Equal Opportunity?:

A Bellwether for Change

Judged by the social norms of its era, the GI Bill was a relatively fair and even-handed policy. Many benefits were awarded irrespective of military rank as well as race and gender. At a time when racial discrimination was pervasive and the military was segregated, Congress imposed no such restrictions on veterans' benefits. Discriminatory policies of many states and localities, however, blunted the law's intentions. Especially in the South, African Americans were routinely denied access to mortgages, business loans, and vocational training. They were barred from the graduate programs of North Carolina's Consolidated University until 1951 and from undergraduate classes at NC State until 1955. Despite these obstacles, thousands of African American veterans received higher education under the GI Bill. Most enrolled in historically black schools such as the North Carolina College for Negroes (today North Carolina Central University), the Negro Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina (now North Carolina A&T), and the private Saint Augustine's College.

Although some features of the GI Bill were not available to the 350,000 women veterans, the education and training provisions made no such distinctions. As a result, many former military nurses, clerks, and transport pilots, for example, completed their education at government expense. At NC State, however, the number of female students actually dropped in the late-1940s. In North Carolina most female veterans enrolled in the Woman's College in Greensboro (today UNC-G). Others were unaware of their eligibility for educational benefits or simply chose to become homemakers instead of pursuing a first or second degree.

The expansion of opportunity brought about by the GI Bill and other legislation ultimately changed the face of higher education across the nation. Today, at NC State, African Americans make up nearly 10 percent of the student body; women, 43 percent.

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Credit: U.S. Army photo, Non-Textual Materials Unit, North Carolina State Archives.

Women defense workers at Camp Davis, North Carolina, 1942.

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Credit: Women Veterans Historical Collection, University Archives and Manuscripts, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

WWII recruiting poster.

During WWII, women not only filled traditionally male jobs on the home front; they also joined the armed services. They held noncombat roles in the WAC (Women's Army Corps), Air WAC (Army Air Forces of the Women's Army Corps), WAVES (Women's Reserve of the U.S. Naval Reserve), SPARS (Women's Reserve of the Coast Guard), the Marine Corps Women's Reserve, and the WASPS (Women Airforce Service Pilots).

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Credit: Millie Dunn Veasey Collection, Women Veterans Historical Collection, University Archives and Manuscripts, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Millie Louise Dunn Veasey.

Born in Raleigh, Millie Veasey served in the Women's Army Corps between January 1942 and December 1945, attaining the rank of staff sergeant. She graduated from Saint Augustine's College in 1953 with a B.A. in business education, and later earned an M.A. in business administration with a minor in education counseling from North Carolina Central University. A past president of the NAACP (Raleigh/Wake County Branch), Veasey retired from Saint Augustine's College in 1986 as director of career planning and placement/cooperative education.

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Credit: Photo by Roger Smith, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

Three recruits for the Marines jump a fence while participating in bayonet and judo training at Montford Point, North Carolina, in March 1943. Montford Point (now Camp Johnson of the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune) was the nation's first training facility for African American Marines. During WWII, African Americans served in both combat and noncombat roles. In July 1948 President Truman issued Executive Order 9981 to end segregation in the armed forces, but it took several more years to implement.

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Credit: Photo by Jimmy Deas for NC State.

Women outnumber men in this photo, but the actual male-female ratio at NC State in 1946 was 48 to 1.

Left to right: Rose Marie Witmer, Phillip C. Cooke, Ernestine Elizabeth (Teenie) Nelson, Joe Orland, and Jackie Witmer.

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Credit: Agromeck, 1947.

Very few women or African Americans attended NC State before the 1960s.

 

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