Jessie Graham Flower - "Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College"

Horace Annesley Vachell - "The Hill"

Richard F. Burton - "To the Gold Coast for Gold"

Sir Walter Scott - "St. Ronan's Well"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965

M >> Morris J. MacGregor Jr. >> Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965




[Footnote 8-10: Frank L. Stanley, Report of the Negro
Newspaper Publishers Association to the Honorable
Secretary of War on Troops and Conditions in
Europe, 18 Jul 46, copy in CMH.]

Characteristically, the Secretary of War's civilian aide, Marcus Ray,
never denied evidence of misconduct among black troops, but
concentrated instead on finding the cause. Returning from a month's
tour of Pacific installations in September 1946, he bluntly pointed
out to Secretary Patterson that high venereal disease and
court-martial rates among black troops were "in direct proportion to
the high percentage of Class IV and Vs among the Negro personnel."
Given Ray's conclusion, the solution was relatively simple: the Army
should "vigorously implement" its recently promulgated policy, long
supported by Ray, and discharge persons with test scores of less than
seventy.[8-11]

[Footnote 8-11: Ray, Rpt of Tour of Pacific
Installations to SW Patterson, 7 Aug-6 Sep 46, ASW
291.2.]

The civilian aide was not insensitive to the effects of segregation on
black soldiers, but he stressed the practical results of the Army's
policy instead of making a sweeping indictment of segregation. For
example, he criticized the report of the noted criminologist, Leonard
Keeler, who had recently studied the criminal activities of American
troops in Europe for the Army's Criminal Investigation Division. Ray
was critical, not because Keeler had been particularly concerned with
the relatively high black crime rate and its effect on Europeans, but
because the report overlooked the concentration of segregated black
units which had increased the density of Negroes in some areas of
Europe to a point where records and reports of misconduct presented a
false picture. In effect, black crime statistics were meaningless, Ray
believed, as long as the Army's segregation policy remained intact.
Where Keeler implied that the solution was to exclude Negroes from
Europe, Ray believed that the answer lay in desegregating and
spreading them out.[8-12]

[Footnote 8-12: Memo, Ray for ASW Petersen, 1 Nov 46,
ASW 291.2.]

It was probably inevitable that all the publicity given racial
troubles would attract attention on Capitol Hill. When the Senate's
Special Investigations Committee took up the question of military
government in occupied Europe in the fall of 1946, it decided to look
into the conduct of black soldiers also. Witnesses asserted that black
troops in Europe were ill-behaved and poorly disciplined and their (p. 212)
officers were afraid to punish them properly for fear of displeasing
higher authorities. The committee received a report on the occupation
prepared by its chief counsel, George Meader. A curious amalgam of
sensational hearsay, obvious racism, and unimpeachable fact, the
document was leaked to the press and subsequently denounced publicly
by the committee's chairman, Senator Harley M. Kilgore of West
Virginia. Kilgore charged that parts of the report dealing with
Negroes were obviously based on hearsay. "Neither prejudice nor
malice," the senator concluded, "has any place in factual
reports."[8-13]

[Footnote 8-13: U.S. Congress, Senate Special
Committee Investigating National Defense Programs,
Part 42, "Military Government in Germany," 80th
Cong., 22 November 1946, pp. 26150-89; see also New
York _Times_, November 27 and December 4, 1946. The
quotation is from the _Times_ of November 27th.]

Although the committee's staff certainly had displayed remarkable
insensitivity, Meader's recommendations appeared temperate enough. He
wanted the committee to explore with the War Department possible
solutions to the problem of black troops overseas, and he called on
the War Department to give careful consideration to the
recommendations of its field commanders. The European commander was
already on record with a recommendation to recall all black troops
from Europe, citing the absence of Negroes from the U.S. Occupation
Army in the Rhineland after World War I. Lt. Gen. Lucius D. Clay, then
U.S. Commander, Berlin, who later succeeded General McNarney as
theater commander and military governor, wanted Negroes in the
occupation army used primarily as parade troops. Meader contended that
the War Department was reluctant to act on these theater
recommendations because it feared political repercussions from the
black community. He had no such fear: "certainly, the conduct of the
negro troops, as provable from War Department records, is no credit to
the negro race and proper action to solve the problem should not
result in any unfavorable reaction from any intelligent negro
leaders."[8-14]

[Footnote 8-14: Senate Special Committee, "Military
Government in Germany," 80th Cong., 22 Nov 1946,
pp. 26163-64; see also Geis Monograph, pp. 142-43.]

