Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965

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

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to openly counsel, aid, and abet youth, both white and Negro, to
quarantine any Jim Crow conscription system, whether it bear the
label of universal military training or selective service....

From coast to coast in my travels I shall call upon all Negro
veterans to join this civil disobedience movement and to recruit
their younger brothers in an organized refusal to register and be
drafted....

I shall appeal to the thousands of white youths ... to
demonstrate their solidarity with Negro youth by ignoring the
entire registration and induction machinery....

I shall appeal to the Negro parents to lend their moral support
to their sons, to stand behind them as they march with heads held
high to Federal prisons as a telling demonstration to the world
that Negroes have reached the limit of human endurance, that, in
the words of the spiritual, we will be buried in our graves
before we will be slaves.[12-36]

[Footnote 12-36: Senate, Hearings Before the Committee
on Armed Services, _Universal Military Training_,
80th Cong., 2d sess., 1948, p. 688.]

Randolph argued that hard-won gains in education, job opportunity, and
housing would be nullified by federal legislation supporting
segregation. How could a Fair Employment Practices Commission, he
asked, dare criticize discrimination in industry if the government
itself was discriminating against Negroes in the services? "Negroes
are just sick and tired of being pushed around," he concluded, "and we
just do not propose to take it, and we do not care what happens."[12-37]

[Footnote 12-37: Ibid., p. 689.]

When Senator Wayne Morse warned Randolph that such statements in times
of national emergency would leave him open to charges of treason,
Randolph replied that by fighting for their rights Negroes were
serving the cause of American democracy. Borrowing from the rhetoric
of the cold war, he predicted that such was the effect of segregation
on the international fight for men's minds that America could never
stop communism as long as it was burdened with Jim Crowism. Randolph
threw down the gauntlet. "We have to face this thing sooner or (p. 304)
later, and we might just as well face it now."[12-38] It was up to the
administration and Congress to decide whether his challenge was the
beginning of a mass movement or a weightless threat by an extremist
group.

[Footnote 12-38: Ibid., pp. 691-94. The quotation is
from page 694.]

The immediate reaction of various spokesmen for the black community
supported both possibilities. Also testifying before the Senate Armed
Services Committee, Truman Gibson, who was a member of the Compton
Commission that had objected to segregation, expressed "shock and
dismay" at Randolph's pledge and predicted that Negroes would continue
to participate in the country's defense effort.[12-39] For his pains
Gibson was branded a "rubber stamp Uncle Tom" by Congressman Adam
Clayton Powell. The black press, for the most part, applauded
Randolph's analysis of the mood of Negroes, but shied away from the
threat of civil disobedience. The NAACP and most other civil rights
organizations took the same stand, condemning segregation but
disavowing civil disobedience.[12-40]

[Footnote 12-39: Ibid., p. 645.]

[Footnote 12-40: The Philadelphia _Inquirer_, April
11, 1948; PM, April 11, 1948. See also McCloy and
Ruetten, _Quest and Response_, pp. 107-08; "Crisis
in the Making: U.S. Negroes Tussle With the Issue,"
_Newsweek_, June 7, 1948, pp. 28-29; L. Bennett,
Jr., _Confrontation Black and White_ (Chicago:
Johnson Press, 1965), pp. 192-94; Grant Reynolds,
"A Triumph for Civil Disturbance," _Nation_ 167
(August 28, 1948):228-29.]

Although the administration could take comfort in the relatively mild
reaction from conservative blacks, an important element of the black
community supported Randolph's stand. A poll of young educated Negroes
conducted by the NAACP revealed that 71 percent of those of draft age
would support the civil disobedience campaign. So impressive was
Randolph's support--the New York _Times_ called it a blunt warning
from the black public--that one news journal saw in the campaign the
specter of a major national crisis.[12-41] On the other hand, the
Washington _Post_ cautioned its readers not to exaggerate the
significance of the protest. Randolph's words, the _Post_ declared,
were intended "more as moral pressure" for nondiscrimination clauses
in pending draft and universal military training legislation than as a
serious threat.[12-42]

[Footnote 12-41: New York _Times_, April 1, 1948.]

