Sewell Ford - "Torchy and Vee"

Fanny Fern - "Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends"

Abraham Tomlinson - "The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758 1775"

Various - "Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853"

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




The White House ignored these demands, and on 17 October the secretary
to the President, Col. Edwin M. Watson, referred White to a War
Department report outlining the new black units being created under
presidential authorization. But the NAACP leaders were not to be
diverted from the main chance. Thurgood Marshall, then the head of (p. 015)
the organization's legal department, recommended that White tell the
President "that the NAACP is opposed to the separate units existing in
the armed forces at the present time."[1-32]

[Footnote 1-32: Memo, Marshall for White, 28 Oct 39;
Ltr, Secy to the President to White, 17 Oct 39.
Both in C-376, NAACP Collection, LC.]

When his associates failed to agree on a reply to the administration,
White decided on a face-to-face meeting with the President.[1-33]
Roosevelt agreed to confer with White, Hill of the Urban League, and
A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters,
the session finally taking place on 27 September 1940. At that time
the civil rights officials outlined for the President and his defense
assistants what they called the "important phases of the integration
of the Negro into military aspects of the national defense program."
Central to their argument was the view that the Army and Navy should
accept men without regard to race. According to White, the President
had apparently never considered the use of integrated units, but after
some discussion he seemed to accept the suggestion that the Army could
assign black regiments or batteries alongside white units and from
there "the Army could 'back into' the formation of units without
segregation."[1-34]

[Footnote 1-33: Memo, White for Roy Wilkins et al.,
Oct 39; Ltr, Houston to White, Oct 39; Memo,
Wilkins to White, 23 Oct 39. All in C-376, NAACP
Collection, LC.]

[Footnote 1-34: Walter White, "Conference at White
House, Friday, September 27, 11:35 A.M.," Arthur B.
Spingarn Papers, Library of Congress. See also
White's _A Man Called White_ (New York: Viking
Press, 1948), pp. 186-87.]

Nothing came of these suggestions. Although the policy announced by
the White House subsequent to the meeting contained concessions
regarding the employment and distribution of Negroes in the services,
it did not provide for integrated units. The wording of the press
release on the conference implied, moreover, that the administration's
entire program had been approved by White and the others. To have
their names associated with any endorsement of segregation was
particularly infuriating to these civil rights leaders, who
immediately protested to the President.[1-35] The White House later
publicly absolved the leaders of any such endorsement, and Press
Secretary Early was forced to retract the "damaging impression" that
the leaders had in any way endorsed segregation. The President later
assured White, Randolph, and Hill that further policy changes would be
made to insure fair treatment for Negroes.[1-36]

[Footnote 1-35: Ltr, White to Stephen Early, 21 Oct
40. See also Memo, White for R. S. W. [Roy
Wilkins], 18 Oct 40. Both in C-376, NAACP
Collection, LC. See also Ltr, S. Early to White, 18
Oct 40, Incl to Ltr, White to Spingarn, 24 Oct 40,
Spingarn Papers, LC.]

[Footnote 1-36: White, _A Man Called White_, pp.
187-88.]

Presidential promises notwithstanding, the NAACP set out to make
integration of the services a matter of overriding interest to the
black community during the war. The organization encountered
opposition at first when some black leaders were willing to accept
segregated units as the price for obtaining the formation of more
all-black divisions. The NAACP stood firm, however, and demanded at
its annual convention in 1941 an immediate end to segregation.

In a related move symbolizing the growing unity behind the campaign to
integrate the military, the leaders of the March on Washington
Movement, a group of black activists under A. Philip Randolph, (p. 016)
specifically demanded the end of segregation in the Army and Navy. The
movement was the first since the days of Marcus Garvey to involve the
black masses; in fact Negroes from every social and economic class
rallied behind Randolph, ready to demonstrate for equal treatment and
opportunity. Although some black papers objected to the movement's
militancy, the major civil rights organization showed no such hesitancy.
Roy Wilkins, a leader of the NAACP, later claimed that Randolph could
supply only about 9,000 potential demonstrators and that the NAACP had
provided the bulk of the movement's participants.[1-37]

[Footnote 1-37: Roy Wilkins Oral History Interview,
Columbia University Oral History Collection. See
also A. Philip Randolph, "Why Should We March,"
_Survey Graphic_ 31 (November 1942), as reprinted
in John H. Franklin and Isidore Starr, eds., _The
Negro in Twentieth Century America_ (New York:
Random House, 1967).]

