# AFRICAN AMERICANS IN WORLD WAR II RED BALL EXPRESS "TEAMWORK" FILM 53254

An underappreciated sequel of sorts to the film "The Negro Soldier", “Teamwork” is a US War Department black-and-white training film directed at African Americans on the subject of team work. The film's production history is chronicled in the book "Making Movies Black" by Thomas Cripps, "Teamwork" was almost not made, as the Army by 1944 viewed such films as superfluous. Fortunately for filmmaker Carlton Moss, General Lyman Munson, Anatol Litvak and Frank Capra saw things differently. The result is a film that as Cripps states, "set a black agenda in that it literally promised African Americans an enhanced status in the postwar world in return for their service during the war." Produced by the US Army Signal Corps during World War II, the unclassified picture shows images of a Nazi arsenal at mark 00:43 as the narrator explains how it once held the most powerful weapons the Germans had. “This building held an arsenal of words,” he says. The film then shows the Nazi propaganda machine at work as recordings are made and newspapers are printed to promote the Nazi message. Through re-enactments we watch German officers promote the message of “divide and conquer” (mark 01:19 ) as he describes the United States as a “mongrel nation” that pits people of different religious beliefs and ethnicities against each other. “And if this mongrel American army dare to attack the sacred shores of the fortress Europe you will see chaos in their ranks,” says the faux officer. What follows is a…

- Kind: Film
- Genres: War, Industrial and advertising
- Archive: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/53254Teamwork)
- Licence or status: none stated by the archive
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/ia/53254Teamwork?play=1)