The War Department was not insensitive to the opinions being aired on
Capitol Hill. The under secretary, Kenneth C. Royall, had already
dispatched a group from the Inspector General's office under Brig.
Gen. Elliot D. Cooke to find out among other things if black troops
were being properly disciplined and to investigate other charges Lt.
Col. Francis P. Miller had made before the Special Investigations
Committee. Examining in detail the records of one subordinate European
command, which had 12,000 Negroes in its force of 44,000, the Cooke
group decided that commanders were not afraid to punish black
soldiers. Although Negroes were responsible for vehicle accidents and
disciplinary infractions in numbers disproportionate to their
strength, they also had a proportionately higher court-martial
rate.[8-15]

[Footnote 8-15: Geis Monograph, pp. 144-45; EUCOM
Hist Div, _Morale and Discipline in the European
Command, 1945-1949_, Occupation Forces in Europe
Series, pp. 45-46, in CMH.]

While the Cooke group was still studying the specific charges of the
Senate's Investigations Committee, Secretary Patterson decided on a
general review of the situation. He ordered Ray to tour European
installations and report on how the Gillem Board policy was being (p. 213)
put into effect overseas. Ray visited numerous bases and housing
and recreation areas in Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, and
Austria. He examined duties, living conditions, morale, and
discipline. He also looked into race relations and community
attitudes. His month's tour, ending on 17 December 1946, reinforced
his conviction that substandard troops--black and white--were at the
heart of the Army's crime and venereal disease problem. Ray supported
the efforts of local commanders to discharge these men, although he
wanted the secretary to reform and standardize the method of
discharge. In his analysis of the overseas situation, the civilian
aide avoided any specific allusion to the nexus between segregation
and racial unrest. In a rare burst of idealism, however, he did
condemn those who would exclude Negroes from combat units and certain
occupations because of presumed prejudices on the part of the German
population. To bow to such prejudices, he insisted, was to negate
America's aspirations for the postwar world. In essence, Ray's formula
for good race relations was quite simple: institute immediately the
reforms outlined in the Gillem Board Report.

In addition to broader use of black troops, Ray was concerned with
basic racial attitudes. The Army, he charged, generally failed to see
the connection between prejudice and national security; many of its
leaders even denied that prejudice existed in the Army. Yet to ignore
the problem of racial prejudice, he claimed, condemned the Army to
perpetual racial upsets. He wanted the secretary to restate the Army's
racial objectives and launch an information and education program to
inform commanders and troops on racial matters.[8-16]

[Footnote 8-16: Ray, "Rpt to SecWar, Mr. Robert P.
Patterson, of Tour of European Installations," 17
Dec 46, Incl to Memo, SW for DCofS, 7 Jan 47, SW
291.2.]

In all other respects a lucid progress report on the Gillem Board
policy, Ray's analysis was weakened by his failure to point out the
effect of segregation on the performance and attitude of black
soldiers. Ray believed that the Gillem Board policy, with its quota
system and its provisions for the integration of black specialists,
would eventually lead to an integrated Army. Preoccupied with
practical and imminently possible racial reforms, Ray, along with
Secretary Patterson and other reformers within the Army establishment,
tended to overlook the tenacious hold that racial segregation had on
Army thought.

This hold was clearly illustrated by the reaction of the Army staff to
Ray's recommendations. Speaking with the concurrence of the other
staff elements and the approval of the Deputy Chief of Staff, General
Paul warned that very little could be accomplished toward the
long-range objective of the Gillem Board--integration--until the Army
completed the long and complex task of raising the quality and
lowering the quantity of black soldiers. He also considered it
impractical to use Negroes in overhead positions, combat units, and
highly technical and professional positions in exact proportion to
their percentage of the population. Such use, Paul claimed, would
expend travel funds already drastically curtailed and further
complicate a serious housing situation. He admitted that the
deep-seated prejudice of some Army members in all grades would (p. 214)
have a direct bearing on the progress of the Army's new racial
policy.

