Content note: A wartime US cartoon whose printed news item uses the period term 'Negroes' and which depicts a Nazi 'Submarine Menace' as a caricatured brute. This object is shown as it was published. Why
"Come on sailor, you're just in time!!"
A large sailor in a beret wades toward a smaller figure, labelled 'Submarine Menace' with a swastika belt buckle, who is being carried off by a Coast Guard sailor; a news-item headline above reports 300 Black men going on active duty in the Coast Guard. The tell is a weak fit for glittering-generalities: a news item is framed as a heroic rescue, presenting the new Black recruits as arriving in time to help win the war.
Propaganda techniques used in this cartoon
- Date
- 1943
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Office of War Information (cartoon artwork; artist Charles Alston)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Cartoon
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- War and the military, Race and ethnicity
- Event
- World War II
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives (NARA), RG 208, Artworks and Mockups for Cartoons Promoting the War Effort (NAID 535594), retrieved October 3, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
Office of War Information. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 208, 208-COM-9 (NAID 535603).
Text on the object
"300 NEGROES GO ON ACTIVE DUTY IN U.S. COAST GUARD." -- NEWS ITEM [on figure] SUBMARINE MENACE "COME ON SAILOR, YOU'RE JUST IN TIME!!" [signed] Alston
