The GI Bill transformed postwar America yet largely excluded the million-plus returning black veterans

Evidence

The federal government, through the Veterans Administration, also discriminated against black veterans through the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (the GI Bill). According to the historian and political scientist Ira Katznelson, “No other New Deal initiative had as great an impact on changing the country as the [GI Bill].” Through the GI Bill, millions purchased homes, went to college, started businesses, and found high-paying jobs. What it did not do, by and large, was help the over one million returning black veterans and their families to the same extent that it helped returning white veterans. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 323

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The GI Bill opened elite law schools to talented veterans regardless of class. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 4058