Although Randolph was primarily interested in fair employment
practices, the NAACP had been concerned with the status of black
servicemen since World War I. Reflecting the degree of NAACP support,
march organizers included a discussion of segregation in the services
when they talked with President Roosevelt in June 1941. Randolph and
the others proposed ways to abolish the separate racial units in each
service, charging that integration was being frustrated by prejudiced
senior military officials.[1-38]

[Footnote 1-38: White, _A Man Called White_, pp.
190-93.]

The President's meeting with the march leaders won the administration
a reprieve from the threat of a mass civil rights demonstration in the
nation's capital, but at the price of promising substantial reform in
minority hiring for defense industries and the creation of a federal
body, the Fair Employment Practices Committee, to coordinate the
reform. While it prompted no similar reform in the racial policies of
the armed forces, the March on Washington Movement was nevertheless a
significant milestone in the services' racial history.[1-39] It signaled
the beginning of a popularly based campaign against segregation in the
armed forces in which all the major civil rights organizations, their
allies in Congress and the press, and many in the black community
would hammer away on a single theme: segregation is unacceptable in a
democratic society and hypocritical during a war fought in defense of
the four freedoms.

[Footnote 1-39: Herbert Garfinkle, _When Negroes
March: The March on Washington Movement in the
Organizational Politics of FEPC_ (Glencoe: The Free
Press, 1959), provides a comprehensive account of
the aims and achievements of the movement.]




CHAPTER 2 (p. 017)

World War II: The Army


Civil rights leaders adopted the "Double V" slogan as their rallying
cry during World War II. Demanding victory against fascism abroad and
discrimination at home, they exhorted black citizens to support the
war effort and to fight for equal treatment and opportunity for
Negroes everywhere. Although segregation was their main target, their
campaign was directed against all forms of discrimination, especially
in the armed forces. They flooded the services with appeals for a
redress of black grievances and levied similar demands on the White
House, Congress, and the courts.

Black leaders concentrated on the services because they were public
institutions, their officials sworn to uphold the Constitution. The
leaders understood, too, that disciplinary powers peculiar to the
services enabled them to make changes that might not be possible for
other organizations; the armed forces could command where others could
only persuade. The Army bore the brunt of this attention, but not
because its policies were so benighted. In 1941 the Army was a fairly
progressive organization, and few institutions in America could match
its record. Rather, the civil rights leaders concentrated on the Army
because the draft law had made it the nation's largest employer of
minority groups.

For its part, the Army resisted the demands, its spokesmen contending
that the service's enormous size and power should not be used for
social experiment, especially during a war. Further justifying their
position, Army officials pointed out that their service had to avoid
conflict with prevailing social attitudes, particularly when such
attitudes were jealously guarded by Congress. In this period of
continuous demand and response, the Army developed a racial policy
that remained in effect throughout the war with only superficial
modifications sporadically adopted to meet changing conditions.


_A War Policy: Reaffirming Segregation_

The experience of World War I cast a shadow over the formation of the
Army's racial policy in World War II.[2-1] The chief architects of the
new policy, and many of its opponents, were veterans of the first war
and reflected in their judgments the passions and prejudices of that
era.[2-2] Civil rights activists were determined to eliminate the (p. 018)
segregationist practices of the 1917 mobilization and to win a
fair representation for Negroes in the Army. The traditionalists of
the Army staff, on the other hand, were determined to resist any
radical change in policy. Basing their arguments on their evaluation
of the performance of the 92d Division and some other black units in
World War I, they had made, but not publicized, mobilization plans
that recognized the Army's obligation to employ black soldiers yet
rigidly maintained the segregationist policy of World War I.[2-3] These
plans increased the number of types of black units to be formed and
even provided for a wide distribution of the units among all the arms
and services except the Army Air Forces and Signal Corps, but they did
not explain how the skilled Negro, whose numbers had greatly increased
since World War I, could be efficiently used within the limitations of
black units. In the name of military efficiency the Army staff had, in
effect, devised a social rather than a military policy for the
employment of black troops.

