An Army Afire: How the U.S. Army Confronted Its Racial Crisis in the Vietnam Era

University of Kansas historian Bailey (America’s Army) offers a detailed examination of the U.S. Army’s efforts to address “the problem of race” in the late 1960s and early ’70s. In straightforward prose, she catalogs myriad racial incidents; profiles soldiers who “demanded attention to their status as Black men and to the problems they faced within the U.S. Army” and leaders who were primarily concerned about racial conflict because it “disrupted military efficiency”; analyses the Army’s frequent attempts to redress racism in its ranks; and examines pervasive racial inequities on and off military bases (primarily in the South) and in Vietnam. In doing so, she covers the well-known—including the August 1968 uprising by Black soldiers at the Long Binh Jail near Saigon—and the obscure, such as Richard Nixon’s politically motivated demand in the spring of 1971 to erect a monument at West Point to graduates who died serving in the Confederate Army. Though Bailey all but ignores significant racial disparities in the other military branches at the time, her in-depth reporting on the Army’s attempts to “assess and address Black soldiers’ complaints” sheds light on what was accomplished, as well as how far there is left to go. It’s a valuable study of the challenges to institutional reform. (May)