Johann Wolfgang Goethe - "Die Mitschuldigen"

James Whitcomb Riley - "A Defective Santa Claus"

Various - "The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864"

Harold Spender - "Home Rule"

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 11-7: "Summary of AAF Post-War Surveys,"
prepared by Noel Parrish, copy in NAACP Collection,
Library of Congress.]

[Footnote 11-8: Noel F. Parrish, "The Segregation of
the Negro in the Army Air Forces," thesis submitted
to the USAF Air Command and Staff School, Maxwell
AFB, Ala., 1947, pp. 50-55.]

Fearing trouble between black and white officers and assuming that
black airmen preferred white officers, the Air Forces assigned white
officers to command black squadrons. Actually, such assignments
courted morale problems and worse because they were extremely
unpopular with both officers and men. Moreover, the Air Forces
eventually had to admit that there was a tendency to assign white
officers "of mediocre caliber" to black squadrons.[11-9] Yet few
assignments demanded greater leadership ability, for these officers
were burdened not only with the usual problems of a unit commander but
also with the complexities of race relations. If they disparaged their
troops, they failed as commanders; if they fought for their men, they
were dismissed by their superiors as "pro-Negro." Consequently, they
were generally a harassed and bewildered lot, bitter over their
assignments and bad for troop morale.[11-10]

[Footnote 11-9: Ltr, Hq AAF, to CG, Tactical Training
Cmd, 21 Aug 42, sub: Professional Qualities of
Officers Assigned to Negro Units, 220.765-3,
AFSHRC.]

[Footnote 11-10: Parrish, "Segregation of the Negro in
the Army Air Forces," pp. 50-55. The many
difficulties involved in the assignment of white
officers to black units are discussed in Osur's
_Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War
II_, ch V.]

The social problems predicted for integration proved inevitable under
segregation. Commanders found it prohibitively expensive to provide
separate but equal facilities, and without them discrimination became
more obvious. The walk-in protest at the Freeman Field Officers Club
was but one of the natural consequences of segregation rules. And such
demonstrations were only the more spectacular problems. Just as
time-consuming and perhaps more of a burden were the many
administrative difficulties. The Air Transport Command admitted in
1946 that it was too expensive to maintain, as the command was
obligated to do, separate and equal housing and messing, including
separate orderly and day rooms for black airmen. At the same time it
complained of the disproportionately high percentage of black troops
violating military and civil law. Although Negroes accounted for 20
percent of the command's troops, they committed more than 50 percent
of its law infractions. The only connection the command was able to
make between the separate, unequal facilities and the high misconduct
rate was to point out that, while it had done its best to provide for
Negroes, they "had not earned a very enviable record by
themselves."[11-11]

[Footnote 11-11: AAF Transport Cmd, "History of the
Command, 1 July 1946-31 December 1946" pp. 120-26.]

In one crucial five-month period of the war, Army Air Forces (p. 274)
headquarters processed twenty-two separate staff actions involving
black troops.[11-12] To avoid the supposed danger of large-scale social
integration, the Air Forces, like the rest of the Army during World
War II, had been profligate in its use of material resources,
inefficient in its use of men, and destructive of the morale of black
troops.

[Footnote 11-12: Parrish, "Segregation of the Negro in
the Army Air Forces."]

[Illustration: COLONEL PARRISH. (_1946 photograph_).]

The Air staff was not oblivious to these facts and made some
adjustments in policy as the war progressed. Notably, it rejected
separate training of nonrated black officers and provided for
integrated training of black navigators and bombardiers. In the last
days of the war General Arnold ordered his commanders to "take
affirmative action to insure that equity in training and assignment
opportunity is provided all personnel."[11-13] And when it came to
postwar planning, the Air staff demonstrated it had learned much from
wartime experience:

The degree to which negroes can be successfully employed in the
Post-War Military Establishment largely depends on the success of
the Army in maintaining at a minimum the feeling of
discrimination and unfair treatment which basically are the
causes for irritation and disorders ... in the event of a future
emergency the arms will employ a large number of negroes and
their contribution in such an emergency will largely depend on
the training, treatment and intelligent use of negroes during the
intervening years.[11-14]

[Footnote 11-13: AAF Ltr 35-268, 11 Aug 45.]