[Illustration: 24TH INFANTRY BAND, GIFU, JAPAN, 1947.]

The staff generally agreed with Ray's other recommendations with one
exception: it opposed his suggestion that black units be used in the
European theater's constabulary, the specially organized and trained
force that patrolled the East-West border and helped police the German
occupation. The theater commander had so few capable Negroes, Paul
reasoned, that to siphon off enough to form a constabulary unit would
threaten the efficiency of other black units. Besides, even if enough
qualified Negroes were available, he believed their use in supervisory
positions over German nationals would be unacceptable to many
Germans.[8-17] The staff offered no evidence for this latter argument,
and indeed there was none available. In marked contrast to their
reaction to the French government's quartering of Senegalese soldiers
in the Rhineland after World War I, the German attitude toward
American Negroes immediately after World War II was notably tolerant,
a factor in the popularity among Negroes of assignments to Europe. It
was only later that the Germans, especially tavern owners and the (p. 215)
like, began to adopt the discriminatory practices of their
conquerors.[8-18]

[Footnote 8-17: WDGPA Summary Sheet, 25 Jan 47, sub:
Utilization of Negroes in the European Theater,
with Incls, WDGPA 291.2 (7 Jan 47).]

[Footnote 8-18: Interv, author with Lt Gen Clarence
R. Huebner (former CG, U.S. Army, Europe), 31 Mar
71, CMH files.]

Ray's proposals and the reaction to them formed a kind of watershed in
the War Department's postwar racial policy. Just ten months after the
Gillem Board Report was published, the Army staff made a judgment on
the policy's effectiveness: the presence of Negroes in numbers
approximating 10 percent of the Army's strength and at the current
qualitative level made it necessary to retain segregation
indefinitely. Segregation kept possible troublemakers out of important
combat divisions, promoted efficiency, and placated regional
prejudices both in the Army and Congress. Integration must be
postponed until the number of Negroes in the Army was carefully
regulated and the quality of black troops improved. Both, the staff
thought, were goals of a future so distant that segregated units were
not threatened.

But the staff's views ran contrary to the Gillem Board policy and the
public utterances of the Secretary of War. Robert Patterson had
consistently supported the policy in public and before his advisers.
Besides, it was unthinkable that he would so quickly abandon a policy
developed at the cost of so much effort and negotiation and announced
with such fanfare. He had insisted that the quota be maintained, most
recently in the case of the European Command.[8-19] In sum, he believed
that the policy provided guidelines, practical and expedient, albeit
temporary, that would lead to the integration of the Army.

[Footnote 8-19: Geis Monograph, pp. 143-44.]

In face of this impasse between the secretary and the Army staff there
slowly evolved what proved to be a new racial policy. Never clearly
formulated--Circular 124 continued in effect with only minor changes
until 1950--the new policy was based on the substantially different
proposition that segregation would continue indefinitely while the
staff concentrated on weeding out poorly qualified Negroes, upgrading
the rest, and removing vestiges of discrimination, which it saw as
quite distinct from segregation. At the same time the Army would
continue to operate under a strict 10 percent quota of Negroes, though
not necessarily within every occupation or specialty. The staff
overlooked the increasingly evident connection between segregation and
racial unrest, thereby assuring the continuation of both. From 1947
on, integration, the stated goal of the Gillem Board policy, was
ignored, while segregation, which the board saw as an expedient to be
tolerated, became for the Army staff a way of life to be treasured. It
was from this period in 1947 that Circular 124 and the Gillem Board
Report began to gain their reputations as regressive documents.


_Improving the Status of the Segregated Soldier_

In 1947 the Army accelerated its long-range program to discharge
soldiers who scored less than seventy on the Army General
Classification Test. Often a subject of public controversy, the
program formed a major part of the Army's effort to close the (p. 216)
educational and training gap between black and white troops.[8-20]
Of course, there were other ways to close the gap, and on occasion the
Army had taken the more positive and difficult approach of upgrading
its substandard black troops by giving them extra training. Although
rarely so recognized, the Army's long record of providing remedial
academic and technical training easily qualified it as one of the
nation's major social engineers.

