Charles H. Alston
Charles H. Alston (1907-77), born in Charlotte, North Carolina, was an African-American artist and educator. He grew up in New York and received a master’s degree in fine arts from Columbia University in 1929. Alston played an active role in the African-American cultural and intellectual flowering of the 1920s and 30s known as the Harlem Renaissance. Following the depression, he worked for the Federal Arts Project of the New Deal’s Work Progress Administration and designed, among others, the murals of Harlem hospital.
During World War II Alston was employed by the Office of War Information (OWI) and created more than one hundred propagandistic drawings aimed at an African-American audience. They were designed exclusively for publication in black weekly newspapers and meant to address specific, controversial issues in the black community while garnering African-American support for the war. Most of these drawings neglect the continued reality of discrimination African Americans experienced on a daily basis and portray an American war consensus indiscriminate of skin color. As a consequence, some of the black press, notably the Chicago Defender, did not print Alston’s OWI drawings but preferred to feature more critical art throughout World War II. After the war, Alston continued his work as an educator, becoming the first African-American instructor at the Art Students League of New York (1950-1971) and the Museum of Modern Art (1956). He later worked as a full professor at the City University of New York.
In this bibliographic sketch Charles Alston celebrates Joe Louis, heavy weight champion of the world, as a true American hero. Louis rise to fame is portrayed as “democracy in action”. As an African-American GI Louis is shown to continue this legacy of democracy, teaching all American soldiers how to best “slap the superiority out of the Japanazis!” 1943, NARA.
In this call to “save paper” a black fist slams right into Hitler’s face – diligence on the home front will help win the war abroad, 1943, NARA.
An African-American GI will join the World War II’s European theatre in “a battle for freedom”. Standing on the American shore and looking over the Atlantic on to where the battle is raging he tells his son that African-American participation in the war will make for a “better world” and, implicitly, also for a better America, 1943, NARA.
In this drawing an African-American GI reminds the American people at the home front of their important part in the U.S. war effort. While they should work at home in American industry, he will “can” the Nazis abroad, 1943, NARA.
The artist visually celebrates the “99th Pursuit Squadron”, piloted by all African-American soldiers known as “Tuskegee Airmen” for the OWI. Exemplary for all African-American GIs they are portrayed as determined to win the war and as well on their way to the final destination: Berlin, 1943, NARA.
This drawing visualizes African-American cost guards’ importance in the fight against the Nazi “submarine menace” threatening American harbors. Since a white soldier can barely restrain the German beast, the African-American soldier coming to his aide is “just in time,” 1943, NARA.
This drawing celebrates “National Negro Newspaper Week” and emphasizes the black press’ significance at “all fronts” of the United States war effort and sketches its long tradition of fighting for freedom, 1944, NARA.
The image shows an African American soldier about to invade Italy in 1943 and eyes fixed on the final destination of Germany. The caption “Again the Springboard of Civilization” highlights the “Free World’s” democratic agenda and emphasizes the civilizing role African American GIs are thought to play in the post-war world, 1943, NARA.
In this drawing the Office of War Information communicates World War II’s positive impact on employment equality to African Americans at the American home front, 1943, NARA.
This drawing commemorates the signing of the Atlantic Charter as a “Second Emancipation Proclamation.” While America and England will fight for freedom abroad the Atlantic Charter, the artist suggests, will finally redeem Lincoln’s promise of liberty for African Americans in the United States, 1943, NARA.
Further Reading:
Alston, Charles Henry: Portraits in Black: Charles Alston’s Drawings of African Americans (Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1992).
Amana, Harry: “The Art of Propaganda: Charles Alston’s World War II Editorial Cartoons for the Office of War Information and the Black Press,” in: American Journalism, 21(2), 79-111.
Hanson, Jayna M.: “About the Charles Henry Alston Papers, A Finding Aid to the Charles Henry Alston Papers, 1924-1980, in the Archives of American Art,” Smithsonian Institution.