This Black Soldier became a Librarian after fighting Fascists in Italy

Eighteen-year-old Milton Byam had his life all planned out.? He entered the City College of New York in 1940 and received the highest possible grades in all of his classes.? Milton was growing up in New York City in the 1940’s, and in that era he could easily have lost hope that he would ever have a good future.? He was living at a time when Black men faced racism when they searched for a job in the city. To make matters worse, his father died when he was young.? His mother raised her three sons and two daughters while working as a housekeeper in the apartments of white New Yorkers. ?Milton went to school and helped his family by working for a company that made ribbons and bows for Christmas presents. ?His good grades at school had a lot to do with his supportive mother and lots of encouraging uncles.? When his parents and uncles were growing up in the British controlled Caribbean, getting an education cost money, and job opportunities were few.? Here in America, they told Milton, education was free for everyone and that meant he could get the skills to have any type of work he wanted to have.? His parents and uncles also passed along a love for books.? They were always discussing books and what they learned from them.? Soon Milton was reading everything he could get his hands on.

At the city university of New York, Milton was gaining the skills he would need to one day design and build airplanes.? All was going to plan.? And then World War Two broke out and Milton found himself drafted and sent into the United States Army.? His experience in the army during World War Two forever altered his life.

Milton entered the army a lowly private, but he quickly rose to the high rank of Technician Fifth Grade.? His infantry fighting group the 370th regiment, was being trained to go to Italy and drive out Hitler’s Nazi soldiers from Germany and defeat the Italian Fascist army of dictator Benito Mussolini. These enemy troops were some of the best trained and most determined soldiers anywhere in the world.? For over a year, they easily defeated all American attempts to push them out of northern Italy. ?Meanwhile at the training camp in Arizona, Milton learned to speak Italian and learned how to use field radios, maps, mortars, rifles and machine guns. ?He also encountered racism in ways he had never experienced.?

The US army at the time was a segregated army. Before Milton’s training began in 1942, only white soldiers fought in combat. ?Most Black soldiers were given maintenance jobs, such as moving equipment or cleaning barracks.? Officers leading the soldiers were white and many of them were from the segregated South.? These officers resented the fact that they were being told to train and lead the 370th regiment into combat in Italy. Very quickly, Milton and his fellow soldiers realized that these white officers want them to fail in battle.? The officers wanted to use their failure as proof that white soldiers were superior and that Black soldiers were not intelligent enough or brave enough to be combat soldiers. ?As proof, these officers pointed out that a large number of Black soldiers could neither read or write.? They could not read the complicated manuals and maps needed to operate mortars and field artillery.? The actual cause for this was that in the Segregated South, towns refused to raise tax money for schools to teach Black children.? And yet the White officers believed that Black soldiers just were not smart enough to learn. Milton and his fellow soldiers were even told by their commanding officer to expect to die in large numbers once in Italy. The officer said he would not be to blame.? He said the Black newspapers and Black civil rights leaders who pushed the army to permit Black combat soldiers, would be the cause of their deaths.?

Black soldiers responded to this racism two ways.? One way was to wage war on the racism in the Army and fight back against their racist officers. “This is Mr. Charlie’s war (their word for white America)”? they said, “we refuse to fight and die for a racist country.”? Whenever and wherever they experienced racist treatment in the Army, they shouted down their racist officers and refused to obey orders. Once in Italy, these soldiers disappeared into the Italian Countryside as soon a battle started. ?These soldiers made their important point, and survived the war, but their actions were also used by white officers to prove their racist beliefs about Black soldiers.

Milton Byam chose the other path.? He and many others decided to prove that Black soldiers were no better or worse than their fellow white soldiers in combat.? When he discovered that many of his fellow soldiers could not read Army instruction manuals, he taught soldiers how to read.? He also taught soldiers how to speak Italian so they could communicate with the partisans.? The partisans were Italian people who joined with the Americans to fight Fascists and Nazis.

