Anthony Trollope - "Autobiography of Anthony Trollope"

AEschylus - "The House of Atreus"

Various - "Chronicle Of The Cid"

Charles Dickens - "The Cricket on the Hearth"

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 13-37: Memo (unsigned), Forrestal for
Royall, 22 Sep 48. The answer was prepared by Leva
and used by Forrestal as the basis for his
conversation with Royall. See Memos, Leva for
Forrestal, undated, and 30 Sep 48, both in
CD30-1-2, SecDef files.]

Even as Secretary Royall tried to defend the Army from the attacks of
the press, the service's policy was challenged from another quarter.
The blunt fact was that with the reinstitution of selective service in
1948 the Army was receiving more black recruits--especially those in
the lower mental categories--than a segregated system could easily
absorb. The high percentage of black soldiers so proudly publicized by
Royall at the National Defense Conference was in fact a source of
anxiety for Army planners. The staff particularly resented the
different standards adopted by the other services to determine (p. 325)
the acceptability of selectees. The Navy and Air Force, pleading their
need for skilled workers and dependence on volunteer enlistments,
imposed a higher minimum achievement score for admission than the
Army, which, largely dependent upon the draft for its manpower, was
required to accept men with lower scores. Thousands of Negroes, less
skilled and with little education, were therefore eligible for service
in the Army although they were excluded from the Navy and Air Force.
Given such circumstances, it was probably inevitable that differences
in racial policies would precipitate an interservice conflict. The
Army claimed the difference in enlistment standards was discriminatory
and contrary to the provisions of the draft law which required the
Secretary of Defense to set enlistment standards. In April 1948
Secretary Royall demanded that Forrestal impose the same mental
standards on all the services. He wanted inductees allocated to the
services according to their physical and mental abilities and Negroes
apportioned among them.

The other services countered that there were not enough well-educated
people of draft age to justify raising the Army's mental standards to
the Navy and Air Force levels, but neither service wanted to lower its
own entrance standards to match the level necessity had imposed on the
Army. The Air Force eventually agreed to enlist Negroes at a 10
percent ratio to whites, but the Navy held out for higher standards
and no allocation by race. It contended that setting the same
standards for all services would improve the quality of the Army's
black enlistees only imperceptibly while it would do great damage to
the Navy. The Navy admitted that the other services should help the
Army, but not "up to the point of _unnecessarily_ reducing their own
effectiveness.... The modern Navy cannot operate its ships and
aircraft with personnel of G.C.T. 70."[13-38] General Bradley cut to the
point: if the Navy carried the day it would receive substantially
fewer Negroes than the other two services and a larger portion of the
best qualified.[13-39] Secretary Forrestal first referred the
interservice controversy to the Munitions Board in May 1948 and later
that summer to a special interservice committee. After both groups
failed to reach an agreement,[13-40] Forrestal decided not to force a
parity in mental standards upon the services. On 12 October he
explained to the secretaries that parity could be imposed only during
time of full mobilization, and since conditions in the period between
October 1948 and June 1949 could not be considered comparable to those
of full mobilization, parity was impossible. He promised, however, to
study the qualitative needs of each service. Meanwhile, he had found
no evidence that any service was discriminating in the selection
of enlistees and settled for a warning that any serious (p. 326)
discrimination by any two of the services would place "an intolerable
burden" on the third.[13-41]

[Footnote 13-38: Memo, SecNav for SecDef, 27 May 48,
sub: Liaison With the Selective Service System and
Determination of Parity Standards, P14-6; Memo,
Actg SecNav for SecDef, 17 Aug 48; sub: Items in
Disagreement Between the Services as Listed in
SecDef's Memo of 15 Jul 48, P 14-4; both in
GenRecsNav. The quotation is from an inclosure to
the latter memo.]

[Footnote 13-39: CofSA, Rpt of War Council Min, 3 Aug
48, copy in OSD Historical Office files.]

[Footnote 13-40: For a detailed analysis of the
various service arguments and positions, see Office
of the Secretary of Defense, "Proposed Findings and
Decisions on Questions of Parity of Mental
Standards, Allocation of Inductees According to
Physical and Mental Capabilities and Allocation of
Negroes" (Noble Report), 29 Oct 48, copy in SecDef
files.]

[Footnote 13-41: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 12 Oct
48, with attached Summary of Supplement, copy in
CMH.]

