‘A white man’s war, a Black man’s fight’: the eye-opening story of Black soldiers in Vietnam

At a time when Black military history is being rewritten under Trump officials, new book The War Within a War provides a vital reminder

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il Haygood’s new book, his 10th, is The War Within a War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home. Meeting in Washington DC to discuss it, he produces from between the pages a small Ziploc bag. Carefully, he takes out a flier, yellowed and brittle with age. The text at the top is Vietnamese. Underneath there is English.

It reads: “Colored Gl’s! The South Vietnamese people, who are struggling for their independence and freedom, are friends with the American colored people being victim of barbarous racial discrimination at home. Your battlefield is right in the USA! Your enemy is the war lords in the White House and the Pentagon!”

Haygood says: “One of the soldiers I interviewed, Elbert Nelson, the doctor, he explains in the book that he found this leaflet directed to Black soldiers. And he was so touched that I tracked him down, he said, ‘I want you to have this.’ It was from the North Vietnamese, it was attached to trees and walls. It just gave me chills.”