[Footnote 12-42: Washington _Post_, April 2, 1948.]

Whatever its ultimate influence on national policy, the Randolph civil
disobedience pledge had no visible effect on the position of the
President or Congress. With a draft bill and a national political
convention pending, the President was not about to change his
hands-off policy toward the segregation issue in the services. In fact
he showed some heat at what he saw as a threat by extremists to
exploit an issue he claimed he was doing his best to resolve.[12-43] As
for members of Congress, most of those who joined in the debate on the
draft bill simply ignored the threatened boycott.

[Footnote 12-43: McCoy and Ruetten, _Quest and
Response_, p. 107.]

In contrast to the militant Randolph, the Negroes who gathered at
Secretary Forrestal's invitation for the National Defense Conference
on 26 April appeared to be a rather sedate group. But academic honors,
business success, and gray hairs were misleading. These eminent
educators, clergymen, and civil rights leaders proved just as (p. 305)
determined as Randolph and his associates to be rid of segregation
and, considering their position in the community, were more likely to
influence the administration. That they were their own men quickly
became apparent in the stormy course of the Pentagon meeting. They
subjected a score of defense officials[12-44] to searching questions,
submitted themselves to cross-examination by the press, and agreed to
prepare a report for the Secretary of Defense.

[Footnote 12-44: Department of National Defense,
"National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs," 26
Apr 48. This document includes the testimony and
transcript of the news conference that followed.
Officials appearing before the committee included
James Forrestal, Secretary of Defense; Robert P.
Patterson, former Secretary of War; Marx Leva,
Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense;
James Evans, Adviser to the Secretary of Defense;
Kenneth C. Royall, Secretary of the Army; John N.
Brown, Assistant Secretary of the Navy; W. Stuart
Symington, Secretary of the Air Force; and
personnel officials and consultants from each
service.]

While the group refrained from endorsing Randolph's position, it also
refrained from criticizing him and strongly supported his thesis that
segregation in itself was discrimination. Nor were its views
soft-pedaled in the press release issued after the conference. The
Secretary of Defense was forced to announce that the black leaders
declined to serve as advisers to the National Military Establishment
as long as the services continued to practice segregation. The group
unanimously recommended that the armed services eliminate segregation
and challenged the Army's interpretation of its own policy, insisting
that the Army could abolish segregation even within the framework of
the Gillem Board recommendations. The members planned no future
meetings but adjourned to prepare their report.[12-45]

[Footnote 12-45: NME Press Releases, 26 Apr and 8 Sep
48.]

This adamant stand should not have surprised the Secretary of Defense.
Forrestal could appreciate more than most the pressures operating on
the group. In the aftermath of the report of the President's Committee
on Civil Rights and in the heightened atmosphere caused by the
rhetoric of the Randolph campaign, these men were also caught up in
the militants' cause. If they were reluctant to attack the services
too severely lest they lose their chance to influence the course of
racial events in the department, they were equally reluctant to accept
the pace of reform dictated by the traditionalists. In the end they
chose to side with their more radical colleagues. Thus despite Lester
Granger's attempt to soften the blow, the conference designed to bring
the opponents together ended with yet another condemnation of
Forrestal's gradualism.

Forrestal himself agreed with the goals of the conferees, he told
Granger, but at the same time he refused to abandon his approach,
insisting that he could not force people into cooperation and mutual
respect by issuing a directive. Instead he arranged for Granger to
meet with Army leaders to spread the gospel of equal opportunity and
ordered a report prepared showing precisely what the Navy did during
the late months of the war and "how much of it has stuck--on the
question of non-segregation both in messing and barracks." The report,
written by Lt. Dennis D. Nelson, was sent to Secretary of the Army
Royall along with sixteen photographs picturing blacks and whites (p. 306)
being trained together and working side by side.[12-46]

[Footnote 12-46: Memo, Forrestal for Marx Leva, 30 Apr
48; Ltr, Nelson to Leva, 24 May 48; Memo, Leva for
SA, 25 May 48. All in D54-1-3, SecDef files.]