[Footnote 11-14: Rpt, ACS/AS-1 to WDSS, 17 Sep 45,
sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Post-War
Military Establishment, WDSS 291.2.]

But while admitting that discrimination was at the heart of its racial
problem, the Air staff failed to see the connection between
discrimination and segregation. Instead it adopted the recommendations
of its senior commanders. The consensus was that black combat (flying)
units had performed "more or less creditably," but required more
training than white units, and that the ground echelon and combat
support units had performed below average. Rather than abolish these
below average units, however, commanders wanted them preserved and
wanted postwar policy to strengthen segregation. The final
recommendation of the Army Air Forces to the Gillem Board was that
blacks be trained according to the same standards as whites but that
they be employed in separate units and segregated for recreation,
messing, and social activities "on the post as well as off," in (p. 275)
keeping with prevailing customs in the surrounding civilian
community.[11-15]

[Footnote 11-15: Ibid. For an analysis of these
recommendations, see Gropman's _The Air Force
Integrates_, ch. II.]

The Army Air Forces' postwar use of black troops was fairly consonant
with the major provisions of the Gillem Board Report. To reduce black
combat units in proportion to the reduction of its white units, it
converted the 477th Bombardment Group (M) into the 477th Composite
Group. This group, under the command of the Army's senior black pilot,
Col. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., included a fighter, a bombardment, and a
service squadron. To provide segregated duty for its black
specialists, the Army Air Forces organized regular black squadrons,
mostly ammunition, motor transport, and engineer throughout its
commands. To absorb the large number of unskilled Negroes, it
organized one black squadron (Squadron F) in each of the ninety-seven
base units in its worldwide base system to perform laboring and
housekeeping chores. Finally, it promised "to the fullest possible
extent" to assign Negroes with specialized skills and qualifications
to overhead and special units.[11-16]

[Footnote 11-16: WD Bureau of Public Relations, Memo
for the Press, 20 Sep 45; Office of Public
Relations, Godman Field, Ky., "Col. Davis Issues
Report on Godman Field," 10 Oct 45; Memo, Chief,
Programs and Manpower Section, Troop Basis Branch,
Organization Division, D/T&R, for Dir of Military
Personnel, 23 Apr 48, no sub; all in Negro Affairs,
SecAF files. See also "History of Godman Field,
Ky., 1 Mar--15 Oct 45," AFSHRC.]

In the summer of 1947, the Army Air Forces integrated aviation
training at Randolph Field, Texas, and quietly closed Tuskegee
airfield, thus ending the last segregated officer training in the
armed forces. The move was unrelated to the Gillem Board Report or to
the demands of civil rights advocates. The Tuskegee operation had
simply become impractical. In the severe postwar retrenchment of the
armed forces, Tuskegee's cadet enrollment had dropped sharply, only
nine men graduated in the October 1945 class.[11-17] To the general
satisfaction of the black community, the few black cadets shared both
quarters and classes with white students.[11-18] Nine black cadets were
in training at the end of 1947.[11-19]

[Footnote 11-17: "History of the 2143d AAF Base Unit,
Pilot School, Basic, Advanced, and Tuskegee Army
Air Field, 1 Sep 1945-31 Oct 1945," AFSHRC.]

[Footnote 11-18: For an example of black reaction see
_Ebony_ Magazine V (September 1949).]

[Footnote 11-19: Memo, James C. Evans, Adviser to the
SecDef, for Capt Robert W. Berry, 10 Feb 48, SecDef
291.2 files.]

Another postwar reduction was not so advantageous for Negroes. By
February 1946 the 477th Composite Group had been reduced to sixteen
B-25 bombers, twelve P-47 fighter-bombers, and only 746 men--a 40
percent drop in four months.[11-20] Although the Tactical Air Command
rated the unit's postwar training and performance satisfactory, and
its transfer to the more hospitable surroundings and finer facilities
of Lockbourne Field, Ohio, raised morale, the 477th, like other
understaffed and underequipped organizations, faced inevitable
conversion to specialized service. In July 1947 the 477th was
inactivated and replaced by the 332d Fighter Group composed of the
99th, 100th, and 301st Fighter Squadrons. Black bomber pilots were
converted to fighter pilots, and the bomber crews were removed from
flying status.

