Summary

The Lawyer – Throughout the country, black newspapers received accounts of poor treatment and conditions faced by black servicemen, especially by way of segregation. Things were worse in the South. For example, black Corporal Trimmingham and his fellow black soldiers were denied meals everywhere in a small Louisiana town, until the train station agreed to serve them but only if they ate standing up in the kitchen in the back. Trimmingham rightfully watched angrily as German prisoners were allowed to sit down and eat in the dining room.

Thurgood Marshall, lead attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), meanwhile sought to tackle abuses suffered by black servicemen. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, Marshall worked while on the move through the country, having had a long personal struggle against racism himself. He knew racism and segregation were both...