African Americans were considered, at best, second class citizens. Yet despite that, there were many African American men willing to serve in the nation’s military, but even as it became apparent that the United States would enter the war in Europe, blacks were still being turned away from military service. African Americans have served the U.S. military in every war the U.S has fought. Formalized discrimination against black people who have served in the U.S. military lasted from its creation during the Revolutionary War to the end of segregation by President Harry S. Truman's Executive Order 9981 in 1948.