[Footnote 11-20: "History of the 477th Composite
Group," 15 Sep 45-15 Feb 46, Feb-Mar 46, and 1
Mar-15 Jul 46, AFSHRC.]

[Illustration: OFFICERS' SOFTBALL TEAM _representing the 477th
Composite Group, Godwin Field, Kentucky_.]

These changes flew in the face of the Gillem Board Report, for (p. 276)
however slightly that document may have changed the Army's segregation
policy, it did demand at least a modest response to the call for equal
opportunity in training, assignment, and advancement. The board
clearly looked to the command of black units by qualified black
officers and the training of black airmen to serve as a cadre for any
necessary expansion of black units in wartime. Certainly the
conversion of black bomber pilots to fighters did not meet these
modest demands. In its defense the Army Air Forces in effect pleaded
that there were too many Negroes for its present force, now severely
reduced in size and lacking planes and other equipment, and too many
of the black troops lacked education for the variety of assignments
recommended by the board.

The Army Air Forces seemed to have a point, for in the immediate
postwar period its percentage of black airmen had risen dramatically.
It was drafting men to replace departing veterans, and in 1946 it was
taking anyone who qualified, including many Negroes. In seven months
the air arm lost over half its black strength, going from a wartime
high of 80,606 on 31 August 1945 to 38,911 on 31 March 1946, but in
the same period the black percentage almost doubled, climbing from 4.2
to 7.92.[11-21] The War Department predicted that all combat arms would
have a black strength of 15 percent by 1 July 1946.[11-22]

[Footnote 11-21: All figures from STM-30, 1 Sep 45 and
1 Apr 46.]

[Footnote 11-22: Memo, TAG for CG's et al., 4 Feb 46,
sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, AG 291.2 (31
Jan 46).]

This prophecy never materialized in the Air Forces. Changes in
enlistment standards, curtailment of overseas assignments for Negroes,
and, finally, suspension of all black enlistments in the Regular Army
except in certain military specialist occupations turned the
percentage of Negroes downward. By the fall of 1947, when the Air (p. 277)
Force became a separate service,[11-23] the proportion of black airmen
had leveled off at nearly 7 percent. Nor did the proportion of Negroes
ever exceed the Gillem Board's 10 percent quota during the next
decade.

[Footnote 11-23: Under the terms of the National
Security Act of 1947 the U.S. Air Force was created
as a separate service in a Department of the Air
Force on 18 September 1947. The new service
included the old Army Air Forces; the Air Corps,
U.S. Army; and General Headquarters Air Force. The
strictures of WD Circular 124, like those of many
other departmental circulars, were adopted by the
new service. For convenience' sake the terms _Air
Force_ and _service_ will be employed in the
remaining sections of this chapter even where the
terms _Army Air Forces_ and _component_ would be
more appropriate.]

The Air Force seemed on safer ground when it pleaded that it lacked
the black airmen with skills to carry out the variety of assignments
called for by the Gillem Board. The Air Force was finding it
impossible to organize effective black units in appreciable numbers;
even some units already in existence were as much as two-thirds below
authorized strength in certain ground specialist slots.[11-24] Yet here
too the statistics do not reveal the whole truth. Despite a general
shortage of Negroes in the high test score categories, the Air Force
did have black enlisted men qualified for general assignment as
specialists or at least eligible for specialist training, who were
instead assigned to labor squadrons.[11-25] In its effort to reduce the
number of Negroes, the service had also relieved from active duty
other black specialists trained in much needed skills. Finally, the
Air Force still had a surplus of black specialists in some categories
at Lockbourne Field who were not assigned to the below-strength units.

[Footnote 11-24: "Tactical Air Command (TAC) History,
1 Jan-30 Dec 48," pp. 94-96, AFSHRC; see also
Lawrence J. Paszek, "Negroes and the Air Force,
1939-1949," _Military Affairs_ (Spring 1967), p.
8.]

[Footnote 11-25: Memo, DCofS/Personnel, TAC, for CG,
TAC, 18 Mar 48, AFSHRC.]

