Double Victory (29 page)

For most Americans the happenings in the Soviet Union were too distant to cause immediate concern. War was not yet part of American life. But for Coretta Alfred, the German army was not in some foreign land 4,000 miles away. It was fast approaching her apartment in Moscow.

In 1901 Coretta Alfred had been invited to join a group of black female singers who called themselves the Louisiana Amazon Guards. They packed their bags and set sail for a singing tour of Europe. Three years later the women performed in Russia (the future Soviet Union) in theaters in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Coretta began to study opera at the Russian conservatories of music, and by 1920 she had become a well-known opera star. After marrying a Russian professor, she became known as Madame Coretti Arle-Titz.

As the German army approached the city of Moscow and bombs dropped from the skies, Madame Coretti Arle-Titz shared an air raid shelter with her neighbors. It was probably the only shelter in the city where the occupants were entertained by a renowned opera star. Coretta's lovely soprano voice competed with the sounds of exploding bombs and distant gunfire. But her performance helped to distract the frightened men, women, and children huddled below ground in the shelter.

Coretta also did her share for the war effort by giving concerts to farmers, coal miners, and war plant workers in the Siberian region of the country. She visited hospitals, where she sang to wounded soldiers of the Soviet army. She read to the soldiers and wrote letters for them. She even taught English to the soldiers and answered their questions about life in America. The Soviet soldiers were curious about life in America for black citizens. Some people called Coretta the brown-skinned sister of mercy.

Coretta was eager to do her part for the war effort in her adopted country. But her contributions didn't stop with her work with the Soviet people. Far from her homeland, Coretta found an opportunity to help Americans too.

As the German army made its way by land across the western part of the Soviet Union, Soviet soldiers desperately needed
military supplies and equipment. Without help the Soviet army would soon be defeated by the advancing Germans. They turned to the British, Canadians, and Americans for help, but there were limited options for getting supplies to the Soviets from the outside world.

The most likely route was also the most dangerous. It was known as the Murmansk Run, and parts of the route were known as Suicide Alley because the possibility of death was very real. Murmansk and Archangel were two Soviet port cities in the northern part of the country—near the Arctic Circle. Beginning in the fall of 1941, British, Canadian, and American ships traveled in convoys through the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean to bring badly needed supplies to the Soviets.

The sailors on the Murmansk Run knew their chances of survival were slim. If they managed to escape the German submarines, torpedoes, or aircraft they couldn't be certain the icy hurricane-strength winds wouldn't bring disaster to their ships. With the frigid winds forcing sea spray onto the surfaces of the ships, the decks were covered with ice. They faced constant danger of capsizing and from equipment freezing. Their cargoes of jeeps, trucks, tanks, rifles, machine guns, and millions of pairs of boots could land at the bottom of the sea. And the same could be said for the sailors themselves. The ships couldn't stop to help anyone who fell overboard—a stopped ship was an easy target for the Germans.

For those sailors who managed to survive the Murmansk Run, there was a bit of rest and relaxation on land. American sailors and civilian ship workers took advantage of time off in the port cities. That's why Coretta and her pianist husband headed for Murmansk and Archangel late in 1943, where Coretta gave a series of concerts at the international seamen's clubs. Coretta was a hit with all the sailors who needed to calm their jangled
nerves after the deadly seas of the Murmansk Run. Her soothing voice gave them a sense of peace before they set out on their return trip through the treacherous waters. But it was the black sailors who were especially pleased—and surprised—to find Coretta in a land so far from home. It was for these sailors that Coretta sang the old Negro spirituals that she had sung in her church in Harlem.

The black American sailors in Murmansk and Archangel made Coretta think about her old home in America. While happy memories of her life in Harlem stayed with her in her new home, other experiences haunted Coretta.

“I returned to America to see my mother, but my heart remained in Russia, where among the Russian masses I could forget that I am colored. I found America with its oppression, frustration, Jim Crow and hypocrisy unbearable and soon returned to my beloved Russia.”

Although Coretta Alfred decided to make her home in Russia, she never forgot her roots. And when her countrymen needed her, Coretta was eager to help. Music, to Coretta, was a universal language that could offer a sense of calm to frightened people—regardless of nationality.

A Texan in Paris

Growing up in Bonham, Texas, Roberta Dodd was in high demand as a singer in church choirs and at school parties. Roberta wasn't the only black girl in America with a voice that made the citizens of her hometown sit up and take notice. However, not many black girls from small towns in Texas ended up in Nazi-occupied France, entertaining European royalty.

Roberta left Bonham after graduating from high school. She studied piano and voice at Fisk University in Nashville,
Tennessee, and then went on to Chicago, where she studied with a voice teacher who honed her skills in the French language. Roberta made her musical debut at Kimball Hall in Chicago and prepared to embark on a tour of the United States. She concluded her national tour with a concert at the Bonham Courthouse, where she performed to a packed house.