[Footnote 2-1: This survey of the Army and the Negro
in World War II is based principally on Lee's
_Employment of Negro Troops_. A comprehensive
account of the development of policy, the
mobilization of black soldiers, and their use in
the various theaters and units of World War II,
this book is an indispensable source for any
serious student of the subject.]

[Footnote 2-2: For examples of how World War I
military experiences affected the thinking of the
civil rights advocates and military traditionalists
of World War II, see Lester B. Granger Oral History
Interview, 1960, Columbia University Oral History
Collection; Interview, Lee Nichols with Lt. Gen.
John C. H. Lee (c. 1953). For the influence of
World War II on a major contributor to postwar
racial policy, see Interview, Lee Nichols with
Harry S. Truman, 24 Jun 53. Last two in Nichols
Collection, CMH. These interviews are among many
compiled by Nichols as part of his program
associated with the production of _Breakthrough on
the Color Front_ (New York: Random House, 1954).
Nichols, a journalist, presented this collection of
interviews, along with other documents and
materials, to the Center of Military History in
1972. The interviews have proved to be a valuable
supplement to the official record. They capture the
thoughts of a number of important participants,
some no longer alive, at a time relatively close to
the events under consideration. They have been
checked against the sources whenever possible and
found accurate.]

[Footnote 2-3: Memo, ACofS, G-3, for CofS, 3 Jun 40,
sub: Employment of Negro Manpower, G-3/6541-527.]

The White House tried to adjust the conflicting demands of the civil
rights leaders and the Army traditionalists. Eager to placate and
willing to compromise, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought an
accommodation by directing the War Department to provide jobs for
Negroes in all parts of the Army. The controversy over integration
soon became more public, the opponents less reconcilable; in the weeks
following the President's meeting with black representatives on 27
September 1940 the Army countered black demands for integration with a
statement released by the White House on 9 October. To provide "a fair
and equitable basis" for the use of Negroes in its expansion program,
the Army planned to accept Negroes in numbers approximate to their
proportion in the national population, about 10 percent. Black
officers and enlisted men were to serve, as was then customary, only
in black units that were to be formed in each major branch, both
combatant and noncombatant, including air units to be created as soon
as pilots, mechanics, and technical specialists were trained. There
would be no racial intermingling in regimental organizations because
the practice of separating white and black troops had, the Army staff
said, proved satisfactory over a long period of time. To change would
destroy morale and impair preparations for national defense. Since
black units in the Army were already "going concerns, accustomed
through many years to the present system" of segregation, "no
experiments should be tried ... at this critical time."[2-4]

[Footnote 2-4: Memo, TAG for CG's et al., 16 Oct 40,
sub: War Department Policy in Regard to Negroes, AG
291.21 (10-9-40) M-A-M.]

The President's "OK, F.D.R." on the War Department statement (p. 019)
transformed what had been a routine prewar mobilization plan into a
racial policy that would remain in effect throughout the war. In fact,
quickly elevated in importance by War Department spokesmen who made
constant reference to the "Presidential Directive," the statement
would be used by some Army officials as a presidential sanction for
introducing segregation in new situations, as, for example, in the
pilot training of black officers in the Army Air Corps. Just as
quickly, the civil rights leaders, who had expected more from the tone
of the President's own comments and more also from the egalitarian
implications of the new draft law, bitterly attacked the Army's
policy.

