The Double V Campaign Links the War Abroad to the Fight at Home

What happened

James Gratz Thompson, an African American cafeteria worker at a Kansas defense plant, wrote to the Pittsburgh Courier in January 1942 asking, according to the National Park Service's profile of him, whether he should "sacrifice to live half-American." The Courier, one of the country's most-read Black newspapers, launched the Double V campaign on February 7, 1942: victory over fascism abroad and victory over racial discrimination at home, symbolized by a double-V emblem worn on buttons and handkerchiefs. The campaign pushed for equal opportunity in the defense industry, an end to the poll tax, and integrated armed forces, and it spread into local Double V clubs across Black communities nationwide through 1943.

How we know

The National Park Service's biography of James Thompson quotes his original January 1942 letter to the Pittsburgh Courier and traces how the newspaper turned his words into the Double V slogan and campaign.

Sources

• BlackPast.org. The Double V Campaign (1942-1945) · General sourceblackpast.org · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
• National Park Service. James G. Thompson: Originator of the Double V Campaign · Primary source (author-declared)nps.gov · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)