Ellis Wynne - "The Sleeping Bard"

Mary Hallock Foote - "The Desert and The Sown"

Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller Couch - "The Adventures of Harry Revel"

Northern Nut Growers Association - "Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty Fourth Annual Meeting"

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 16-52: Unless otherwise noted all statistics
are from information supplied by the Bureau of
Naval Personnel. The exact percentage on 1 July
1949 was 4.7; see Memo for Rcd, ASD(M), 12 Sep 56,
sub: Integration Percentages, ASD(M) 291.2.]

[Footnote 16-53: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Under
SecNav, 5 Dec 49, sub: Proposed Report to Chairman
Personnel Policy Board Regarding the Implementation
of Executive Order 9981, Pers 21, GenRecsNav.]

Submitted to and approved by the Secretary of Defense, the new Navy
plan announced on 7 June 1949 called for a specific series of measures
to bring departmental practices into line with policy.[16-54] Once he
had gained Johnson's approval, Secretary of the Navy Matthews did not
tarry. On 23 June he issued an explicit statement to all ships and
stations, abjuring racial distinctions in the Navy and Marine (p. 413)
Corps and ordering that all personnel be enlisted or appointed,
trained, advanced or promoted, assigned and administered without
regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.[16-55] Admirable
and comprehensive, Matthew's statement scarcely differed in intent
from his predecessor's general declaration of equal treatment and
opportunity of 12 December 1945 and the more explicit directive of the
Chief of Naval Operations on the same subject on 27 February 1946. Yet
despite the close similarity, a reiteration was clearly necessary. As
even the most ardent apologist for the navy's postwar racial policy
would admit, these groundbreaking statements had not done the job,
and, to satisfy the demands of the Fahy Committee and the Secretary of
Defense, Secretary Matthews had to convince his subordinates that the
demand for equal treatment and opportunity was serious and had to be
dealt with immediately. His specific mention of the Marine Corps and
the problems of enlistment, assignment, and promotion, subjects
ignored in the earlier directives, represented a start toward the
reform of his department's racial practices currently out of step with
its expressed policy.

[Footnote 16-54: Memo, SecNav for SecDef, 23 May 49,
sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the
Armed Forces, copy in FC file.]

[Footnote 16-55: ALNAV 447-49, which remained in force
until 23 March 1953 when SecNav Instruction 1000.2
superseded it without substantial change.]

Yet a restatement of policy, no matter how specific, was not enough.
As Under Secretary Dan A. Kimball admitted, the Navy had the
formidable task of convincing its own people of the sincerity of its
policy and of erasing the distrust that had developed in the black
community "resulting from past discriminating practices."[16-56] Those
who were well aware of the Navy's earlier failure to achieve
integration by fiat were bound to greet Secretary Matthews's directive
with skepticism unless it was accompanied by specific reforms.
Matthews, aware of the necessity, immediately inaugurated a campaign
to recruit more black sailors, commission more black officers, and
remove the stigma attached to service in the Steward's Branch.

[Footnote 16-56: Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22
Dec 49, sub: Implementation of Executive Order
9981, PPB 291.2.]

It was logical enough to start a reform of the Navy's integration
program by attacking the perennial problem of too few Negroes in the
general service. In his annual report to the Secretary of Defense,
Matthews outlined some of the practical steps the Navy was taking to
attract more qualified young blacks. The Bureau of Naval Personnel, he
explained, planned to assign black sailors and officers to its
recruiting service. As a first step it assigned eight Negroes to
Recruitment Procurement School and subsequently to recruit duty in
eight major cities with further such assignments planned when current
manpower ceilings were lifted.[16-57]

[Footnote 16-57: SecNav, Annual Report to SecDef, FY
1949, p. 230; Memo, Under SecNav Chmn, PPB, 22 Dec
49, sub: Implementation of Executive Order 9981,
PPB 291.2.]

