Join East Tech High School, the Cleveland Foundation, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards as we host Matthew F. Delmont, author of “Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad.” It won the 2023 Anisfield-Wolf award for nonfiction.
Historian and scholar Matthew F. Delmont begins “Half American” in Spain because, as he puts it, “the war really started for most Black Americans before Pearl Harbor. Fascism in Europe is something that Blacks understood as white supremacism.”
More than one-million Black American men and women served in World War II, and those experiences galvanized the demand to defeat white supremacy at home.
Anisfield-Wolf Juror Steven Pinker praised “Half American” as a “book heroically researched, rich in historical detail, well organized and written. This will probably stand as the landmark treatment for years to come.”
This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided. Books will be available for sale on site by ThirdSpace Action Lab. A book signing with the author will follow.