Leon Bass was born in January 1925 in Philadelphia [Annotator's Note: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]. His father was a Pullman porter [Annotator's Note: men hired to work on railroads as porters on sleeping cars] and worked during the Great Depression. He cut hair and fixed shoes before that. George Pullman [Annotator's Note: George Mortimer Pullman, American engineer and industrialist; designed and manufactured Pullman sleeping cars] was looking for former slaves to work with rich people and who would be humble enough to be okay when called the N word [Annotator’s Note: N word refers to the derogatory term for Black people, "nigger"]. He thinks his father had gotten some education and could read. He came to Philadelphia from South Carolina. His mother was from a big family. His parents married and had six children. The Great Depression was tough, but his father did a good job. He was away a lot, but his mother was tough. His parents were wonderful but were disciplinarians. He wrote a book titled, "Good Enough" [Annotator's Note: "Good Enough: One Man's Memoir on the Price of the Dream," by Leon Bass, was published in 2011] based on what his parents would tell him. Bass did not know his neighborhood too well. There were some Black-owned stores. There were a lot of immigrants. He worked in a lady's home and got to know some of them. He grew up in a neighborhood where there were gangs, but they knew Mr. Bass. [Annotator's Note: Bass details a story of breaking a window and fixing it under his father's direction.] He had discipline, structure, and order that made him feel secure and wanted. He did not realize it while growing up, but he does now. When he got in the military, he found out how wonderful his parents were.

Leon Bass voluntarily entered the military. He was in a movie theater when he heard about Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. His father had a picture of himself in his Army uniform from World War 1. His father never talked about the war and the segregated Army. His mother never talked about South Carolina. He figures they did not want to teach him to hate. He wishes he had talked more to his father. Bass did not like his job after high school. He told his father he was going to join the Army. He never said a word. His mother did not like it. They did not talk to him about racism. Bass read a lot about it but did not understand it. He went out to join all the services, even the Merchant Marines, but none would have him. His brother had joined the Merchant Marines. His brother forged something to get in. He went to the Army and they were desperate, but they could not take him then. He went back in a month and got in. That brought him face to face with institutional racism. He went to the induction center with white friends from school. The sergeant separated him from his friends. All institutions were segregated in 1943, the Army being the biggest one. There was one black theater in his neighborhood. He would go to the white theater too, but there he had to go to the balcony. The Supreme Court had ruled "separate, but equal" [Annotator's Note: Plessy v. Ferguson 163 US 537 (1896); Supreme Court ruled that segregation was constitutional]. It was not. He went to Georgia for basic training then he went to train in Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. All of these places had people they were training to help, defend, and protect. All said that Blacks would not fight because they were not good enough. Bass was put into an administrative section. He was changed from infantry to combat engineer. He trained for that in Mississippi where he was exposed to all of the terrible things that come with racism. He never had a Black officer. Some black soldiers who had been ASTP [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program] programs came into his group. Bass was chosen to be in an intelligence reconnaissance section. He learned a lot by being around the college-educated men [Annotator's Note: the ones who came in through ASTP].

Leon Bass was training in Mississippi. Black soldiers were to be given ideas about why we were fighting the war. The program was called "Why We Fight" [Annotator's Note: series of seven documentary films by the United States government, 1942 to 1945, to explain to soldiers, and later to civilians, the country's involvement in the war]. A young lieutenant came in to lead it. Bass was asked why we were fighting the war. Bass had been introduced to racism in Macon, Georgia when he went to get a drink from a water fountain. A man stopped him and told him to look at the sign that said, "white only." He was not good enough to drink that water. Because of that, Bass told the lieutenant that they were fighting the war to preserve the rights and privileges enjoyed in the country, but that he was fighting the war at home because he did not have those rights and privileges. The lieutenant told the rest of the men to take a break and then talked to Bass and tried to change his outlook. He told Bass the Blacks he knew in Georgia did not want to go to school and just wanted to drink and gamble. He then told Bass that when you are in Rome, you do as the Romans do. Bass told the lieutenant that he was an American and lived in America and was going to do as Americans do. The lieutenant walked out. The other men came back in and did not take Bass's side. They were worried as many of them had lived in the South.