[Illustration: NATIONAL DEFENSE CONFERENCE ON NEGRO AFFAIRS.
_Conferees prepare to meet with the press, 26 April 1948._]

Given the vast size of the Army, it was perfectly feasible to open all
training to qualified Negroes and yet continue for years racial
practices that had so quickly proved impossible in the Navy's smaller
general service. Of course, even in the Army the number of segregated
jobs that could be created was limited, and in time Forrestal's
tactics might, it could be argued, have succeeded despite the Army's
size and the intractability of its leaders. Time, however, was
precisely what Forrestal lacked, given the increasing political
strength of the civil rights movement.

Sparked by Randolph's stand before the congressional committee, some
members of the black community geared up for greater protests. Worse
still for an administration facing a critical election, the protest
was finding some support in the camps of the President's rivals. Early
in May, for example, a group of prominent civil rights activists
formed the Commission of Inquiry with the expressed purpose of
examining the treatment of black servicemen during World War II.
Organized by Randolph and Reynolds, the commission boasted Arthur
Garfield Hayes, noted civil libertarian and lawyer, as its counsel.
The commission planned to interrogate witnesses and, on the basis of
the testimony gathered, issue a report to Congress and the public that
would include recommendations on conscription legislation. Various
Defense Department officials were invited to testify but only James C.
Evans, who acted as department spokesman, accepted. During the (p. 307)
inquiry, which Evans estimated was attended by 180 persons, little
attention was given to Randolph's civil disobedience pledge, but Evans
himself came in for considerable ridicule, and there were headlines
aplenty in the black press.[12-47]

[Footnote 12-47: Ltr, Grant Reynolds and Randolph to
Evans, 3 May 48; Memo, Evans for SecDef, 13 May 48,
sub: Commission of Inquiry; both in SecDef files.
See also A. Philip Randolph, Statement Before
Commission of Inquiry, 8 May 48, copy in USAF
Special Files 35, 1948, SecAF files.]

These attacks were being carried out in an atmosphere of heightened
political interest in the civil rights of black servicemen. Henry A.
Wallace, the Progressive Party's presidential candidate, had for some
time been telling his black audiences that the administration was
insincere because if it wanted to end segregation it could simply
force the resignation of the Secretary of the Army.[12-48] Henry Cabot
Lodge, the Republican senator from Massachusetts, called on Forrestal
to make "a real attempt, well thought out and well organized," to
integrate a sizable part of the armed forces with soldiers
volunteering for such arrangements. Quoting from General Eisenhower's
testimony before the Armed Services Committee, he reminded Forrestal
that segregation was not only an undeserved and unjustified
humiliation to the Negro, but a potential danger to the national
defense effort. In the face of a manpower shortage, it was inexcusable
to view segregation simply as a political question, "of concern to a
few individuals and to a few men in public life and to be dealt with
as adroitly as possible, always with an eye to the largest number of
votes."[12-49]

[Footnote 12-48: New York _Times_, February 16, 1948.]

[Footnote 12-49: Ltr, Sen. Henry C. Lodge, Jr.
(Mass.), to SecDef, 19 Apr 48, D54-1-3, SecDef
files.]

Yet as the timing of Senator Lodge's letter suggests, the political
implications of the segregation fight were a prime concern of every
politician involved, and Forrestal had to act with this fact in mind.
The administration considered the Wallace campaign a real but minor
threat because of his appeal to black voters in the early months of
the campaign.[12-50] The Republican incursion into the civil rights field
was more ominous, and Forrestal, having acknowledged Lodge's letter,
turned to Lester Granger for help in drafting a detailed reply. It
took Granger some time to suggest an approach because he agreed with
Lodge on many points but found some of his inferences as unsound as
the Army's policy. For instance Lodge approved Eisenhower's comments
on segregation, and the only real difference between Eisenhower and
the Army staff was that Eisenhower wanted segregation made more
efficient by putting smaller all-black units into racially composite
organizations. Negroes opposed segregation as an insult to their race
and to their manhood. Granger wanted Forrestal to tell Lodge that no
group of Negroes mindful of its public standing could take a position
other than total opposition to segregation. Having to choose between
Randolph's stand and Eisenhower's, Negroes could not endorse
Eisenhower. Granger also thought Forrestal would do well to explain to
Lodge that he himself favored for the other services the policy
followed by the Navy in the name of improving efficiency and
morale.[12-51]

[Footnote 12-50: McCoy and Ruetten, _Quest and
Response_, pp. 98-99.]

