 The campaign also played a role at home in encouraging defense industries to hire African-American employees who left the South in large numbers for the urban North and West Coast during the Second Great Migration to help the nation's war effort.After the Japanese attack at the American naval base in Pearl Harbor, America sent in the 369th Division to defend the territory of Hawaii from air attacks, the response from Hawaiians towards the African American soldiers varied greatly.The territory was a volatile combination of racial tension and extreme state power as it had not yet joined the American union, which wouldn't happen until 1959.