Given that Michael B. Jordan was killed off as Killmonger in Black Panther recently it leaves him entirely open to produce a film about a group that was known as the Black Panthers in WWII. There’s no telling as of yet if Jordan is going to act in the movie but as of now he is standing in as the producer. The film is going to be about the 761st Tank Battalion in WWII which was an entirely African-American combat unit. They were forced by federal law at the time to stay segregated from the white troops, meaning any group that they formed had to be on their own in a combat zone. That sounds less than optimal, in fact it’s something that would be considered by today’s to be absolutely deplorable. The act eventually led President Truman to desegregate the armed forces, which if you read your history went about how you might expect.
It’s noted that baseball legend Jackie Robinson was among the men who served in this battalion, but he never went overseas. Their insignia was a black panther, which was where they got their nickname. Their motto was even better as it went: “Come out fighting.” They knew that they weren’t being given much of a chance to survive and even if they did something great it would only get minimal recognition. It was a bad time to be a black man in the army as their lives seemed to mean very little to those in control. And yet they still served their country honorably and as best they could buy slogging through the same mud and going through the same war zones as their white counterparts. It was a horrible war that many survivors would barely talk about let alone want to remember, no matter if there have been worse since. Jordan is taking on something that could be another important step in speaking out about diversity in this country, bringing to light something that a lot of people knew nothing about until they finally read the articles that have been piling up about it.
While the armed forces have been desegregated for a while now and equality is seen as a necessity in the armed forces, the history of black men in the military has almost never been a shining one. From the Revolutionary War forward their roles have been mired in controversy. They’ve been said to be free at some points and yet still treated like second-rate citizens and even worse. Men and women of color have been told in the past that they would be given a fair chance at the life they want, and yet they’ve been lied to time and again. To think that any group of men were told that they couldn’t fight and die alongside their fellow soldiers seems an ill note in the long history of the United States military. Hopefully it will come to light in a fair and unbiased voice just how this group served their country with distinction.
They deserve that and more.
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