ROI Ottley, Black War Correspondent During World War II

ROI Ottley

He has been long forgotten today. During his time, he was the most famous African American journalist re porting from the front lines during World War II. His work gave insights into what it was like for Black journalists traveling with the armed forces and trying to cover racial inequities under strict censorship and prejudice.

There are not too many biographies of ROI Ottley. However, the one book covers his life as a journalist and writer is a book called, ROI Ottley’s World War II: The Lost Diary of An African Journalist.” The book was edited by Mark A. Huddle, a professor of history at Geor gia College and State University. One of the reviewers of this book stated that,” If you think you know the American experience of World War II, just try looking at the European theater through the eyes of an African American War correspondent Roi Ottley.”

Roi Ottley was born Vincent Lushington Ottley to Jerome Peter and Beatrice Ottley on August 2, 1902, the second of three children. His parents were immigrants from the Carribbean island of Granada. Ottley was a track, basketball and baseball star in his early days of school. He later studied journalism at the University of Michigan and at Columbia University. He worked as a journalist for the Amsterdam News from 1931 to 1937. He joined the New York City Writers Project. In 1943 he published “A New Word A-Coming Inside Black America.” His book won the Life in America Prize and a Peabody Award. It was adapted for a series of radio broadcasts.

Ottley faced controversy in some of his articles. In his notes dated June to December, 1944, he covered the racism that Blacks faced in Europe. He also noted that given the often extreme conditions facing African Ameri can soldiers in the military, the Black press had to play an advocacy role as well as report the war. Black correspondences were forbidden to take battlefield photo graphs, especially if they depicted the second-class status of Black troops.

Stories about simmering tensions between Black and white soldiers were embarrassing to the military establishment. Although African American journalists faced criticism in their advocacy of Black soldiers, they often found themselves on the front lines of some of the most vicious fighting. Ottley had relationships with other African American journalists that included Ollie Stewart of the Baltimore Afro-American, Ed Toles of the Chicago Defender, Ollie Harrington and Randy Dixon of the Pitts burgh Courier.

Ottley refused to bend under the racial rules of the military. In his journal, there were descriptions of fellow journalists and celebrities that he met such as Ernest Hemingway, Edward R. Murrow and the heavyweight champion Joe Louis.

Ottley’s close friend Ed Toles was chastised by army censors when he filed a report that Black nurses were only allowed to tend to German prisoners. Ottley also commented on the conflicts between white and Black soldiers and on the efforts by white southern officers to transplant Jim Crow to European soil. Ottley expressed resentment whenever he felt that he was seen as just an African American journalist.

Ottley was commissioned as Lieutenant in the U.S. Army in 1944. He reported from Europe in a number of newspapers that included the Pittsburgh Courier. He also reported on the Nurenberg trails. In the Pittsburgh Courier dated October 19, 1946. He wrote the following: The Nurenberg trials have established a fundamental principle in the world – the concept of collective guilt. That is to say that a nation is responsible for the acts of individuals of that nation, especially their leaders.

He covered the Normandy invasion and he reported that Black soldiers were involved in the invasion and they fought valiantly. He also included that the Air Force had the greatest amount of respect for their Black pilots. It cited the Negro Pilots have been overseas more than 19 months. They have seen more action from Munich to Vienna. They have won commendation from General Montgomery for their dive bombing of enemy positions in the Italian and North African campaigns. They shot down 17 enemy fighters and bombers Ottley also covered the hanging of Mussolini, the Arab-French conflict in Syria. He was the first African American to interview a pope – Pope Pius XXII in 1945. Roi Ottley’s life story is one that all Americans should know.