For Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Veterans Breakfast Club hosts a special livestream conversation with historian David Nasaw, focusing on one of the most searing chapters in his new book, The Wounded Generation: Coming Home After World War II: the experiences of Black veterans returning to the United States in 1945–46.

More than one million Black men and women served in World War II, fighting for democracy overseas while living under segregation at home. Many embraced the war as a chance to claim full citizenship, inspired by the “Double V” campaign—victory against fascism abroad and racism at home. What awaited them, as Nasaw shows, was not gratitude or equality, but a wave of intimidation, violence, and repression aimed squarely at returning Black veterans.

Through Black newspapers like The Pittsburgh Courier, government reports, and contemporary scholarship, Nasaw traces how the simple act of coming home—stepping off a ship, boarding a bus, wearing a uniform—could trigger confrontation and punishment. Returning veterans were assaulted on public transportation, targeted by police, and warned, often brutally, that Jim Crow still ruled. The story of Sergeant Isaac Woodard, blinded by a South Carolina police chief while still in uniform, stands as one of the most infamous and devastating examples of this campaign of terror.

The discussion will also examine why Black veterans were seen as such a threat. White officials and politicians feared that men who had worn the uniform, carried weapons, and fought overseas would challenge segregation at home—by voting, organizing, and demanding respect. In response, Southern leaders mobilized law enforcement, courts, and vigilante violence to “put them back in their place,” often with deadly consequences.

Nasaw will help us understand how the treatment of Black veterans after World War II shaped the early civil rights struggle, hardened resistance to Jim Crow, and revealed the deep contradictions at the heart of American victory. It is a story of courage, trauma, and resistance—and a reminder that for many veterans, the war did not end when they came home.

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life  for sponsoring this event!

Join us for a Veterans Breakfast Club livestream conversation with author Edward Aldrich about his compelling dual biography, Partnership: George Marshall, Henry Stimson, and the Extraordinary Collaboration That Won World War II. In this richly researched work, Aldrich brings into sharp focus one of the most consequential collaborations in twentieth-century American history: the wartime partnership between Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson.

While the canon of World War II history is filled with battlefield commanders and frontline exploits, Partnership shifts the lens to the strategic heart of the U.S. war effort in Washington. Marshall and Stimson, working from adjacent offices with the door intentionally left open between them, built and directed the Army’s dramatic expansion, oversaw logistics on a global scale, and helped shape the Allied strategy that would defeat the Axis powers. Their decisions touched virtually every dimension of the war—from training and equipping millions of soldiers, to strategic planning and coordination with Allied leaders like Winston Churchill, to considerations about the postwar world order.

Aldrich’s book is more than a military history: it is a dual biography that traces how two very different men—Marshall, the Army organizer of victory, and Stimson, the seasoned statesman and civilian leader—came together under President Franklin D. Roosevelt to manage the greatest industrial mobilization in U.S. history. It draws on primary sources including Stimson’s wartime diary and Marshall’s papers to illuminate not only their accomplishments but the character, disagreements, and mutual respect that defined their long collaboration.

In our livestream, Aldrich will reflect on what it meant to write this book: the gaps in the historical record he sought to fill, the insights he gained into how civilian and military leadership can function in concert, and how Marshall’s and Stimson’s partnership shaped not just the Allied victory but the postwar international order. We’ll explore why understanding their relationship matters for the broader story of World War II, and why their example resonates with readers interested in leadership, strategy, and the often invisible networks of decision-making that define war and peace.

Whether you’re a lifelong student of the Second World War or are discovering these towering figures for the first time, this conversation will shed light on how two leaders behind the scenes helped win the most vast and complex war in history—and why their extraordinary collaboration still matters today.

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life  for sponsoring this event!