“The Jim Crow Army Must Have a Scapegoat”: Justice, Cowardice, and the Court Martial of Lieutenant Leon Gilbert (Korea, 1950)

Abstract

The story of Lieutenant Leon Gilbert—a Black United States Army officer court-martialed during the Korean War—challenged the United States’ self-declared postwar mission to free oppressed peoples across the world, while continuing to subjugate African Americans at home. Although many critics judged Gilbert’s refusal to return to battle as an act of cowardice, others viewed him as a victim, and even a hero. The Gilbert case revealed that although African Americans were ostensibly making progress in the newly desegregated United States military, the fight for racial justice continued to be impeded by white Americans’ perceptions of Black inadequacy. Amidst a war purportedly being fought for principles of democracy and freedom, Gilbert’s court martial highlighted the connection between American racism and United States foreign policy, as Black military personnel became scapegoats for their nation’s military failures. The prosecution and persecution of Gilbert thus exposed the tension between American rhetoric and American racism.