Black criticism came at an awkward moment for President Roosevelt, who
was entering a heated campaign for an unprecedented third term and
whose New Deal coalition included the urban black vote. His opponent,
the articulate Wendell L. Willkie, was an unabashed champion of civil
rights and was reportedly attracting a wide following among black
voters. In the weeks preceding the election the President tried to
soften the effect of the Army's announcement. He promoted Col.
Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., to brigadier general, thereby making Davis the
first Negro to hold this rank in the Regular Army. He appointed the
commander of reserve officers' training at Howard University, Col.
Campbell C. Johnson, Special Aide to the Director of Selective
Service. And, finally, he named Judge William H. Hastie, dean of the
Howard University Law School, Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War.

A successful lawyer, Judge Hastie entered upon his new assignment with
several handicaps. Because of his long association with black causes,
some civil rights organizations assumed that Hastie would be their man
in Washington and regarded his duties as an extension of their crusade
against discrimination. Hastie's War Department superiors, on the
other hand, assumed that his was a public relations job and expected
him to handle all complaints and mobilization problems as had his
World War I predecessor, Emmett J. Scott. Both assumptions proved
false. Hastie was evidently determined to break the racial logjam in
the War Department, yet unlike many civil rights advocates he seemed
willing to pay the price of slow progress to obtain lasting
improvement. According to those who knew him, Hastie was confident
that he could demonstrate to War Department officials that the Army's
racial policies were both inefficient and unpatriotic.[2-5]

[Footnote 2-5: The foregoing impressions are derived
largely from Interviews, Lee Nichols with James C.
Evans, who worked for Judge Hastie during World War
II, and Ulysses G. Lee (c. 1953). Both in Nichols
Collection, CMH.]

Judge Hastie spent his first ten months in office observing what was
happening to the Negro in the Army. He did not like what he saw. To
him, separating black soldiers from white soldiers was a fundamental
error. First, the effect on black morale was devastating. "Beneath the
surface," he wrote, "is widespread discontent. Most white persons are
unable to appreciate the rancor and bitterness which the Negro, as a
matter of self-preservation, has learned to hide beneath a smile, a
joke, or merely an impassive face." The inherent paradox of trying to
inculcate pride, dignity, and aggressiveness in a black soldier while
inflicting on him the segregationist's concept of the Negro's (p. 020)
place in society created in him an insupportable tension. Second,
segregation wasted black manpower, a valuable military asset. It was
impossible, Hastie charged, to employ skilled Negroes at maximum
efficiency within the traditionally narrow limitations of black units.
Third, to insist on an inflexible separation of white and black
soldiers was "the most dramatic evidence of hypocrisy" in America's
professed concern for preserving democracy.

Although he appreciated the impossibility of making drastic changes
overnight, Judge Hastie was disturbed because he found "no apparent
disposition to make a beginning or a trial of any different plan." He
looked for some form of progressive integration by which qualified
Negroes could be classified and assigned, not by race, but as
individuals, according to their capacities and abilities.[2-6]

[Footnote 2-6: Memo, William H. Hastie for SW, with
attachment, 22 Sep 41, sub: Survey and
Recommendations Concerning the Integration of the
Negro Soldiers Into the Army, G-1/15640-120. See
also Intervs, Nichols with Evans and Lee.]

[Illustration: JUDGE HASTIE.]

Judge Hastie gained little support from the Secretary of War, Henry L.
Stimson, or the Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, when he
called for progressive integration. Both considered the Army's
segregated units to be in accord with prevailing public sentiment
against mixing the races in the intimate association of military life.
More to the point, both Stimson and Marshall were sensitive to
military tradition, and segregated units had been a part of the Army
since 1863. Stimson embraced segregation readily. While conveying to
the President that he was "sensitive to the individual tragedy which
went with it to the colored man himself," he nevertheless urged
Roosevelt not to place "too much responsibility on a race which was
not showing initiative in battle."[2-7] Stimson's attitude was not
unusual for the times. He professed to believe in civil rights for
every citizen, but he opposed social integration. He never tried to
reconcile these seemingly inconsistent views; in fact, he probably did
not consider them inconsistent. Stimson blamed what he termed Eleanor
Roosevelt's "intrusive and impulsive folly" for some of the criticism
visited upon the Army's racial policy, just as he inveighed against
the "foolish leaders of the colored race" who were seeking "at (p. 021)
bottom social equality," which, he concluded, was out of the question
"because of the impossibility of race mixture by marriage."[2-8]
Influenced by Under Secretary Robert P. Patterson, Assistant Secretary
John J. McCloy, and Truman K. Gibson, Jr., who was Judge Hastie's
successor, but most of all impressed by the performance of black
soldiers themselves, Stimson belatedly modified his defense of
segregation. But throughout the war he adhered to the traditional
arguments of the Army's professional staff.

