CONTESTED VALOR

"Contested Valor is an examination of the use and status of black Marines in service during the Cold War era. It is about how these 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 American history. It also explores the creation of these organizational policies designed to minimize their footprint as U.S. Marines until the social experiment of military integration faded and illustrates the discriminatory practices that further delegitimized their wartime reputation. 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. McCoy examines the psychological effects of institutionalized racism on African American Marines during the Vietnam era and the emergence of a new generation of blacks unwilling to submit to the traditions of a Jim Crow Marine Corps. By exploring the realities American society created about black Marines, this work calls attention to the diverse ways in which these men coped within a strict prejudiced organization and found greater purpose as U.S. Marines despite an embattled image"--