Again it was not too many black enlisted men or too few black officers
or specialists but the policy of strict segregation that kept the Air
Force from using black troops efficiently. Insistence on segregation,
not the number of Negroes, caused maldistribution among the commands.
In 1947, for example, the Tactical Air Command contained some 5,000
black airmen, close to 28 percent of the command's strength. This
situation came about because the command counted among its units the
one black air group and many of the black service units whose members
in an integrated service would have been distributed throughout all
the commands according to needs and abilities. The Air Force
segregation policy restricted all but forty-five of the black officers
in the continental United States to one base,[11-26] just as it was the
Air Force's attempt to avoid integration that kept black officers from
command. In November 1947, 1,581 black enlisted men and only two black
officers were stationed at MacDill Field; at San Antonio there were
3,450 black airmen and again two black officers. These figures provide
some clue to the cause of the riot involving black airmen at MacDill
Field on 27 October 1946.[11-27]

[Footnote 11-26: Memo, DCofS/P&A, USAF, for Asst
SecAF, 5 Dec 47, sub: Air Force Negro Troops in the
Zone of Interior, Negro Affairs, SecAF files.]

[Footnote 11-27: "History of MacDill Army Airfield,
Oct 46," pp. 10-11, AFSHRC. For a detailed analysis
of the MacDill riot and its aftermath, see Gropman,
_The Air Force Integrates_, ch. I; see also ch. 5,
above.]

Segregation also prevented the use of Negroes on a broader
professional scale. In April 1948, 84.2 percent of Negroes in the Air
Force were working in an occupational specialty as against 92.7 (p. 278)
percent of whites, but the number of Negroes in radar, aviation
specialist, wire communications, and other highly specialized skills
required to support a tactical air unit was small and far below the
percentage of whites. The Air Force argued that since Negroes were
assigned to black units and since there was only one black tactical
unit, there was little need for Negroes with these special skills.

[Illustration: CHECKING AMMUNITION. _An armorer in the 332d Fighter
Group inspects the P-51 Mustang, Italy, 1945._]

The fact that rated black officers and specialists were restricted to
one black fighter group particularly concerned civil rights advocates.
Without bomber, transport, ferrying, or weather observation
assignments, black officers qualified for larger aircraft had no
chance to diversify their careers. It was essentially the same story
for black airmen. Without more varied and large black combat units the
Air Force had no need to assign many black airmen to specialist
training. In December 1947, for example, only 80 of approximately
26,000 black airmen were attending specialist schools.[11-28] When asked
about the absence of Negroes in large aircraft, especially bombers,
Air Force spokesmen cited the conversion of the 477th Composite Group,
which contained the only black bomber unit, to a specialized fighter
group as merely part of a general reorganization to meet the needs (p. 279)
of a 55-wing organization.[11-29] That the one black bomber unit
happened to be organized out of existence was pure accident.

[Footnote 11-28: Memo, unsigned (probably DCofS/P&A),
for Asst SecAF Zuckert, 22 Apr 48, SecAF files.]

[Footnote 11-29: See Air Force Testimony Before the
National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs
(afternoon session), pp. 29-32, CMH files.]

The Gillem Board had sought to expand the training and placement of
skilled Negroes by going outside the regular black units and giving
them overhead assignments. After the war some base commanders made
such assignments unofficially, taking advantage of the abilities of
airmen in the overmanned, all-black Squadron F's and assigning them to
skilled duties. In one instance the base commander's secretary was a
member of his black unit; in another, black mechanics from Squadron F
worked on the flight line with white mechanics. But whatever their
work, these men remained members of Squadron F, and often the whole
black squadron, rather than individual airmen, found itself
functioning as an overhead unit, contrary to the intent of the Gillem
Board. Even the few Negroes formally trained in a specialty and placed
in an integrated overhead unit did not approximate the Gillem Board's
intention of training a cadre that would be readily expandable in an
emergency.

The alternative to expanded overhead assignments was continuation of
segregated service units and Squadron F's, but, as some manpower
experts pointed out, many special purpose units suitable for unskilled
airmen were disappearing from the postwar Air Force. Experience gained
through the assignment of large numbers of marginal men to such units
in peacetime would be of questionable value during large-scale
mobilization.[11-30] As Colonel Parrish, the wartime commander of
training at Tuskegee, warned, a peacetime policy incapable of wartime
application was not only unrealistic, but dangerous.[11-31]

[Footnote 11-30: Memo, DCofS/P&A, TAC, for CG, TAC, 18
Mar 48, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower,
AFSHRC.]

