By amplifying the bill’s achievements for returning black soldiers without sufficiently underscoring the high and often impassable barriers placed in their path, such an appraisal can be deceptive. When we take into account the legislative history of the statute and the way in which its various programs were administered, we come to see a rather different, more accurate picture. On balance, despite the assistance that black soldiers received, there was no greater instrument for widening an already huge racial gap in postwar America than the GI Bill.
