Multimedia Presentations

Fighting for Equality: 150 years of African Americans in the Military

African Americans have long served their country in the armed forces, though often fighting to guarantee freedoms for others that they were denied at home. Their struggles for equality in military service were fought—and victories sometimes won—before those same rights were accepted in civilian society.

The National Park Service presents films with fresh perspectives on African Americans’ struggles for civil rights in the military. These videos, created for high school students, take viewers from Virginia to Vietnam and from the enslaved to the commemorated.

 
  • Freedom’s Fortress: Escape to Freedom

    Freedom’s Fortress: Escape to Freedom

    Empowered by a legal loophole, thousands of enslaved Africans escaped and found refuge at a Union-held fort during the Civil War. Fortress Monroe in Virginia became the site of the first “contraband camp”; a spontaneous community of self-emancipated blacks where inhabitants often became recruits for military service.

    Duration:
    4 minutes, 27 seconds
 
  • Service on the Frontier

    Service on the Frontier

    As the United States moved westward, settlement and expansion hinged on protection by the military. Two African American cavalry regiments, known as the Buffalo Soldiers, were placed in the tense and tenuous position between Native Americans and European settlers. They also worked on infrastructure, like the railroads and telegraph lines that made westward expansion possible. For Buffalo Soldiers, military service offered the opportunity for a better life, and a greater level of independence and respect for their rights not yet widely found in American society.

    Duration:
    4 minutes, 15 seconds
 
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Vietnam War

    Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Vietnam War

    Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., took a public and unpopular stance against the Vietnam War, declaring it an enemy of the poor in the United States. In his 1967 speech, Beyond Vietnam, King argued that young African American men were sent “to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia or East Harlem”.

    Duration:
    4 minutes, 35 seconds
 

Last updated: August 5, 2024

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