“Soul Soldiers: African Americans and the Vietnam Era”

Senator John…

“Soul Soldiers: African Americans and the Vietnam Era”

Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh

Regional History Center

1212 Smallman Street

Through October 2007

$5 with a student I.D.

The heavy chop of helicopter blades squeezes through the speakers above the dark entry leading to the exhibit. To the left, a black memorial wall displays the names of local blacks who died in Vietnam in bold, ghost-white letters.

The exhibit, “Soul Soldiers: African Americans and the Vietnam Era,” will appear at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center through October 2007; it closely examines how the Vietnam War affected blacks in the United States and abroad. Here, the depths of facts presented are catalysts to an experience that proves to be both frightening and overwhelming.

The exhibit showcases nearly 200 artifacts such as rucksacks, photographs and a variety of mixed-media artwork. These artifacts depict life in Vietnam and establish a parallel between the tragedies from the worn country to that of the divided United States. The number of personal artifacts, soldiers’ diaries and letters help make the exhibit both an educational and moving experience.

One display case exhibits the belongings of a young soldier, Leroy Bernard Mudd. Mudd’s wallet – containing Vietnamese currency – his journal, dog tags, address book and letters to home lay in the case. Next to his artifacts hang two telegrams sent to his family. The first telegram informs his parents that Mudd has gone missing; the second, that he has died by drowning, trying to retrieve a football from a river.

“Letters home, 1966-67,” by Frankie J. Howery, shows pictures Howery drew on envelopes he sent home to pass time and keep memories. Cars, airplanes and figures drawn in colored pencils decorate the outside of his envelopes.

“Soul Soldiers” also depicts how the Vietnam War affected American soul, jazz, rock and gospel in the 1960s and 1970s. The Temptations’ album with the song “Ball of Confusion” and Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys – featuring the song “Machine Gun” – are two of several albums that represent the confusion and anger that many Americans felt toward the war in Vietnam.

The lives of black women who were involved in the Vietnam War are also explored in the exhibit. First Lt. Patricia Tucker’s nurse uniform and nametag hang on display. A photograph of Phillipa Schuyler, a composer-turned-journalist, shows Schuyler disguising herself as a Vietnamese woman in order to move about the country easily. A photograph of Denise Perrier, a nightclub singer based in San Francisco, shows her sitting next to a soldier, excited to perform in a Huey helicopter on Christmas Day, 1968.

A great portion of the exhibit centers on the civil rights movement in the United States during the Vietnam War. U.S. Navy posters show various profiles of blacks, including women. One poster reads, “Your son can be Black, and Navy too.”

The posters are a result of activism for equality after Truman signed Executive Order 9981, desegregating the U.S. Armed Forces. However, the Order also stirred racial violence.

Political cartoons show how the war in Vietnam was drastically different than the racial conflict in the United States. In one cartoon, a white and black soldier stand side by side, wondering why the United States cannot unite. Another cartoon shows a black soldier greeting a white soldier he served with, only to be shooed away.

“Soul Soldiers: African Americans and the Vietnam Era” is an extensive exhibit that thoroughly explores the Vietnam War from a perspective that deserves more attention than it has received. Although the United States was fighting a war abroad, the exhibit proves that a war closer to home was just as detrimental.