Convinced that Forrestal had made the wrong decision, the Army staff
was nevertheless obliged to concern itself with the percentage of
Negroes it would have to accept under the new selective service law.
Although by November 1948 the Army's black strength had dropped to
9.83 percent of the total, its proportion of Negroes was still large
when compared with the Navy's 4.3 percent, the Marine Corps' 1.79
percent, and the Air Force's 6 percent. Projecting these figures
against the possible mobilization of five million men (assuming each
service increased in proportion to its current strength and absorbed
the same percentage of a black population remaining at 12 percent of
the whole), the Army calculated that its low entrance requirements
would give it a black strength of 21 percent. In the event of a
mobilization equaling or surpassing that of World War II, the minimum
test score of seventy would probably be lowered, and thus the Army
would shoulder an even greater burden of poorly educated men, a burden
that in the Army's view should be shared by all the services.[13-42]

[Footnote 13-42: DF, Dir, P&A, to CofS, 24 Jan 49,
sub: Experimental Unit, GSPGA 291.2 (24 Jan 49).]


_A Different Approach_

No matter how the Army tried to justify segregation or argue against
the position of the Navy and Air Force, the integrationists continued
to gain ground. Royall, in opposition, adopted a new tactic in the
wake of the Truman order. He would have the Army experiment with
integration, perhaps proving that it would not work on a large scale,
certainly buying time for Circular 124 and frustrating the rising
demand for change. He had expressed willingness to experiment with an
integrated Army unit when Lester Granger made the suggestion through
Forrestal in February 1948, but nothing came of it.[13-43] In September
he returned to the idea, asking the Army staff to plan for the
formation of an integrated unit about the size of a regimental combat
team, along with an engineer battalion and the station complement of a
post large enough to accommodate these troops. Black enlisted men were
to form 10 percent of the troop basis and be used in all types of
positions. Black officers, used in the same ratio as black officers in
the whole Army, were to command mixed troops. General Bradley reported
the staff had studied the idea and concluded that such units "did not
prove anything on the subject." Royall, however, dismissed the staff's
objection and reiterated his order to plan an experiment at a large
installation and in a permanent unit.[13-44]

[Footnote 13-43: Memo, SecDef for President, 29 Feb
48, Secretary's File (PSF), Truman Library.]

[Footnote 13-44: Memo, CofS for Dir, O&T, 11 Oct 48,
CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (11 Oct 48).]

Despite the staff's obvious reluctance, Maj. Gen. Harold R. Bull, the
new Director of Organization and Training, made an intensive study of
the alternatives. He produced a plan that was in turn further refined
by a group of senior officers including the Deputy Chief of Staff for
Administration and the Chief of Information.[13-45] These officers (p. 327)
decided that "if the Secretary of the Army so orders," the Army could
activate an experimental unit in the 3d Infantry Division at Camp
Campbell, Kentucky. The troops, 10 percent of them black, would be
drawn from all parts of the country and include ten black officers,
none above the rank of major. The unit would be carefully monitored by
the Army staff, and its commander would report on problems encountered
after a year's trial.

[Footnote 13-45: Lt Col D. M. Oden, Asst Secy, CS,
Memo for Rcd, 4 Nov 48, sub: Organization of an
Experimental Unit, CSUSA 291.2 (Negroes) (11 Oct
48).]

[Illustration: SPRING FORMAL DANCE, FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, MARYLAND,
1952.]

It was obvious that Forrestal wanted to avoid publicizing the project.
He had his assistants, Marx Leva and John Ohly, discuss the proposal
with the Secretary of the Array to impress on him the need for secrecy
until all arrangements were completed. More important, he hoped to
turn Royall's experiment back on the Army itself, using it to gain a
foothold for integration in the largest service. Leva and Ohly
suggested to Royall that instead of activating a special unit he
select a Regular Army regiment--Leva recommended one from the 82d
Airborne Division to which a number of black combat units were already
attached--as the nucleus of the experiment. With an eye to the
forthcoming White House investigation, Leva added that, while the
details would be left to the Army, integration of the unit, to be put
into effect "as soon as possible," should be total.[13-46]

[Footnote 13-46: Memo, Marx Leva for SA, 22 Nov 48;
see also idem for Ohly, 16 Nov 48; both in CD
30-1-2, SecDef files.]