Leon Bass's mother always told him he did not need to use violence to solve a problem. His friends were tough guys. Bass got into one fight and broke his arm. His mother taught him the things Dr. King [Annotator's Note: the Reverand Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.; American civil rights leader who taught non-violent resistance] taught later. In the military, Bass took the same thing with him. He always respected his officers, but he always told them the truth. It was not easy. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him about going into town.] Bass did not go into town. You had to deal with the white MPs [Annotator's Note: military police] and they would treat them rough. They would have to wait and wait for a bus and watch the white soldiers being picked up. Bass never thought that there was something wrong with him. His mother helped him see himself as special. He had a good self-image and was going to be a good soldier. [Annotator's Note: Bass sings a song that his mother used to sing while doing laundry.] His father worked very hard on the railroad. [Annotator's Note: Bass and the interviewer reference conversations they have had elsewhere.] His family had a radio set and they listened on Sundays. They were poor but they said not to use that as an excuse as to why he could not do something. The teachers at his schools said the same thing. His teachers would go to Harlem [Annotator's Note: Harlem is a neighborhood in New York, New York] at the time of the Harlem Renaissance [Annotator's Note: intellectual revival of African-American art and literature centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City in the 1920s]. They would bring those ideas back to the classroom. The guys who did not get a good education had a problem. Some of them had a tough life and got damaged. They coped as best they could, and they got lucky. Some of them brought the damage with them. One fellow was not doing something right and was shot. [Annotator's Note: Bass talks about a President talking about his upbringing in detail but does not say which President.]

Leon Bass left from Boston [Annotator's Note: Boston, Massachusetts] and crossed the Atlantic [Annotator's Note: Atlantic Ocean] to England. He was there two or three months. He met nice people who treated them as wonderful soldiers. He met a young lady and there was a dance in Fordingbridge [Annotator's Note: Fordingbridge, England]. The white officers would come to the dance and act as MPs [Annotator's Note: military police] because they thought the men did not know how to behave. The next day, a Captain Ellis [Annotator's Note: unable to identify] came in. He told Bass that he was invited to dinner by the parents of the lady he danced with. Bass was friends with her for quite a while and they would go out and play darts. He did not drink. His parents had taught him to not drink and to respect women. He found that there was less racism in England than the United States. He liked the way the English talked. He knows Ghandi [Annotator's Note: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, also called Mahatma Ghandi, Indian lawyer, anti-colonialist, political ethicist who taught non-violent resistance] went to England. [Annotator's Note: Bass and the interviewer speak at length about different English colonies. The interviewer then asks if the Black American soldiers talked about the differences in racial behavior in the states.] Blacks began to look different to other Blacks over time. Sometimes, the overseer would have sex with the slaves. These children would not be born Black in color. Those children would be given some preference even though they were still slaves. Then the Blacks themselves would treat each other differently. It is a hard story to see, but he saw it. The guy who went to college is better than the guy who did not. Bass calls it becoming contaminated. Damage comes to all of us. When he talks to some of his white friends, he knows somebody did something for them because they do not hate. Some of them have been damaged too.

Leon Bass went from England to France. They [Annotator's Note: the 183rd Engineer Combat Battalion (Colored)] got orders to 3rd Army under General George Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.]. Their first mission was to go into Belgium. It was October [Annotator's Note: October 1944] and cold. They drove in black out conditions to a small town not far from Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium]. There was a bridge in Martelange [Annotator's Note: Martelange, Belgium] that had blown apart and they were to rebuild it to get supplies across. They worked night and day in spite of the weather and the shelling. They finished the bridge on time. The ones who came across went into the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. [Annotator's Note: Bass takes a break.] Bass was elated that they had done something and were good enough. His cousin who lived with him in South Carolina was in the Red Ball outfit [Annotator's Note: Red Ball Express, Allied forces truck convoy system]. A man came and told Bass his cousin was lost after running over a mine. [Annotator's Note: Bass gets emotional.] Bass wrote his family and told them he was sorry he had joined the Army. He was angry. An officer told him he could not mail it, the censor tore it up. Bass remembers the trucks coming by with the bodies and it made him wonder what he was doing there. He was angry because he could not enjoy what he was fighting for in his country. They began to follow the retreating Germans. Their job was to fix the roads and bridges. Other units were going up too. One man came and looked into the trucks and said to his men that we "were winning the war because the niggers [Annotator's Note: derogatory term for Black people] were there." Bass had to pull himself together and try to understand how some of those fellows hated him and did not even know him. They went through a lot of places and saw the dead and the dying. He can see why young men come back now with brain damage and more. He did not get that.