The Bureau of Naval Personnel had also polled black reservists on the
possibility of returning to active duty on recruiting assignments, and
from this group had chosen five officers for active duty in the New
York, Philadelphia, Washington, Detroit, and Chicago recruiting
offices. At the same time black officers and petty officers were sent
to extol the advantages of a naval career before black student (p. 414)
bodies and citizen groups.[16-58] Their performances were exceedingly
well received. The executive secretary of the Dayton, Ohio, Urban
League, for example, thanked Secretary Matthews for the appearances of
Lieutenant Nelson before groups of students, reporters, and community
leaders in the city. The lieutenant, he added, not only "clearly and
effectively interpreted the opportunities open to Negro youth in the
United States Navy" but also "greatly accelerated" the community's
understanding of the Navy's integration program.[16-59] Nelson,
himself, had been a leading advocate of an accelerated public
relations program to advertise the opportunities for Negroes in the
Navy.[16-60] The personnel bureau had adopted his suggestion that all
recruitment literature, including photographs testifying to the fact
that Negroes were serving in the general service, be widely
distributed in predominantly black institutions. Manpower ceilings,
however, had forced the bureau to postpone action on Nelson's
suggestion that posters, films, pamphlets, and the like be
used.[16-61]

[Footnote 16-58: Memo, Dir, Recruiting Div, BuPers,
for Admin Aide to SecNav, 22 Dec 50, sub: Negro
Officer in Recruiting on the West Coast; Ltr,
SecNav to Actg Exec Dir, Urban League, Los Angeles,
22 Dec 50; both in Pers B6, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-59: Ltr, Charles W. Washington, Exec
Secy, Dayton, Ohio, Urban League, to SecNav, 19 Oct
50, copy in Pers 1376, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-60: Memo, Nelson for Charles Durham, Fahy
Committee, sub: Implementation of Proposed Navy
Racial Policy, 17 Jun 49, FC file.]

[Footnote 16-61: Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22
Dec 49, sub: Implementation of Executive Order
9981, PPB 291.2.]

An obvious concomitant to the increase in the number of black sailors
was an increase in the number of black officers. The personnel bureau
was well aware of this connection; Comdr. Luther C. Heinz, officer in
charge of naval reserve officer training, called the shortage of
Negroes in his program a particularly important problem. He promised,
"in accord with the desires of the President," as he put it, to
increase black participation in the Naval Reserve Officers' Training
Corps, and his superior, the Chief of Naval Personnel, started a
program in the bureau for that purpose.[16-62] With the help of the
National Urban League, Heinz arranged a series of lectures by black
officers at forty-nine black schools and other institutions to
interest Negroes in the Navy's reserve officers program. In August
1949, for example, Ens. Wesley Brown, the first Negro to be graduated
from Annapolis, addressed gatherings in Chicago on the opportunities
for Negroes as naval officers.[16-63]

[Footnote 16-62: Memo, Off in Charge, NROTC Tng, for
Chief, Plans & Policy Div, BuPers, 14 Jul 49, sub:
NROTC Personnel Problems, Pers 424, BuPersRecs.]

[Footnote 16-63: Ltr, Granger to Chief, NavPers, 3 Aug
49, Pers 42, BuPersRecs.]

At the same time the Bureau of Naval Personnel wrote special press
releases, arranged interviews for naval officials with members of the
black press, and distributed publicity materials in predominantly
black schools to attract candidates and to assure interested young men
that race was no bar to their selection. In this connection Commander
Heinz bid for and received an invitation to address the Urban League's
annual conference in August 1949 to outline the Navy's program.
The Chief of Naval Personnel, Rear Adm. Thomas L. Sprague, also (p. 415)
arranged for the training of all those engaged in promoting the
program--professors of naval science, naval procurement officers, and
the like. In states where such assignments were considered acceptable,
Sprague planned to appoint Negroes to selection committees.[16-64] In
a related move he also ordered that when local law or custom required
the segregation of facilities used for the administration of
qualifying tests for reserve officer training, the Navy would use its
own facilities for testing. This ruling was used when the 1949
examinations were given in Atlanta and New Orleans; to the delight of
the black press the Navy transferred the test site to its nearby
facilities.[16-65] These efforts had some positive effect. In 1949
alone some 2,700 black youths indicated an interest in the Naval
Reserve Officers' Training Corps by submitting applications.[16-66]

[Footnote 16-64: Memo, Dir of Tng, BuPers, for Chief,
NavPers, 1 Jul 49; Ltr, Granger to Cmdr Luther
Heinz, 3 Aug 49; Ltr, Heinz to Granger, 18 Aug 49.
All in Pers 42, BuPersRecs. See also Interv, author
with Nelson, 26 May 69, and Ltr, Nelson to author,
10 Feb 70, both in CMH files.]