Roberta traveled to France to study under a renowned voice teacher named Blanche Marchesi. In Paris she married an African lawyer and political activist named Kojo Marc Tovalou-Houenou, who claimed to be a prince (although some people questioned his alleged royal status). They shared a passion for music, and when they married, the home of Prince and Princess Tovalou-Houenou, as they were called, became a gathering place for the international music society of Europe. Roberta's career flourished. She was presented in concert at the French Colonial Exposition, where King Albert and Queen Elizabeth of Belgium requested an introduction. Roberta and her husband lived in Porto Novo in French West Africa for a time—where Kojo Marc owned an estate. When he died of typhoid fever, Roberta moved back to Paris. In 1940 when the German army invaded France, Roberta was living there with friends. Although she had little money and relied on friends for financial support, Roberta was still referred to as Princess Tovalou-Houenou.

When the Allied armies liberated France in 1944, Roberta was eager to do her part to make the American soldiers feel at home. She sang for wounded soldiers in hospitals, and she worked every day at the information desk of the Left Bank Red Cross club that was operated by black Americans. Roberta's royal status wasn't of concern to the soldiers who saw her at the Red Cross club thousands of miles from home. They saw a woman with a welcoming smile and a lovely voice. They didn't care if she was a princess or a commoner.

The 404th Army Service Forces Band

WAC Band #2 found it difficult to keep up with all the invitations to perform for war bond drives. The band was made up of black Women Army Corps (WAC) musicians stationed at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, late in 1943. The band had made its debut at a service club in Des Moines in September. The musicians were under the command of Second Lieutenant Alice McAlpine from Springfield, Massachusetts, and they had played all across the state of Iowa in small towns and large cities by the summer of 1944. The predominantly white communities throughout the state came out to see and hear the black musicians. And, most important, they bought war bonds to help support the fighting men and women in the armed forces.

Members of the all-black 404th Army Service Forces Band.
Fort Des Moines Museum and Education Center; Vera Campbell Collection

There was a WAC Band
#2
because WAC Band
#1
—the 400th Army Service Forces (ASF) Band—was all white. Many talented black WACs had auditioned for the ASF band. Some of the women who tried out had been college music majors, music teachers, or even professional musicians in civilian life. But
not one
black WAC ever made the cut. They decided to start their own band—WAC Band #2.

When the band first formed they didn't have instruments—nor did they have “official” status in the army. They eventually got both.

Although the US Army didn't recognize the black WAC band as an official army band, army officers at Fort Des Moines did allow the formation of the group in September 1943. It took about a month to find enough instruments to complete a band. So while the search went on, the black musicians trained as a chorus to improve their music-reading abilities. The result was that by the time instruments had been rounded up, the women sounded very good as a singing group. But it was their reputation as a band that brought the invitations to perform.

Finally, in June 1944—after the black band had become so popular and had been so successful at war bond drives—the army staff at Fort Des Moines recognized the black musicians by making WAC Band #2 official—still segregated, but official. However, the official designation was short lived. Within a month, the women received notice that their group had been disbanded. The reasons given by the army were that the band had not been authorized by the US Army headquarters in Washington and that only one band was allowed on each base—and Fort Des Moines had the 400th. The commander at Fort Des Moines said the budget no longer allowed for a second band. It was not possible for WAC Band #2 to continue.

The all-black WAC band had become a source of pride for many black Americans. The women had just returned from a grand parade in Chicago where crowds had cheered them and celebrated their new official status. They had performed at the University of Chicago to a packed house. How could the army deactivate them?

Black leaders, community members, and members of black organizations across the country learned of the injustice and felt it was intolerable. They instigated a massive protest directed at policymakers in the army and the War Department. Officials were bombarded with letters and telegrams. Black newspapers encouraged the movement. By August the army had reversed its decision to deactivate WAC Band #2 and reinstated the band with an official name—404th AFS Band.

The black WACs were elated. But by November 1944 they were more puzzled than elated. When the original band was disbanded in the summer, the members had been reclassified into non-band positions and the band's instruments was taken away. Two months had passed since the reinstatement of the new band, and very few members had instruments. In fact, the instruments were coming in from the army supply depot at a rate of only about one every week. At that rate, it would be
years
before they had enough instruments to begin performing again. Despite the barriers that seemed continually to crop up, the women of the 404th AFS Band refused to give up. The instruments did eventually come and by December they were once again performing. In May 1945 the 404th AFS Band performed in the Mighty Seventh War Bond Drive in Chicago at the Savoy Ballroom. The drive began on May 14 and ended on June 30 and brought in over $26 billion for the war. The army hadn't made it easy for them, but the women of the black WAC band insisted on doing their part for the war effort.

Home Sweet Home

As the war ended and soldiers began returning home in large numbers, entertainers welcomed them home with special performances. One of those entertainers was concert and stage star Muriel Rahn, who had been told by a hotel clerk in 1942 that she was not welcome because they did not “take your kind.”

In August 1945, 10,000 weary soldiers arrived in New York from Europe on the
Queen Elizabeth.
The soldiers were so happy to see home that some cried as they disembarked; others kissed the ground. From the ship the soldiers were taken to nearby Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, where Muriel headed up a homecoming show for the returning heroes. Although Muriel was a superstar and could have earned thousands of dollars for her performance, she sang for free.

If Muriel Rahn and other black female entertainers who had helped boost the morale of American servicemen and -women fighting to rid the world of fascism and Nazism hoped that life would be better for black Americans after the war, they were seriously disappointed.