Good black soldiers: race, masculinity, and US military recruiting in the 1970s

Abstract

Following the implementation of the all-volunteer force (AVF) in 1973, the US military was forced to reach beyond the ideal figure of the white male soldier in order to meet personnel needs. Resulting from a convergence of state and cultural institutions – the military and the advertising industry – recruitment advertisements sought to persuade black recruits to choose to join the military; a task complicated by the Vietnam war and struggles for civil rights. This paper, through an analysis of recruitment advertisements published in Ebony magk man standing with hands in azine from 1973 through 1976, argues that recruitment advertisements constructed the figure of the good black soldier as a mode of responding to shifting anxieties over meanings of race, masculinity, and military service. Narratives of professionalization, upward mobility, and racial equality in recruiting advertisements contributed to the construction of the good black soldier and functioned to assuage anxieties held by black recruits, communities, and the broader public. The figure of the good black soldier is a politically and culturally legible form of black masculinity that functions to rearticulate an unprecedented need for military personnel as an expression of the military’s commitment to inclusion and equality.

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