[Footnote 2-7: Stimson, a Republican, had been
appointed by Roosevelt in 1940, along with
Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, in an effort to
enlist bipartisan support for the administration's
foreign policy in an election year. Stimson brought
a wealth of experience with him to the office,
having served as Secretary of War under William
Howard Taft and Secretary of State under Herbert
Hoover. The quotations are from Stimson Diary, 25
October 1940, Henry L. Stimson Papers, Yale
University Library.]

[Footnote 2-8: Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy,
_On Active Service in Peace and War_ (New York:
Harper and Brothers, 1947), pp. 461-64. The
quotations are from Stimson Diary, 24 Jan 42.]

[Illustration: GENERAL MARSHALL AND SECRETARY STIMSON.]

General Marshall was a powerful advocate of the views of the Army
staff. He lived up to the letter of the Army's regulations,
consistently supporting measures to eliminate overt discrimination in
the wartime Army. At the same time, he rejected the idea that the Army
should take the lead in altering the racial mores of the nation. Asked
for his views on Hastie's "carefully prepared memo,"[2-9] General
Marshall admitted that many of the recommendations were sound but said
that Judge Hastie's proposals

would be tantamount to solving a social problem which has
perplexed the American people throughout the history of this
nation. The Army cannot accomplish such a solution and (p. 022)
should not be charged with the undertaking. The settlement of
vexing racial problems cannot be permitted to complicate the
tremendous task of the War Department and thereby jeopardize
discipline and morale.[2-10]

[Footnote 2-9: Memo, USW for CofS, 6 Oct 41,
G-1/15640-120.]

[Footnote 2-10: Memo, CofS for SW, 1 Dec 41, sub:
Report of Judge William H. Hastie, Civilian Aide to
the Secretary of War, dated 22 Sep 41, OCS
20602-219.]

As Chief of Staff, Marshall faced the tremendous task of creating in
haste a large Army to deal with the Axis menace. Since for several
practical reasons the bulk of that Army would be trained in the south
where its conscripts would be subject to southern laws, Marshall saw
no alternative but to postpone reform. The War Department, he said,
could not ignore the social relationship between blacks and whites,
established by custom and habit. Nor could it ignore the fact that the
"level of intelligence and occupational skill" of the black population
was considerably below that of whites. Though he agreed that the Army
would reach maximum strength only if individuals were placed according
to their abilities, he concluded that experiments to solve social
problems would be "fraught with danger to efficiency, discipline, and
morale." In sum, Marshall saw no reason to change the policy approved
by the President less than a year before.[2-11]

[Footnote 2-11: Ibid. See also Forrest C. Pogue,
_George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory_ (New
York: The Viking Press, 1973), pp. 96-99.]

The Army's leaders and the secretary's civilian aide had reached an
impasse on the question of policy even before the country entered the
war. And though the use of black troops in World War I was not
entirely satisfactory even to its defenders,[2-12] there appeared to be
no time now, in view of the larger urgency of winning the war, to plan
other approaches, try other solutions, or tamper with an institution
that had won victory in the past. Further ordering the thoughts of
some senior Army officials was their conviction that wide-scale mixing
of the races in the services might, as Under Secretary Patterson
phrased it, foment social revolution.[2-13]

Copyright (c) 2007. topboookz.com. All rights reserved.