Otis Eliot Pope Introduction

My name is Eliot Pope. I am 33 years old. I enjoy traveling, skiing and reading. I am currently a 2nd year PhD student studying African Americans and World War II. While I have always been interested in this subject, my appreciation for the topic has grown recently. Why? Well, during a class at DePaul University, I wrote a paper on some letters my uncle wrote to my grandmother from Italy. Through these letters, I gained access to some of the experiences African American soldiers endured on the front line. Writing the paper affected me in a variety of ways. I began to look at African Americans soldiers as not only playing a vital role in the war effort itself, but also as individuals that forced America to address racial inequality on the home front.