Soul Soldiers: African Americans and the Vietnam Era

A new multimedia exhibit at WRHS, Soul Soldiers: African Americans and the Vietnam Era, explores the issues, actions, reactions and expressions of life and culture of African Americans as they were impacted by Civil Rights and the war in Vietnam. Just one month after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. publicly expressed his opposition to the South East Asia crisis in April 1967, Time magazine published groundbreaking articles based on interviews with African American GIs in . These two events helped frame the African American social and political perspective of the 1960s that went beyond civil rights. Soul Soldiers demonstrates that was no isolated battleground; it was a crucible for African American soldiers’ emerging political and cultural consciousness. Stories are told through artifacts, photographs, art, an original documentary, oral histories and audio stations featuring 30 songs from the era. The exhibit is particularly meaningful for WRHS in that it is our first venture into exploring the Vietnam War and its effect on our culture and society. Soul Soldiers was developed by Pittsburgh’s Senator John Heinz History Center and is generously sponsored by the African American Archives Auxiliary of WRHS. It runs through November 27, 2010 at Western Reserve Historical Society University Circle Complex.