From Alabama to Margraten

The Story of War Veteran Jefferson Wiggins in the Segregated US Army during World War II
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-90-485-6836-9
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 176 Seiten, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 230 g

When he returned to the Netherlands in 2009, decades after World War II, Jefferson Wiggins realized that no one he met knew about the segregated US Army during the war, nor did they know about the contribution of Black American soldiers to the liberation of the Netherlands. They were not mentioned anywhere in Dutch history books or in archives. Together with oral historian Mieke Kirkels, Wiggins sat down to record his memories. Wiggins passed away in 2013, and his widow, Janice Wiggins-Paterson, continued the project in his memory. With newly discovered archival material, and richly illustrated, this book gives a lively account of an undocumented story of WWII, Black American, and Dutch military history.

This book:

• Is the first book ever published in the Netherlands about the participation of Black soldiers in the US Liberation Army during WWII. • Memories of an African American Veteran WWII – a former gravedigger- about the development of a huge ABMC cemetery in the South of the Netherlands • Memories of an African-American veteran of his service in the segregated US Army during WWII.

Zielgruppe

Academic

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kirkels, Mieke

Weitere Mitwirkende

Kooymans, Frans

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Besondere Kriege und Kampagnen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Biographien & Autobiographien: Historisch, Politisch, Militärisch

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Words by Jefferson Wiggins, Preface by Matthew Delmont, Preface to the second edition, Introduction by Janice Wiggins, Introduction to the second edition, Chapter 1: Houston County, Alabama, Chapter 2: A segregated crossing to Scotland, Chapter 3: Digging graves, Chapter 4: The fields of Margraten, Chapter 5: The Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial, Chapter 6: American policy against racism in wartime, Chapter 7: Professional soldier or civilian, Chapter 8: A long career in education, Chapter 9: Lessons of Margraten, Chapter 10: Back to Margraten: A telephone call from the past, Chapter 11: Margraten 2009, Chapter 12: People should know!, Chapter 13: A follow-up oral history project, Chapter 14: People should know, the sequence, Epilogue by Jonathan Pieterse, Acknowledgements

Über Autor(innen)

Mieke Kirkels is an oral historian and the author of several acclaimed books on oral history and Dutch war history. She is also an Officer in the Order of Orange Nassau.