Hey y’all, welcome back to Standard 19! I’m Maegan Franco and today, we’re flipping the script—the battleground ain’t overseas, it’s right here at home during WWII. Last episode, we was all about those big battlefields and heavy decisions, but let’s be real, the war hit every American kitchen table too. First off—rationing. Man, that was wild. I mean, you literally needed a little booklet, a ration book, just to buy sugar, gas, even shoes. Folks couldn’t just roll up and fill their tank or bake a cake whenever they felt like it. Rubber got rationed bad too because it was all going to make tires for the jeeps and tanks, so people were fixing flats for weeks tryna stretch what they had. Nylon stockings? Forget it—women would draw lines on their legs just to fake the look. That’s some resourcefulness right there.And the factories—listen, this was the remix nobody saw coming. Detroit quit building cars and started cranking out tanks and bombers like there was no tomorrow. That industrial conversion straight fueled the Allies. I remember my grams telling me—she grew up in Macon, Georgia—that she quit school, went down to the brand-new factory, and started working ten-hour shifts, barely old enough to buy a Coke. It was like “Rosie the Riveter” come to life, right in our family. All over the country, millions of women dipped outta housework and into hard hats. And it wasn’t just about money—it was pride, purpose, like, “We’re in this fight too.”So, this whole vibe—rationing, everybody hustling, women stepping up—it really flipped what life looked like in the U.S. during the war. But, even with all that unity talk, you know there was still some serious tension going on, and not everyone got a fair shake. Let’s talk about that.So, for real, while women were rising up, a lot of doors were still slammed shut for people of color. Factories wanted bodies, but they wanted ‘em separate—a Black line here, a white line there, and the “best” jobs almost always went to white folks. Even in the military, you still had all-Black units and mostly white officers. It’s like, on paper, everybody’s serving the same country, but they ain’t being treated the same.Civil rights orgs saw what was happening—like the NAACP, and leaders like A. Philip Randolph. They were like, “Yo, we can’t just let this slide. War can’t just mean more of the same old discrimination.” Randolph set up the March on Washington movement—yeah, before Dr. King, Randolph was on it—telling President Roosevelt, “If you want our labor, you gotta quit with the discrimination in defense industries.” And Roosevelt, feeling the pressure, dropped Executive Order 8802, which said, okay, you can’t discriminate in the defense field anymore.Now, don’t get it twisted—this order was historic, like, first time the federal government officially said “no discrimination in wartime hiring.” But it was also, I mean, kinda limited. It didn’t desegregate the whole military, and workers still faced big obstacles. But that pressure, that organizing, it opened the door for more. You see how the seeds of the civil rights movement started sprouting during WWII—it wasn’t just about the war overseas, but the war for justice at home.But while some folks were winning new rights, others got hit with the exact opposite. Y’all ready for this? Let’s break down what happened with Roosevelt’s other big executive order—the one that changed Japanese American lives forever.So, on one hand, you got Roosevelt saying, “No discrimination in hiring”—that’s Executive Order 8802. But then, just months later, there’s Executive Order 9066. That’s the order that led to more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans—most of them U.S. citizens—being rounded up and sent to internment camps. Like, whole families lost their houses, their stores, their farms, just ‘cause of where their ancestors came from. Camps were, honestly, pretty rough—barracks, barely insulated, super crowded. I think sometimes we like to imagine America only does the right thing in wartime, but this? This was fear and prejudice, plain and simple.And the fallout, y’all—it didn’t just end when the war ended. Families lost everything; even after they got out the camps, most never got their land or businesses back. This is where you see individuals stepping up, though—like Fred Korematsu. He fought his internment all the way up to the Supreme Court, saying, “This just ain’t right.” The Court sided against him back then, which blows my mind, honestly. But much later, he’d be vindicated, and his story—man, it shows how one person can stand up even when the courts, the president—everyone—is on the other side.So, to wrap this up, World War II wasn’t just about the fight “over there”—it shaped who we are, and who got left out, right here at home. Next episode, we’ll dig even deeper into the legacy and the lessons, so don’t miss it. Thanks for hanging out, y’all—see you next time on Standard 20.

Episodes

3. WWII at Home: Mobilization, Rights, and Resistance