The plan for a large-scale integrated unit progressed little (p. 328)
beyond this point, but it was significant if only because it marked
the first time since the Revolution that the Army had seriously
considered using a large number of black soldiers in a totally
integrated unit. The situation was not without its note of irony, for
the purpose of the plan was not to abolish the racial discrimination
that critics were constantly laying at the Army's doorstep. In fact,
Army leaders, seriously dedicated to the separate but equal principle,
were convinced the Gillem Board policy had already eliminated
discrimination. Nor was the plan designed to carry out the President's
order or prompted by the Secretary of Defense. Rather, it was pushed
by Secretary Royall as a means of defending the Army against the
anticipated demands of the President's committee.

The plan died because, while the Army staff studied organizations and
counted bodies, Royall expanded his proposal for an integrated unit to
include elements of the whole national defense establishment. Several
motives have been suggested for his move. By ensnaring the Navy and
Air Force in the experiment, he might impress on all concerned the
problems he considered certain to arise if any service attempted the
integration of a large number of Negroes. An experiment involving the
whole department might also divert the White House from trying to
integrate the Army immediately. Besides, the scheme had an escape
clause. If the Navy and Air Force refused to cooperate, and Royall
thought it likely they would, given the shortage of skilled black
recruits, the Army could then legitimately cancel its offer to
experiment with integration and let the whole problem dissipate in a
lengthy interservice argument.[13-47]

[Footnote 13-47: Interv, author with James C. Evans, 1
Jul 70; Ltr, E. W. Kenworthy, Exec Secy,
Presidential Committee, to Lee Nichols, 28 Jul 53;
both in CMH files.]

Royall formally proposed a defense-wide experiment in integration to
Forrestal on 2 December. He was not oblivious to the impression his
vacillation on the subject had produced and went to some lengths to
explain why he had opposed such experiments in the past. Although he
had been thinking about such an experiment for some time, he told
Forrestal, he had publicly rejected the idea at the National Defense
Conference and during the Senate hearings on the draft law because of
the tense international situation and the small size of the Army at
that time. His interest in the experiment revived as the size of the
Army increased and similar suggestions were made by both black leaders
and southern politicians, but again he had hesitated, this time
because of the national elections. He was now prepared to go ahead,
but only if similar action were taken by the other services.

The experimental units, he advised Forrestal, should contain both
combat and service elements of considerable size, and he went on to
specify their composition in some detail. The Navy and Marine Corps
should include at least one shore station "where the social problems
for individuals and their families will approximate those confronting
the Army." To insure the experiment's usefulness, he wanted Negroes
employed in all positions, including supervisory ones, for which they
qualified, and he urged that attention be paid to "the problem of
social relations in off-duty hours." He was candid about the plan's
weaknesses. The right to transfer out of the experimental unit might
confine the experiment to white and black troops who wanted it to (p. 329)
succeed; hence any conclusions drawn might be challenged as invalid
since men could not be given the right to exercise similar options in
time of war. Therefore, if the experiment succeeded, it would have to
be followed by another in which no voluntary options were granted. The
experiment might also bring pressure from groups outside the Army, and
if it failed "for any reason" the armed services would be accused of
sabotage, no matter how sincere their effort. Curiously, he admitted
that the plan was not favored by his military advisers. The Army
staff, he noted in what must have surprised anyone familiar with the
staff's consistent defense of segregation, thought the best way to
eliminate segregation was to reduce gradually the size of segregated
units and extend integration in schools, hospitals, and special units.
Nevertheless, Royall recommended that the National Military
Establishment as a whole, not the Army separately, go forward with the
experiment and that it start early in 1949.[13-48]

[Footnote 13-48: Memo, SA for SecDef, 2 Dec 48, CD
30-1-2, SecDef files.]

The other services had no intention of going forward with such an
experiment. The Air Force objected, as Secretary Symington explained,
because the experiment would be inconclusive; too many artificial
features were involved, especially having units composed of
volunteers. Arbitrary quotas violated the principle of equal
opportunity, he charged, and the experiment would be unfair to Negroes
because the proportion of Negroes able to compete with whites was less
than 1 to 10. Symington also warned against the public relations
aspect of the scheme, which was of "minimal military significance but
of major significance in the current public controversy on purely
racial issues." The Air Force could conduct the experiment without
difficulty, he conceded, for there were enough trained black
technicians to man 10 percent of the positions and give a creditable
performance, but these men were representative neither of the general
black population of the Air Force nor of Negroes coming into the
service during wartime.

Symington predicted that Negroes would suffer no matter how the
experiment came out--success would be attributed to the special
conditions involved; failure would reflect unjustly on the Negro's
capabilities. The Air Force, therefore, preferred to refrain from
participation in the experiment. Symington added that he was
considering a study prepared by the Air staff over the past six months
that would insure equality of treatment and increased opportunities
for Negroes in the Air Force, and he expected to offer proposals to
Forrestal in the immediate future.[13-49]

[Footnote 13-49: Memo, SecAF for SecDef, 22 Dec 48, CD
30-1-2, SecDef files.]

