"The Crowning Insult": Federal Segregation and the Gold Star Mother and Widow Pilgrimages of the Early 1930s.

The article discusses the Gold Star Mother Program initiated in 1930 by the U.S. government which undertook to send roughly 6700 mothers and wives of fallen World War I soldiers to Europe. The program would arrange for travel of both white and African American women, but the women would travel on separate ships and stay in different hotels. Civil rights activists with the the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) protested the program. However, 279 black mothers and wives did travel to Europe between 1930 and 1933 and reported the trip was nothing like the NAACP predicted.