publishers for sedition during the war if they did not become any more critical than they already were. Sengstacke, in turn, said Black papers would be 'glad' to cooperate with the war effort if they were granted interviews with top government officials that previously had been denied. He then quickly conveyed Biddle's promise to the other publishers, who were delighted."
But, according to Washburn, the meeting "did not end attempts to silence the Black press."
"FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover tried to obtain numerous Espionage Act indictments of the Black press until 1945, but the Justice Department refused to go along with his wishes," wrote the historian. "Meanwhile, the Post Office wanted to revoke some second-class mailing permits, but the Justice Department would not support the moves in court, which quickly ended the threats."
Voss wrote that although sedition was no longer an option, "throughout much of the war, the Black press was kept under government surveillance of various kinds, and more than one
official continued to worry about its potential as a dangerously divisive force in the country's
united struggle against to subdue its Axis foes."
Its potential was something to worry about, if the goal was to maintain White supremacy through White denial.
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