Black WWII vets would see benefits restored by bill
Rep. Seth Moulton: 'It’s the right thing to do'
A plan to extend longoverdue G.I. Bill benefits to Black World War II veterans has been reintroduced in the House and could, according to the bill’s sponsors, finally right a historic wrong.
“As a Marine veteran, I would absolutely not be here in Congress without the G.I. Bill benefits that I received after returning from Iraq. When I learned more about the injustices Black veterans faced after World War II, and how it affects their families to this day, I knew that it was a moral imperative to work on this bill,” U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton told the Herald Tuesday.
The bill, The Sgt. Isaac Woodard, Jr. and Sgt. Joseph H. Maddox G.I. Bill Restoration Act, would restore benefits to those veterans of the second world war that still live or would make the G.I. Bill available to their descendants.
Many veterans coming home from Europe and the Pacific theaters after the war used the G.I. Bill to attend college or pay for their homes. Nearly 20% of white veterans used the benefit, first established in 1944, to pay for college degrees, but only 6% of Black veterans did, according to figures provided by Moulton’s office.
“In 1947, only 2 of more than 3,200 home loans administered by the VA in Mississippi cities went to Black borrowers. Similarly, in New York and New Jersey suburbs, less than 1% of the mortgages insured by the G.I. Bill went to Black borrowers. The impact of these disparities in education and homeownership has only grown with time,” the congressman’s office said when announcing the bill.
Sgt. Woodard, while in uniform in 1946, was pulled from a bus by a local white police chief and beaten so badly he was left permanently blind. The beating was so brutal, President Harry Truman famously ordered the integration of the armed forces in response. Sgt. Maddox was accepted to a Master’s program at Harvard after the war but was denied benefits by local VA officials, allegedly to avoid setting a precedent.
In order to amend the disparity shown to Black veterans, Moulton has joined with South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn to refile a bill the pair had tried in the past.
“The quickest ways to overcome poverty in this country are through education and homeownership. The denial of these benefits to Black veterans returning home from service has impacted the accumulation of generational wealth for Black families across the country,” Clyburn said in a release. “We must restore the possibility of full economic mobility and the promise of the original G.I. Bill to all impacted by these discriminatory federal practices. This legislation will honor that commitment.”
Moulton, who is now a member of the minority party in Congress’ lower chamber, seemed to acknowledged the bill, refiled on the last day of Black History Month after it died with the end of the 117th Congress, has faint hope of support in a contentious House of Representatives.
“We didn’t introduce this because it would be politically easy, we are doing it because it’s the right thing to do,” Moulton told the Herald. “It’s not my generation who perpetrated the injustices faced by Black veterans, but it is my generation that needs to finally fix it.”