[Footnote 8-20: For the use of AR 315-369 to
discharge low-scoring soldiers, see Chapter 7.]

[Illustration: GENERAL HUEBNER _inspects the 529th Military Police
Company, Giessen, Germany, 1948_.]

In World War II thousands of draftees were taught to read and write in
the Army's literacy program. In 1946 at Fort Benning an on-duty
educational program was organized in the 25th Regimental Combat Team
for soldiers, in this case all Negroes, with less than an eighth grade
education. Although the project had to be curtailed because of a lack
of specialized instructors, an even more ambitious program was
launched the next year throughout the Army after a survey revealed an
alarming illiteracy rate in replacement troops. In a move of primary
importance to black recruits, the Far East Command, for example,
ordered all soldiers lacking the equivalent of a fifth grade education
to attend courses. The order was later changed to include all soldiers
who failed to achieve Army test scores of seventy.[8-21]

[Footnote 8-21: AFPAC Monograph, 4:193.]

In 1947 the European theater launched the most ambitious project by
far for improving the status of black troops, and before it was over
thousands of black soldiers had been examined, counseled, and trained.
The project was conceived and executed by the deputy and later theater
commander, Lt. Gen. Clarence R. Huebner, and his adviser on Negro
affairs, Marcus Ray, now a lieutenant colonel.[8-22] These men were
convinced that a program could be devised to raise the status of the
black soldier. Huebner wanted to lay the foundation for a command-wide
educational program for all black units. "If you're going to make
soldiers out of people," he later explained, "they have the right to
be trained." Huebner had specialized in training in his Army career,
had written several of the Army's training manuals, and possessed an
abiding faith in the ability of the Army to change men. "If your (p. 217)
soldiers don't know how, teach them."[8-23]

[Footnote 8-22: At the suggestion of Secretary
Patterson, General Huebner established the position
of Negro adviser. After several candidates were
considered, the post went to Marcus Ray, who left
the secretary's office and went on active duty.]

[Footnote 8-23: Interv, author with Huebner.]

General Huebner got his chance in March 1947 when the command decided
to use some 3,000 unassigned black troops in guard duties formerly
performed by the 1st Infantry Division. The men were organized into
two infantry battalions,[8-24] but because of their low test scores
Huebner decided to establish a twelve-to thirteen-week training
program at the Grafenwohr Training Center and directed the commanding
general of the 1st Division to train black soldiers in both basic
military and academic subjects. Huebner concluded his directive by
saying:

This is our first opportunity to put into effect in a large way
the War Department policy on Negro soldiers as announced in War
Department Circular No. 124, 1946. Owing to the necessity for
rapid training, and to the press of occupational duties, little
time has been available in the past for developing the leadership
of the Negro soldier. We can now do that.... I wish you to study
the program, its progress, its deficiencies and its advantages,
in order that a full report may be compiled and lessons in
operation and training drawn.[8-25]

[Footnote 8-24: The 370th and 371st Infantry
Battalions (Separate) were organized on 20 June
1947. The men came from EUCOM's inactivated
engineer service battalions and construction
companies, ambulance companies, and ordnance
ammunition, quartermaster railhead, signal heavy
construction, and transportation corps car
companies; see Geis Monograph, p. 80.]

[Footnote 8-25: Ltr, CG, Ground and Service Forces,
Europe, to CG, 1st Inf Div, 1 May 47, sub: Training
of Negro Infantry Battalions, quoted in Geis
Monograph, pp. 113-14.]

As the improved military bearing and efficiency of black trainees and
the subsequent impressive performance of the two new infantry
battalions would suggest, the reports on the Grafenwohr training were
optimistic and the lessons drawn ambitious. They prompted Huebner on 1
December 1947 to establish a permanent training center at Kitzingen
Air Base.[8-26] Essentially, he was trying to combine both drill and
constant supervision with a broad-based educational program. Trainees
received basic military training for six hours daily and academic
instruction up to the twelfth grade level for two hours more. The
command ordered all black replacements and casuals arriving from the
United States to the training center for classifying and training as
required. Eventually all black units in Europe were to be rotated
through Kitzingen for unit refresher and individual instruction. As
each company completed the course at Kitzingen, the command assigned
academic instructors to continue an on-duty educational program in the
field. A soldier was required to participate in the educational
program until he passed the general education development test for
high school level or until he clearly demonstrated that he could not
profit from further instruction.