[Footnote 16-65: Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to Cmdt, All
Continental Naval Dists, 17 Mar 50, Pers 42,
BuPersRecs; Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22
Dec 49, PPB 291.2.]

[Footnote 16-66: Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22
Dec 49, PPB 291.2.]

Despite these well-intentioned efforts, the Navy failed to increase
significantly the number of black officers or sailors in the next
decade (_Table 8_). The percentage of Negroes in the Navy increased so
slowly that not until 1955, in the wake of the great manpower buildup
during the Korean War, did it exceed the 1949 figure. Although the
percentage of black enlistments increased significantly at
times--approximately 12 percent of all enlistments in 1955 were black,
for example--the proportion of Negroes in the Navy's enlisted ranks
was only 0.4 percent higher in 1960 than in 1949. While the number of
black officers increased more than sevenfold in the same decade, it
was still considerably less than 1 percent of the total officer
strength, well below Army and Air Force percentages.

Table 8--Black Manpower, U.S. Navy

A. Enlisted Strength

_Percent
_Year_ _Total Strength_ _Black Strength_ Black_

1949 363,622 17,051 4.5
1950 329,114 14,858 3.7
1951 656,371 17,604 2.7
1952 728,511 23,010 3.2
1953 698,367 24,734 3.5
1954 635,103 24,236 3.8
1955 574,157 30,623 5.3
1956 586,782 37,308 6.3
1957 593,022 38,222 6.4
1958 558,955 30,978 5.7
1959 547,236 30,098 5.5
1960 544,323 26,760 4.9

B. Percentage of Blacks Enlisted in Steward's and Other Branches

_Year_ _Steward's Branch_ _Other Branches_

1949 65.12 34.88
1950 57.07 42.93
1951 55.27 44.73
1952 54.95 45.05
1953 51.73 48.27
1954 53.43 48.57
1955 51.19 48.81
1956 25.38 74.62
1957 21.66 78.34
1958 23.35 76.65

C. Officer Strength (Selected Years)

_Year_ _Black Officers on Active Duty_ _Total Officers_

1949 19 45,464
1951 23 66,323
1953 53 78,095
1955 81 71,591
1960 149

_Source_: BuPers, Personnel Statistics Branch. See especially BuPers,
"Memo on Discrimination of the Negro," 24 Jan 59, BAF2-014. BuPers
Technical Library. All figures represent yearly averages.

The Navy had an explanation for the small number of Negroes. The
reduced manpower ceilings imposed on the Navy, even during the Korean
War, had caused a drastic curtailment in recruiting. At the same time,
with the brief exception of the Korean War, the Navy had depended on
volunteers for enlistment and had required volunteers to score ninety
or higher on the general classification test. The percentage of those
who scored above ninety was lower for blacks than for whites--16
percent against 67 percent, a ratio, naval spokesmen suggested, that
explained the enlistment figures. Furthermore, the low enlistment
quotas produced a long waiting list of those desiring to volunteer.
All applicants for the relatively few openings were thoroughly
screened, and competition was so keen that any Negroes accepted for
the monthly quota had to be extraordinarily well qualified.[16-67]

[Footnote 16-67: For a public expression of these
sentiments see, for example, Ltr, Capt R. B. Ellis,
Policy Control Br, BuPers, to President of
Birmingham, Ala., Branch, NAACP, 30 Mar 50, Pers 66
MM, GenRecsNav.]

What the Navy's explanation failed to mention was that the rise and
decline in the Navy's black strength during the 1950's was intimately
related to the number of group IV enlistees being forced on the
services under the provisions of the Defense Department's program (p. 416)
for the qualitative distribution of manpower. Each service was
required to accept 24 percent of all recruits in group IV from fiscal
year 1953 to 1956, 18 percent in fiscal year 1957, and 12 percent
thereafter. Between 1953 and 1956 the Navy accepted well above the
required 24 percent of group IV men, but in fiscal year 1957 took only
15.1 percent, and in 1958 only 6.8 percent. In 1958, with the
knowledge of the Secretary of Defense, all the services took in fewer
of the group IV's than the distribution program required, but
justified the reduction on the grounds that declining strength made it
necessary to emphasize high quality in recruits. In a move endorsed by
the Navy, the Air Force finally requested in 1959 that the qualitative
distribution program be held in abeyance. On the basis of this request
the Navy temporarily ceased to accept all group IV and some group III
men, but resumed recruiting them when it seemed likely that the (p. 417)
Secretary of Defense would refuse the request.[16-68]

[Footnote 16-68: BuPers, "Memo on Discrimination of
the Negro," 24 January 1959, Pers A1224, BuPers
Tech Library.]