The Navy also wanted no part of the Royall experiment. Its acting
secretary, John Nicholas Brown, believed that the gradual
indoctrination of the naval establishment was producing the desired
nondiscriminatory practices "on a sound and permanent basis without
concomitant problems of morale and discipline." To adopt Royall's
proposal, on the other hand, would "unnecessarily risk losing all that
has been accomplished in the solution of the efficient utilization of
Negro personnel to the limit of their ability."[13-50] Brown did not
spell out the risk, but a Navy spokesman on Forrestal's staff was (p. 330)
not so reticent. "Mutiny cannot be dismissed from consideration,"
Capt. Herbert D. Riley warned, if the Navy were forced to integrate
its officers' wardrooms, staterooms, and clubs. Such integration ran
considerably in advance of the Navy's current and carefully controlled
integration of the enlisted general service and would, like the
proposal to place Negroes in command of white officers and men,
Captain Riley predicted, have such dire results as wholesale
resignations and retirements.[13-51]

[Footnote 13-50: Memo, Actg SecNav for SecDef, 28 Dec
48, CD 30-1-2, SecDef files.]

[Footnote 13-51: Memo, Capt H. D. Riley, USN, OSD, for
SecDef, 6 Dec 48, sub: Comment on the Secretary of
the Army's Proposal Concerning Experimental
Non-Segregated Units in the Armed Forces, CD
30-1-2, SecDef files.]

[Illustration: SECRETARY FORRESTAL, _accompanied by General Huebner,
inspects the 427th Army Band and the 7777th EUCOM Honor Guard,
Heidelberg, Germany, November 1948_.]

The decisive opposition of the Navy and Air Force convinced Forrestal
that interservice integration was unworkable. In short, the Navy and
Air Force had progressed in their own estimation to the point where,
despite shortcomings in their racial policies rivaling the Army's,
they had little to fear from the coming White House investigation. The
Army could show no similar forward motion. Despite Royall's claim that
he and the Army staff favored eventual integration of black soldiers
through progressive reduction in the size of the Army's segregated
black units, the facts indicated otherwise. For example, while
Secretary of Defense Forrestal was touring Germany in late 1948 he
noted in his diary of Lt. Gen. Clarence R. Huebner, now the commander
of Europe: "Huebner's experience with colored troops is excellent....
He is ready to proceed with the implementation of the President's
directive about nonsegregation down to the platoon level, and proposes
to initiate this in the three cavalry regiments and the AA battalion
up north, but does not want to do it if it is premature."[13-52]

[Footnote 13-52: Millis, _Forrestal Diaries_, p. 528.]

Huebner's concern with prematurity was understandable, for the
possibility of using black soldiers in the constabulary had been a
lively topic in the Army for some time. Marcus Ray had proposed it in
his December 1946 report to the Secretary of War, but it was quickly
rejected by the Army staff. The staff had approved Huebner's decision
in July 1948 to attach a black engineer construction battalion and a
transportation truck company, a total of 925 men, to the constabulary.
The Director of Organization and Training, however, continued to
make a careful distinction between attached units and "organic (p. 331)
assignment," adding that "the Department of the Army does not favor
the organic assignment of Negro units to the Constabulary at this
time."[13-53]

[Footnote 13-53: DF, Dir, O&T, to DCofS, 14 Jul 48,
sub: Report of Visit by Negro Publishers and
Editors to the European Theater, CSGOT 291.2 (14
May 48); Memo for Rcd, attached to Memo, Dir, P&A,
for DCofS, 21 Jul 48, same sub, CSGPA 291.2 (14 May
48). See also Geis Monograph, pp. 88-89.]