[Footnote 8-26: The training center had already moved
from Grafenwohr to larger quarters at Mannheim
Koafestal, Germany.]

Washington was quick to perceive the merit of the European program,
and Paul reported widespread approval "from all concerned."[8-27] The
program quickly produced some impressive statistics. Thousands of (p. 218)
soldiers--at the peak in 1950 more than 62 percent of all Negroes in
the command--were enrolled in the military training course at
Kitzingen or in on-duty educational programs organized in over
two-thirds of the black companies throughout the command. By June 1950
the program had over 2,900 students and 200 instructors. A year later,
the European commander estimated that since the program began some
1,169 Negroes had completed fifth grade in his schools, 2,150 had
finished grade school, and 418 had passed the high school equivalency
test.[8-28] The experiment had a practical and long-lasting effect on
the Army. For example, in 1950 a sampling of three black units showed
that after undergoing training at Kitzingen and in their own units the
men scored an average of twenty points higher in Army classification
tests. According to a 1950 European Command estimate, the command's
education program was producing some of the finest trained black
troops in the Army.

[Footnote 8-27: Ltr, D/P&A to Huebner, 15 Oct 47,
CSGPA 291.2. This approval did not extend to all
civil rights advocates, some of whom objected to
the segregated training. Walter White, however,
supported the program. See Interv, author with
Huebner.]

[Footnote 8-28: EUCOM Hist Div, _EUCOM Command
Report, 1951_, pp. 128, 251, copy in CMH.]

[Illustration: REPORTING TO KITZINGEN. _Men of Company B, 371st
Infantry Battalion, arrive for refresher course in basic military
training._]

The training program even provoked jealous reaction among some white
troops who claimed that the educational opportunities offered Negroes
discriminated against them. They were right, for in comparison to the
on-duty high school courses offered Negroes, the command restricted
courses for white soldiers to so-called literacy training or
completion of the fifth grade. Command spokesmen quite openly
justified the disparity on the grounds that Negroes on the whole (p. 219)
had received fewer educational opportunities in the United States and
that the program would promote efficiency in the command.[8-29]

[Footnote 8-29: Ltr, Chief, EUCOM TI&E Div, to EUCOM
DCSOPS, 18 Jun 48, cited in Geis Monograph, p.
130.]

Whether a connection can be made between the Kitzingen training
program and improvement in the morale and discipline of black troops,
the fact was that by January 1950 a dramatic change had occurred in
the conduct of black soldiers in the European Command. The rate of
venereal disease among black soldiers had dropped to an average
approximating the rate for white troops (and not much greater than the
always lower average for troops in the United States). This phenomenon
was repeated in the serious incident rate. In the first half of 1950
courts-martial that resulted in bad conduct discharges totaled
fifty-nine for Negroes, a figure that compared well with the 324
similar verdicts for the larger contingent of white soldiers.[8-30] For
once the Army could document what it had always preached, that
education and training were the keys to the better performance of
black troops. The tragedy was that the education program was never
applied throughout the Army, not even in the Far East and in the
United States, where far more black soldiers were stationed than in
Europe.[8-31] The Army lost yet another chance to fulfill the promise of
its postwar policy.

[Footnote 8-30: Geis Monograph, Charts 3 and 4 and p.
139.]

[Footnote 8-31: Not comparable was the brief literacy
program reinstituted in the 25th Regimental Combat
Team at Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1947.]

In later years Kitzingen assumed the task of training black officers,
a natural progression considering the attitude of General Huebner and
Marcus Ray. The general and the command adviser were convinced that
the status of black soldiers depended at least in part on the caliber
of black officers commanding them. Huebner deftly made this point in
October 1947 soon after Kitzingen opened when he explained to General
Paul that he wanted more "stable, efficient, and interested Negro
officers and senior non-commissioned officers" who, he believed, would
set an example for the trainees.[8-32] Others shared Huebner's views.
The black publishers touring Europe some months later observed that
wherever black officers were assigned there was "a noticeable
improvement in the morale, discipline and general efficiency of the
units involved."[8-33]

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