[Illustration: CHRISTMAS IN KOREA, 1950.]

The correlation between the rise and fall of the group IV enlistments
and the percentage of Negroes in the Navy shows that all the increases
in black strength between 1952 and 1959 came not through the Navy's
publicized and organized effort to attract the qualified black
volunteers it had promised the Fahy Committee, but from the men forced
upon it by the Defense Department's distribution program. The
correlation also lends credence to the charges of some of the civil
rights critics who saw another reason for the shortage of Negroes.
They claimed that there had been no drop in the number of applicants
but that fewer Negroes were being accepted by Navy recruiters. One
NAACP official claimed that Negroes were "getting the run around."
Those who had fulfilled all enlistment requirements were not being
informed, and others were being given false information by recruiters.
He concluded that the Navy was operating under an unwritten policy of
filling recruit quotas with whites, accepting Negroes only when whites
were unavailable.[16-69] If these accusations were true, the Navy was
denying itself the services of highly qualified black applicants at a
time when the Defense Department's qualitative distribution program
was forcing it to take large numbers of the less gifted. Certainly the
number of Negroes capable of moving up the career and promotion ladder
was reduced and the Navy left vulnerable to further charges of
discrimination.

[Footnote 16-69: Ltr, Exec Secy, Birmingham, Ala.,
Branch, NAACP, to Chief, NavPers, 14 Mar 50, Pers
A, GenRecsNav.]

As for the shortage of officers, Nelson cited the awareness among
candidates that promotions were slower for blacks in the Navy than in
the other services where there was "less caste and class to
buck."[16-70] Nelson was aware that out of the 2,700 blacks who had
indicated an interest in the reserve officer training program in 1949
only 250 actually took the aptitude tests. Of these, only two passed
the tests and one of these was later rejected for poor eyesight. An
Urban League spokesman believed that some failed to take the tests out
of fear of failure but that many harbored a suspicion that the program
was not entirely open to all regardless of race.[16-71] Reinforcing
this suspicion was the fact that, despite the intentions of the (p. 418)
Bureau of Naval Personnel and the Navy's increasing control over the
appointment process, as of 1965 not a single Negro had been appointed
to any of the 150-man state selection committees on reserve officer
training.[16-72] Also to be considered, as the American Civil
Liberties Union later pointed out, was the promotion record of black
officers. As late as 1957 no black officer had ever commanded a ship,
and while both black and white officers started up the same promotion
ladder, the blacks were usually transferred out of the line into staff
billets.[16-73]

[Footnote 16-70: Interv, Nichols with Nelson, 1953, in
Nichols Collection; Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb
70; both in CMH files.]

[Footnote 16-71: Quoted in Memo, Dir of Tng, BuPers,
for Chief, NavPers, 1 Jul 49, Pers 42, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-72: Memo for Rcd, Evans, 23 Jun 65, sub:
NROTC Boards, ASD/M 291.2.]

[Footnote 16-73: Ltr, Exec Dir, ACLU, to SecNav, 26
Nov 57, GenRecsNav.]

[Illustration: REARMING AT SEA. _Ordnancemen at work on the deck of
the USS Philippine Sea, off Korea, October 1950._]

Given the pressure on the personnel bureau to develop some respectable
black manpower statistics, it is unlikely that the lack of educated,
black recruits can be blamed on widespread subterfuge at the
recruiting level. Far more likely is the explanation offered by Under
Secretary Kimball, that the black community distrusted the
Navy.[16-74] First apparent in the 1940's, this distrust lasted
throughout the next decade as young Negroes continued to show a
general apathy toward the Navy, which at times turned into open
hostility. In September 1961 the Chief of Naval Personnel reported
that recruiters were not infrequently being treated to "booing,
hissing and other disorderly conduct" when they tried to discuss the
opportunities for naval careers before black audiences.[16-75]

[Footnote 16-74: Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22
Dec 49, sub: Implementation of Executive Order
9981, PPB 291.2.]

