17. Opposition to the draft during the Second World War
Because the changes wrought by Executive Order 9279 meant that the vast majority of the more than 9 million men in uniform in all services at the beginning of 1944 were draftees. This included almost two thirds of the junior officers leading them. There was opposition to the draft, from conscientious objectors (COs) and from racially motivated groups. Elijah Muhammed and his small Nation of Islam organized resistance to the draft among blacks in the urban communities of the north, including New York. Muhammed was eventually sentenced to five years in prison for his efforts to disrupt the workings of the Selective Service System.
There was organized resistance to the draft in the Nisei camps where Japanese-American families were interned when the draft was extended to Japanese-American men in 1943. Over three hundred Japanese-Americans who refused to report to their draft boards were tried and convicted of felonies, and most were sent to military prisons, though they were for the most part released after the war. The America First and American communist party groups which opposed the draft for the most part changed their tune following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. During and following the war about 16,000 Americans went to prison for draft evasion. The draft was suspended in 1946 and the Act which authorized it expired in 1947.