But by November 1948 Huebner wished to go considerably further. As he
later put it, he had no need for a black infantry regiment, but since
the constabulary, composed for the most part of cavalry units, lacked
foot soldiers, he wanted to integrate a black infantry battalion, in
platoon-size units, in each cavalry regiment.[13-54] The staff turned
down his request. Arguing that the inclusion of organic black units in
the constabulary "might be detrimental to the proper execution of its
mission," and quoting the provision of Circular 124 limiting
integration to the company level, the staff's organization experts
concluded that the use of black units in the European theater below
company size "would undoubtedly prove embarrassing to the Department
of the Army ... in the Zone of the Interior in view of the announced
Department of the Army policy." General Bull, Director of Organization
and Training, informed Huebner he might use black units in composite
groupings only at the company level, including his constabulary
forces, "if such is desired by you," but it was "not presently
contemplated that integration of Negro units on the platoon level will
be approved as Department of the Army policy."[13-55] Huebner later
recalled that the constabulary was his outfit, to be run his way, and
"Bradley and Collins always let me do what I had to."[13-56] Still, when
black infantrymen joined the constabulary in late 1948, they came in
three battalion-size units "attached" for training and tactical
control.[13-57]

[Footnote 13-54: Interv, author with Huebner.]

[Footnote 13-55: Ltr, Dir, O&T, to CG, EUCOM, 13 Dec
48, sub: Integration of Negro Units on the Platoon
Level Within the Constabulary EUCOM, CSGOT 291.21
(24 Nov 48); DF, Dir, O&T, to CofS, 9 Dec 48, same
sub, CSUSA 291.2 (24 Nov 48).]

[Footnote 13-56: Interv, author with Huebner.]

[Footnote 13-57: Geis Monograph, p. 90. For the
reaction of a constabulary brigade commander to the
attachment of black infantrymen, see Bruce C.
Clarke, "Early Integration," _Armor_ (Nov-Dec
1978):29.]

The Truman order had no immediate effect on the Army's racial policy.
The concession to state governors regarding integration of their
National Guard units was beside the point, and Royall's limited offer
to set up an experimental integrated unit in the Regular Army was more
image than substance. Accurately summarizing the situation in March
1949, The Adjutant General informed Army commanders that although it
was "strategically unwise" to republish War Department Circular 124
while the President's committee was meeting, the policies contained in
that document, which was about to expire, would continue in effect
until further notice.[13-58]

[Footnote 13-58: Ltr, TAG to Distribution, 23 Mar 49,
sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, AGAO 291.2.]


_The Navy: Business as Usual_

The Navy Department also saw no reason to alter its postwar racial
policy because of the Truman order. As Acting Secretary of Navy Brown
explained to the Secretary of Defense in December 1948, whites in (p. 332)
his service had come to accept the fact that blacks must take their
rightful place in the Navy and Marine Corps. This acceptance, in turn,
had led to "very satisfactory progress" in the integration of the
department's black personnel without producing problems of morale and
discipline or a lowering of _esprit de corps_.[13-59]

[Footnote 13-59: Memo, Actg SecNav for SecDef et al.,
28 Dec 48, sub: The Secretary of the Army's
Confidential Memorandum of 2 December..., copy in
SecAF files.]

Brown had ample statistics at hand to demonstrate that at least in the
Navy this nondiscrimination policy was progressive. Whereas at the end
of the World War II demobilization only 6 percent of the Navy's
Negroes served in the general service, some two years later 38 percent
were so assigned. These men and women generally worked and lived under
total integration, and the men served on many of the Navy's combat
ships. The Bureau of Naval Personnel predicted in early 1949 that
before the end of the year at least half of all black sailors would be
assigned to the general service.[13-60] In contrast to the Army's policy
of separate but equal service for its black troops, the Navy's postwar
racial policy was technically correct and essentially in compliance
with the President's order. Yet progress was very limited and in fact
in the two years under its postwar nondiscrimination policy, the
Navy's performance was only marginally different from that of the
other services. The number of Negroes in the Navy in December 1948,
the same month Brown was extolling its nondiscrimination policy,
totaled some 17,000 men, 4.5 percent of its strength and about half
the Army's proportion. This percentage had remained fairly constant
since World War II and masked a dramatic drop in the number of black
men in uniform as the Navy demobilized. Thus while the _percentage_ of
the Navy's black sailors assigned to the integrated general service
rose from 6 to 38, the _number_ of Negroes in the general service
dropped from 9,900 in 1946 to some 6,000 in 1948. Looked at another
way, the 38 percent figure of blacks in the general service meant that
62 percent of all Negroes in the Navy, 10,871 men in December 1948,
still served in the separate Steward's Branch.[13-61] In contrast to the
Army and Air Force, the Navy's Negroes were, with only the rarest
exception, enlisted men. The number of black officers in December 1948
was four; the WAVES could count only six black women in its 2,130 (p. 333)
total. Clearly, the oft repeated rationale for these statistics--Negroes
favored the Army because they were not a seafaring people--could
not explain them away.[13-62]

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