[Footnote 16-75: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Pers B, 23
Sep 61, copy in Harris Wofford Collection, J. F.
Kennedy Library.]

The Navy's poor reputation in the black community centered on the
continued existence of the racially separate servants' branch, in the
eyes of many the symbol of the service's racial exclusiveness. The
Steward's Branch remained predominantly black. In 1949 it had 10,499
Negroes, 4,707 Filipinos, 741 other nonwhites, and 1 white man. Chief
stewards continued to be denied the grade of chief petty officer, on
the grounds that since stewards were not authorized to exercise
military command over others than stewards because of their lack of
military training, chief stewards were not chiefs in the military
sense of the word. This difference in authority also explained, as the
Chief of Naval Personnel put it, why as a general rule chief stewards
were not quartered with other petty officers.[16-76] These (p. 419)
distinctions were true also for stewards in the first, second, and
third classes, a fact in their case symbolized by differences in
uniform. Most of the thousands of black stewards continued to be
recruited, trained, and employed exclusively in that branch, and thus
for over half the Negroes--65 percent--in the 1949 Navy the chance for
advancement was severely limited and the chance to qualify for a
different job almost nonexistent.

[Footnote 16-76: Testimony of Vice Adm William M.
Fechteler Before the President's Committee on
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services (the Fahy Cmte), 28 Mar 49, p. 18.]

[Illustration: BROADENING SKILLS. _Stewards on the USS Valley Forge
volunteer for classes leading to advancement in other fields, Korea,
1950._]

The Navy instituted several changes in the branch in the wake of the
Fahy Committee's recommendations. On 25 July 1949 the Chief of Naval
Personnel ordered all chief stewards designated chief petty officers
with all the prerogatives of that status; in precedence they came
immediately after chief dental technicians,[16-77] who were at the
bottom of the list. That the change was limited to chief stewards did
not go unnoticed. Joseph Evans of the Fahy Committee staff charged
that the bureau "seemed to have ordered this to accede to the
committee's recommendations never intending to go beyond Chief
Stewards."[16-78] Nelson, by now a sort of unofficial ombudsman and
gadfly for black sailors, urged his superiors to broaden the reform,
and Kimball warned Admiral Sprague that limiting the change to
chief stewards might be "justified on the literal statement of (p. 420)
intention, but is vulnerable to criticism of continued discrimination."
Without compelling reasons to the contrary, he added, "I do not feel
that we can afford to risk any possible impression of reluctant
implementation of the spirit of the directive."[16-79]

[Footnote 16-77: BuPers Cir Ltr 115-49, 25 Jul 49.]

[Footnote 16-78: Memo, Evans for Fahy Cmte, 23 Aug 49,
sub: Progress in Navy, Fahy Papers, Truman
Library.]

[Footnote 16-79: Memo, Under SecNav for Chief,
NavPers, 10 Aug 49, MM (1) GenRecsNav.]

Admiral Sprague got the point, and on 30 August he announced that
effective with the new year, stewards--first, second, and third
class--would be designated petty officers with appropriate pay,
prerogatives, and precedence, and that their uniforms would be changed
to conform to those of other petty officers. He also amended the
bureau's manual to allow commanding officers to change the ratings of
stewards without headquarters approval, thus enlarging the opportunity
for stewards, in all other respects qualified, to transfer into other
ratings.[16-80] These reforms brought about a slow but steady change
in the assignment of black sailors. Between January 1950 and August
1953, the percentage of Negroes in the general service rose from 42 to
47 percent of the Navy's 23,000 man black strength, with a
corresponding drop in the percentage of those assigned to the
Steward's Branch.[16-81]

[Footnote 16-80: BuPers Cir Ltr 141-49, 30 Aug 49. See
also Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22 Dec 49,
sub: Implementation of Executive Order 9981, PPB
291.2; Memo, Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, 4 May 50,
sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity, Pers
42, GenRecsNav.]

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