White officers refused to work with soldiers who did not look like them.? Milton instead worked closely with the Brazilians, Japanese Americans, Indian Gurkhas and Czech soldiers who were fighting along with the Black soldiers of the 370th infantry.? Using his Italian language skills, he even went behind enemy lines to fight alongside the Italians partisans.

By December 1944, German officers felt confident that they could easily crush this multinational group of soldiers. They realized that the American Army did not support this group of soldiers with the planes and artillery that protected other parts of the front lines in Italy. German Nazi’s and Italian Fascists also believed the lies their own leaders told them, that Black soldiers were not capable of fighting.? And so, on Christmas Day 1944, the Germans and Italian Fascist army launched a massive attack into the villages, valleys and coastlines of Northern Italy. Facing them was the 370th infantry and their multinational friends. Milton and his fellow soldiers fought back, they stopped the attack and then broke through the battle lines and eventually captured the Germans and Italians.? The army recognized Milton Byam’s ?bravery.? He received a bronze star for his courageous actions fighting behind enemy lines.? He and many other soldiers in the 370th Infantry received the Army’s highest medals for their deeds in Italy.?

?Soon after the war the Army agreed to end the practice of segregating soldiers into Black and white units.? Both paths had worked to end racism in the US Army.

His wartime experience fighting Nazis and Fascists and also racist officers from his own country, forever changed Milton.? Instead of going to school to learn how to build the perfect airplane, Milton decided that his life work needed to be something focused on helping people.? He had seen how the Italian people allowed themselves to be fooled into supporting a dictator, Benito Mussolini.? By believing in his fascist lies Italy wound up being invaded by Germany, and having its Jewish citizens murdered.? Milton saw how Mussolini enjoyed luxuries while he forced the Italian people to look for food in garbage cans as war swirled around them. ?While training with the Army in Louisiana, he saw Black families living in the same kind of horrible poverty, victims of the racist system they too were forced to lived in.?? After he returned to college at the City University of New York, he graduated at the top of his class, but he no longer wanted to design airplanes.? Instead, Milton decided, “to find a livelihood which would help people and change things.”

A friend suggested he become a librarian.? Milton laughed at first, but then the idea seemed to make a lot of sense.? In 1947, he applied for and got a library trainee position at the Brooklyn Public library.?“The job seemed to have everything I wanted in that it gave me the opportunity to use what I had learned and be helpful at the same time.”? Libraries were filled with books and pamphlets with all sorts of useful information that he loved discovering and loved sharing with others.? “I took one look at the wealth of books pamphlets and magazines…and I decided to stay.? If only everyone knew about these resources and used them, I felt, they could solve many of their problems.”? At the library graduate school at Columbia, where Milton took classes when not working at the library, he “was inspired by [Professor] Miriam Thompkins, who promoted the notion that books could and must be used as weapons in the struggle for life.” ?Milton came to believe that Brooklyn could become a place where libraries gave people the knowledge needed to overcome life’s struggles.

Between 1947 and 1968 Milton Byam rose to top positions at the Brooklyn Public Library.? In each position he created new opportunities for people of all ages and all ethnic backgrounds to learn from the library.? When gangs broke library windows and bothered people at the library, Milton created Brooklyn’s first library for youth and young adults.? He invited gang members into the library and introduced them to books, music and theater.? Using his ability to speak four languages, he created book discussion meetings for people of all ages and many cultures to meet together to talk about books at the library.? February’s special events included Negro History week, which later became Black history month. Milton invited the white directors of the Brooklyn Public Library and to learn along with Black community members about the many achievements of Black Americans.? The highlight of the meeting was a talk by baseball player Jackie Robinson about integrating baseball. In 1964, as a leader of the American Library Association, Milton Byam helped put an end to some libraries refusing to allow Black and Brown people inside.? After 1964 all libraries in America were finally open to people of all races. When many new libraries in Brooklyn were built in the 1950’s, Milton got to put his engineering skills to use.? He took charge of overseeing the construction and purchasing of books for many of the new branches.?

Milton Byam would go on to become the director of all of the Washington DC libraries and later all of the libraries in Queens New York.? His experiences in the 370th infantry inspired him for the rest of his life.

Written by Dan Meharg

2022