The History Never Taught
America’s history of interning Japanese Americans and immigrants during World War II is well known. From 1942–1945, American policy was to imprison those of Japanese descent in response to the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. Eventually, after a decades-long campaign, survivors of the camps were awarded $20,000 in reparations.
The Japanese weren’t the only ones interned in American history. A small percentage of Germans and Italians were interned during World War II. They blended in better with the general population and were harder to pick out. Like the Soup Nazi might say, “No reparations for you!”
Native Americans have been sent to prison camps and reservations which, for the life of me, I can’t differentiate from the internment camps suffered by others. Native Americans were also put in prison camps at various times in American history, including Alaskans during World War II.
The Wartime Internment of Native Alaskans | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans
At the outset of the Aleutian Islands campaign, 800 native Unangan were removed and interned in squalid camps from 1942…
www.nationalww2museum.org
You probably heard of Japanese internment camps, perhaps heard of German and Italian internment camps, and have no doubt heard of reservations for Native Americans. However, you may not have considered them as internment camps. How many of you have heard of Black internment camps which existed before the camps involving the Japanese, Germans, and Italians?
Natchez, Mississippi, was one of several hubs for the slave trade before the end of enslavement. Along with Atlanta and New Orleans, Natchez was where domestic-bred enslaved people were sent from slave-selling states to states further South that needed them. They came by ocean…