They [Annotator's Note: Leon Bass and the 183rd Engineer Combat Battalion (Colored)] stopped near Weimar [Annotator's Note: Weimar, Germany]. The Colonel told a lieutenant to round up some of the men in the intelligence section and go to Weimar and see if there was a concentration camp. Bass got in a truck to go to the camp. This day in April 1945 [Annotator's Note: 12 April 1945], Bass got the shock of his life when he walked into Buchenwald [Annotator's Note: Buchenwald concentration camp, Weimar, Germany]. He can never forget the day. He saw what the calls the walking dead. Humans were just skin and bone. [Annotator's Note: Bass gets emotional.] He saw a young man who spoke English. Bass asked him who they were, and he told him; so many different groups. The man told him the Nazis said they were not good enough to live. That registered with Bass as he had experienced that he was not good enough by being told he could not drink here [Annotator's Note: from the same water fountains as white people in the southern United States]. Bass went to the barracks where people were jammed in. He could not go further than inside due to the stench of death and human waste. He saw a man on a bed that was trying to look at Bass. The man said nothing, nor did Bass. Bass went out and was told of the building where medical experiments were performed on the prisoners. He also went to a building where prisoners had been tortured. He saw body parts on hooks on the wall. He wanted to get out of there and go home. He wondered where the children were. He asked the young prisoner who showed him the clothing of the children who did not survive, mounds of clothes. He then saw dead bodies stacked up outside of the crematorium. He went inside and saw remains inside the ovens. He realized he was not the same anymore, he had been transformed and realized that he had something to fight for. He and his friends left there in silence. No one said a word about what they saw.

The war ended and the president [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] died but he never saw the ending of the war. After the fighting in Europe terminated, Leon Bass's unit [Annotator's Note: 183rd Engineer Combat Battalion (Colored)] was disbanded and he was sent to the Philippines to go to Japan. He was just two days out of the canal [Annotator's Note: the Panama Canal, Panama] when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. He thought he would go home, but he went to Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Luzon, Philippines]. They lived in a bombed-out convent for about seven months; doing nothing. He had enough points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] to go home. He became a sergeant there and had to learn to type. Coming home was a wonderful thing. He had never been on a ship for so long. He had a wonderful time at his homecoming. All of his siblings were in the service, so his mother kept a map of where they all were. Bass decided to go to college on the G.I. Bill. The two best things this country ever did were the Marshall Plan [Annotator's Note: European Recovery Program] and the G.I. Bill. Nobody asked him what color he was when using the Bill. Temple [Annotator's Note: Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] had a program that G.I.s [Annotator's Note: government issue; also a slang term for an American soldier] could test to see if they could attend college. He was told he could go to college, but not at Temple. He went to West Chester State Teachers College [Annotator's Note: now West Chester University of Pennsylvania in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He later received his Doctorate Degree from Temple University] where a friend was. He had not done his best in high school and was worried about getting in. He was accepted as a student in 1946. He could not live in the dormitory [Annotator's Note: due to his being Black]. He was so angry; he could not go to the movies or eat in the restaurants. He was asking himself "why". He read a book about racism by James Baldwin [Annotator's Note: James Arthur Baldwin; American novelist, playwright, essayist, poet, and activist] that said "to be Black in America was to be in a constant state of rage." His father told him to get his education because nobody could take that away from him. He went to the theater and was pointed to the balcony [Annotator's Note: where Black people had to sit]. Bass had had enough. He walked into the theater and sat in the middle instead. People were looking at him and he was nervous that he would go to jail. Nobody came and he walked out with everybody else. He felt he was ten feet tall because for the first time he had let his feelings out. He never regretted it. Bass got a job in Philadelphia and got married while in college. He started teaching at an all-Black school [Annotator's Note: Benjamin Franklin High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]. These kids had been damaged and needed hope that tomorrow would be better than today. Bass could not see that. They came to school every day. He knew he had to work hard. He took them into town in Philadelphia. Boris Karloff [Annotator's Note: William Henry Pratt, stage name Boris Karloff; English actor] passed by them and they did not know who he was. Bass took them on an elevator for the first time.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Leon Bass if he has any personal regrets regarding his service during World War 2.] Bass thinks he took advantage of everything he wanted to see overseas. In London [Annotator's Note: London, England], he went to everything. He remembers acts of kindness. He had to take a fellow to a place in Germany. When they arrived, they had made a wasted trip. They returned in the dark and the enemy was shooting shells. They had to cross a bridge. There were White American soldiers on the other side. The bridge was hard to cross and Bass was nervous. They made it over and the soldiers told them to stay with them for the night. Bass decided to return as it was close to dawn. He reported to the Captain who was drunk. Bass thought it was such a waste of time, life and death. But he remembers the men who were willing to take him in [Annotator's Note: he means White soldiers who were nice to Black soldiers.] Bass is in a picture of when he was in the concentration camp [Annotator's Note: Bass entered the Buchenwald concentration camp in Weimar, Germany on 12 April 1945] that is in the museum in Washington [Annotator's Note: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.]. He was there one day and saw it.