Contested Valor: African American Marines in the Age of Power, Protest, and Tokenism

Contested Valor is a challenging examination of the use and status of black Marines in United States military service during the Cold War era. These pioneering men experienced contested military integration, as well as multiple forms of institutional and social opposition, which called their humanity, manhood, and rights to full citizenship into question. Efforts to undermine their service compromised their right to be counted among the elite and sidelined their story to the fringes of Marine Corps and US history.Cameron McCoy describes the factors and pressures leading to the racial turbulence that surfaced in the Marine Corps from the end of World War II through Vietnam, and the measures taken by civilian and Marine officials to maintain and restore organizational integrity based on a foundation of white supremacy. He examines the psychological effects of institutionalized racism on African American Marines during the Vietnam era and the emergence of a new generation of black men unw