[Footnote 12-51: Ltr, Granger to Leva, 14 May 48,
D54-1-3, SecDef files.]

A reply along these line was prepared, but Marx Leva persuaded (p. 308)
Forrestal not to send it until the selective service bill had safely
passed Congress.[12-52] Forrestal was "seriously concerned," he wrote
the President on 28 May 1948, about the fate of that legislation. He
wanted to express his opposition to an amendment proposed by Senator
Richard B. Russell of Georgia that would guarantee segregated units
for those draftees who wished to serve only with members of their own
race. He also wanted to announce his intention of making "further
progress" in interracial relations. To that end he had discussed with
Special Counsel to the President Clark M. Clifford the creation of an
advisory board to recommend specific steps his department could take
in the race relations field. Reiterating a long-cherished belief,
Forrestal declared that this "difficult problem" could not be solved
by issuing an executive order or passing a law, "for progress in this
field must be achieved by education, and not by mandate."[12-53] The
President agreed to these maneuvers,[12-54] but just three days later
Forrestal returned to the subject, passing along to Truman a warning
from Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio that both the Russell amendment
and one proposed by Senator William Langer of North Dakota to prohibit
all segregation were potential roadblocks to passage of the
bill.[12-55] In the end Congress rejected both amendments, passing a
draft bill without any special racial provisions on 19 June 1948.

[Footnote 12-52: Memo, Leva to Forrestal, 18 May 48,
D54-1-3, SecDef files. Forrestal's response,
suggesting that Lodge meet with Lester Granger to
discuss the matter, was finally sent on 24 Jun 48.
See also Memo, Leva for Forrestal, 22 Jun 48, and
Ltr, SecDef to Sen. Lodge, 24 Jun 48, both in
D51-1-3, SecDef files.]

[Footnote 12-53: Memo, James Forrestal for President,
28 May 48, Secretary's File (PSF), Harry S. Truman
Library.]

[Footnote 12-54: Memo, President for SecDef, 1 Jun 48,
Secretary's File (PSF), Truman Library.]

[Footnote 12-55: Note, SecDef for President, 31 May
48, sub: Conversation With Senator Taft,
Secretary's File (PSF), Truman Library.]

The proposal for an advisory board proved to be Forrestal's last
attempt to change the racial practices of the armed forces through
gradualism. In the next few weeks the whole problem would be taken out
of his hands by a White House grown impatient with his methods. There,
in contrast to the comparatively weak position of the Secretary of
Defense, who had not yet consolidated his authority, the full force
and power of the Commander in Chief would be used to give a dramatic
new meaning to equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces.
Given the temper of the times, Forrestal's surrender was inevitable,
for a successful reform program had to show measurable improvements,
and despite his maneuvers with the civil rights activists, the
Congress, and the services, Forrestal had no success worth proclaiming
in his first eight months of office.

This lack of progress disappointed civil rights leaders, who had
perhaps overestimated the racial reforms made when Forrestal was
Secretary of the Navy. It can be argued that as Secretary of Defense
Forrestal himself was inclined to overestimate them. Nevertheless, he
could demonstrate some systematic improvement in the lot of the black
sailor, enough improvement, according to his gradualist philosophy, to
assure continued progress. Ironically, considering Forrestal's faith
in the efficacy of education and persuasion, whatever can be counted
as his success in the Navy was accomplished by the firm authority he
and his immediate subordinates exercised during the last months of (p. 309)
the war. Yet this authority was precisely what he lacked in his new
office, where his power was limited to only a general control over
intransigent services that still insisted on their traditional
autonomy.

In any case, by 1948 there was no hope for widespread reform through a
step-by-step demonstration of the practicality and reasonableness of
integration. Too much of the remaining opposition was emotional,
rooted in prejudice and tradition, to yield to any but forceful
methods. If the services were to be integrated in the short run,
integration would have to be forced upon them.

