Read This Is Only Test How Washington Prepared for Nuclear War for Free Online

Women at American University formed a fireguard brigade. The Board of Commissioners distrib uted 20,000 helmets and whistles to air raid wardens who surveyed their neighborhoods during blackouts, checking for compliance. At night, drivers covered their cars’ headlights with tape and the Park Service shut off the Mall’s floodlights. Downtown, the Potomac Electric Power Company practiced evacuations of its headquarters. Wardens directed coworkers and customers to stairs and exits, while others hurried to stations equipped with hoses and extinguishers. To protect the District’s water supply, the commissioners hired 230 guards. 14
    The OCD, intent on promoting national unity, established a race relations division and actively recruited African Americans, especially in Washington. Photographers for both the OCD and the Office of War Information (OWI), which disseminated news and propaganda at home and abroad, diligently searched for opportunities to record—and stage—black Washingtonians’ civil defense activity. Dr. Charles Drew obligingly appeared in one picture. A prominent African American surgeon, Drew taught at Howard University, and, in 1941, set up the nation’s first blood bank for the American Red Cross. As a volunteer for the OCD’s Medical Corps, Drew posed with a young black nurse during a first aid drill in Washington: the two blanketed an air raid “victim,” also black, and trundled him into a waiting ambulance. For an OWI photograph, nine black men of varying ages gathered around a basement table. Standing in front of an American flag, two older men pointed to a map outlining civil defense zones as their young comrades, white warden helmets buckled on, watched intently. Most wore stylish suits and ties, even though they were putatively engaged in an air raid drill. Such photographs composed an image in which blacks enthusiastically answered the call to civilian duty in the wartime capital. 15
    But how convincing could such propaganda appear to Ruth Powell, Juanita Murrow, and Marianne Musgrave—three black women who were arrested in January 1943 because they refused to pay a surcharge for hot chocolate in a Pennsylvania Avenue store? After the women told the Howard Law School and the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) about the incident, law student William Raines proposed peaceful sit-ins: when denied service, black patrons should quietly but firmly remain seated. In April, a dozen Howard students and members of the NAACP gathered in front of the Little Palace restaurant at 14th and U Streets NW. U Street was the commercial district of black Washington, but the Little Palace’s white proprietor refused to serve blacks. In groups of three, the men and women requested service. When the owner responded by closing, the students picketed. “We Die Together, Why Can’t We Eat Together?” read one sign. The campaign worked—the restaurant dropped its discriminatory policy. Seventeen years before sit-ins swept the nation, black Washingtonians used the tactic to strike at segregation in their hometown, thus advancing the “Double V” campaign. Introduced in February 1942 by the Pittsburgh Courier , a leading black newspaper, the Double V called for victory over fascism abroad and racism at home. 16
    While the OCD worked to bolster Washington’s civil defense, national treasures were quietly removed from the capital. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were taken to Fort Knox. By May 1942, the Library of Congress had moved 4,719 wooden crates of books, catalogs, and manuscripts to college campuses in Virginia and Ohio. Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., held more than half of this total. The Smithsonian and other national museums carried out similar relocations of rare books, scientific artifacts, and Americana. The National Gallery of Art trucked its most valuable paintings to secure sites. 17
    The war also brought