[Footnote 11-31: Parrish, "Segregation of the Negro in
the Army Air Forces," pp. 72-73.]

The Air staff tried to carry out the Gillem Board's suggestion that
Negroes be stationed "where attitudes are most favorable for them
insofar as military factors permit," but even here the service lagged
behind civilian practice. When Marcus H. Ray arrived at Wright Field,
Ohio, for a two-day inspection tour in July 1946, he found almost
3,000 black civilians working peacefully and effectively alongside
18,000 white civilians, all assigned to their jobs without regard to
race. "I would rate this installation," Ray reported, "as the best
example of efficient utilization of manpower I have seen." He went on
to explain: "The integration has been accomplished without publicity
and simply by assigning workers according to their capabilities and
without regard to race, creed, or color." But Ray also noted that
there were no black military men on the base.[11-32] Assistant Secretary
of War Petersen was impressed. "In view of the fact that the racial
climate seems exceptionally favorable at Wright Field," he wrote
General Carl Spaatz, "consideration should be given to the employment
of carefully selected Negro military personnel with specialist ratings
for work in that installation."[11-33]

[Footnote 11-32: Memo, Ray for ASW, 25 Jul 46, ASW
291.2.]

[Footnote 11-33: Memo, Petersen for CG, AAF, 29 Jul
46, ASW 291.2.]

The Air Force complied. In the fall of 1946 it was forming black (p. 280)
units for assignment to Air Materiel Command Stations, and it planned
to move a black unit to Wright Field in the near future.[11-34] In
assigning an all-black unit to Wright, however, the Air Force was
introducing segregation where none had existed before, and here as in
other areas its actions belied the expressed intent of the Gillem
Board policy.

[Footnote 11-34: Memo, Brig Gen Reuben C. Hood, Jr.,
Office of CG, AAF, for ASW, 13 Sep 46, ASW 291.2.]


_Impulse for Change_

The problems associated with efficient use of black airmen intensified
when the Air Force became an independent service in 1947. The number
of Negroes fluctuated during the transition from Army Air Forces to
Air Force, and as late as April 1948 the Army still retained a number
of specialized black units whose members had the right to transfer to
the Air Force. Estimates were that some 5,400 black airmen would
eventually enter the Air Force from this source. Air Force officials
believed that when these men were added to the 26,507 Negroes already
in the new service, including 118 rated and 127 nonrated male officers
and 4 female officers, the total would exceed the 10 percent quota
suggested by the Gillem Board. Accordingly, soon after it became an
independent service, the Air Force set the number of black enlistments
at 300 per month until the necessary adjustments to the transfer
program could be made.[11-35]

[Footnote 11-35: Memo, unsigned, for Asst SecAF
Zuckert, 22 Apr 48, SecAF files. The figures cited
in this memorandum were slightly at variance with
the official strength figures as compiled later in
the _Unites States Air Force Statistical Digest I_
(1948). The _Digest_ put the Air Force's strength
(excluding Army personnel still under Air Force
control) on 31 March 1948 at 345,827, including
25,404 Negroes (8.9 percent of the total). The 10
percent plus estimate mentioned in the memorandum,
however, was right on the mark when statistics for
enlisted strength alone are considered.]

In addition to the chronic problems associated with black enlistments
and quotas, four very specific problems demonstrated clearly to Air
Force officials the urgent need for a change in race policy. The first
of these was the distribution of black airmen which threatened the
operational efficiency of the Tactical Air Command. A second, related
to the first, revolved around the personnel shortages in black
tactical units that necessitated an immediate reorganization of those
units, a reorganization both controversial and managerially
inefficient. The third and fourth problems were related; the demands
of black leaders for a broader use of black servicemen suddenly
intensified, dovetailing with the personal inclinations of the
Secretary of the Air Force, who was making the strict segregation of
black officers and specialists increasingly untenable. These four
factors coalesced during 1948 and led to a reassessment of policy and,
finally, to a _volte-face_.

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