_Executive Order 9981_

Although politics was only one of several factors that led to
Executive Order 9981, the order was born during a presidential
election campaign, and its content and timing reflect that fact.
Having made what could be justified as a military decision in the
interest of a more effective use of manpower in the armed forces, the
President and his advisers sought to capitalize on the political
benefits that might accrue from it.[12-56] The work of the President's
Committee on Civil Rights and Truman's subsequent message to Congress
had already elevated civil rights to the level of a major campaign
issue. As early as November 1947 Clark Clifford, predicting the
nomination of Thomas Dewey and Henry Wallace, had advised the
President to concentrate on winning the allegiance of the nation's
minority voters, especially the black, labor, and Jewish blocs.[12-57]
Clifford had discounted the threat of a southern defection, but in the
spring of 1948 southern Democrats began to turn from the party, and
the black vote, an important element in the big city Democratic vote
since the formation of the Roosevelt coalition, now became in the
minds of the campaign planners an essential ingredient in a Truman
victory. Through the efforts of Oscar Ewing, head of the Federal
Security Administration and White House adviser on civil rights
matters, and several other politicians, Harry Truman was cast in the
role of minority rights champion.[12-58]

[Footnote 12-56: Interv, Nichols with Ewing; Interv,
Blumenson with Leva.]

[Footnote 12-57: Memo, Clark Clifford for President,
19 Nov 47; ibid., 17 Aug 48, sub: The 1948
Campaign; both in Truman Library. See also Cabell
B. Phillips, _The Truman Presidency_ (New York:
Macmillan, 1966), pp. 198-99, and McCoy and
Ruetten, _Quest and Response_, ch. VI.]

[Footnote 12-58: Interv, Nichols with Ewing.]

Theirs was not a difficult task, for the President's identification
with the civil rights movement had become part of the cause of his
unpopularity in some Democratic circles and a threat to his
renomination. He overcame the attempt to deny him the presidential
nomination in June, and he accepted the strong civil rights platform
that emerged from the convention. The resolution committee of that
convention had proposed a mild civil rights plank in the hope of
preventing the defection of southern delegates, but in a dramatic
floor fight Hubert H. Humphrey, the mayor of Minneapolis and a
candidate for the U.S. Senate, forced through one of the strongest
civil rights statements in the history of the party. This plank
endorsed Truman's congressional message on civil rights and called (p. 310)
for "Congress to support our President in guaranteeing these basic and
fundamental rights ... the right of equal treatment in the service and
defense of our nation."[12-59]

[Footnote 12-59: Quoted in Memo, Leva for SecDef, 15
Jul 48, D54-1-3, SecDef files.]

Truman admitted to Forrestal that "he had not himself wanted to go as
far as the Democratic platform went on the civil rights issue." The
President had no animus toward those who voted against the platform;
he would have done the same if he had come from their states. But he
was determined to run on the platform, and for him, he later said, a
platform was not a window dressing. His southern colleagues understood
him. When a reporter pointed out to Governor Strom Thurmond of South
Carolina that the President had only accepted a platform similar to
those supported by Roosevelt, the governor answered, "I agree, but
Truman really means it."[12-60] After the platform fight the Alabama and
Mississippi delegates walked out of the convention. The Dixiecrat
revolt was on in earnest.

[Footnote 12-60: Quoted in Truman, _Memoirs_, II:183;
see also Interv, Nichols with Truman, and Millis,
_Forrestal Diaries_, p. 458.]

Both the Democratic platform and the report of the President's Civil
Rights Committee referred to discrimination in the federal government,
a matter obviously susceptible to presidential action. For once the
"do-nothing" Congress could not be blamed, and if Truman failed to act
promptly he would only invite the wrath of the civil rights forces he
was trying to court. Aware of this political necessity, the
President's advisers had been studying the areas in which the
President alone might act in forbidding discrimination as well as the
mechanics by which he might make his actions effective. According to
Oscar Ewing, the advisers had decided as early as October 1947 that
the best way to handle discrimination in the federal government was to
issue a presidential order securing the civil rights of both civilian
government employees and members of the armed forces. In the end the
President decided to issue two executive orders.[12-61]