Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965

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

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[Footnote 18-20: Ibid., 4 Aug 52.]

For the service to reserve the right to restrict the assignment of
Negroes when it was of "overriding interest to the Marine Corps" was
perhaps understandable, but it was also susceptible to considerable
misinterpretation if not outright abuse. The Personnel Department was
"constantly" receiving requests from commanders that no black noncoms
be assigned to their units. While some of these requests seemed
reasonable, the chief of the division's Detail Branch noted, others
were not. Commanders of naval prison retraining centers did not want
black noncommissioned officers assigned because, they claimed, Negroes
caused unrest among the prisoners. The Marine Barracks in Washington,
D.C., where the commandant lived, did not want black marines because
of the ceremonial nature of its mission. The Marine Barracks at
Dahlgren, Virginia, did not want Negroes because conflicts might arise
with civilian employees in cafeterias and movies. Other commanders
questioned the desirability of assigning black marines to the Naval
Academy, to inspector-instructor billets in the clerical and supply
fields, and to billets for staff chauffeurs. The Detail Branch wanted
a specific directive that listed commands to which black marines
should not be assigned.[18-21]

[Footnote 18-21: Ibid., 10 Jun 52.]

Restrictions on the assignment of black marines were never codified,
but the justification for them changed. In place of the "overriding
interest to the Marine Corps" clause, the corps began to speak of
restrictions "solely for the welfare of the individual Marine." In
1955 the Director of Personnel, Maj. Gen. Robert O. Bare, pointed to
the unusually severe hardships imposed on Negroes in some communities
where the attitude toward black marines sometimes interfered with
their performance of duty. Since civilian pressures could not be
recognized officially, Bare reasoned, they had to be dealt with
informally on a person-to-person basis.[18-22] By this statement (p. 468)
he meant the Marine Corps would informally exclude Negroes from
certain assignments. Of course no one explained how barring Negroes
from assignment to recruitment, inspector-instructor, embassy, or even
chauffeur duty worked for "the welfare of the individual Marine." Such
an explanation was just what Congressman Powell was demanding in
January 1958 when he asked why black marines were excluded from
assignments to the American Embassy in Paris.[18-23]

[Footnote 18-22: Ltr, Maj Gen R. O. Bare to CO, 1st
Mar Div, 14 Jul 55; Ltr, Dir of Pers to CG, 1st Mar
Div (ca. 10 Dec 56). The quotation is from Ltr, CO,
Marine Barracks, NAD, Hawthorne, Nev., to Dir of
Pers, 15 Dec 62.]

[Footnote 18-23: Ltr, Powell to SecDef, 23 Jan 58. See
also unsigned Draft Ltr for the commandant's
signature to Powell, 12 Feb 58.]

Community attitudes toward Negroes in uniform had become a serious
matter in all the services by the late 1950's, and concern for the
welfare of black marines was repeatedly voiced by Marine commanders in
areas as far-flung as Nevada, Florida, and southern California.[18-24]
But even here there was reason to question the motives of some local
commanders, for during a lengthy discussion in the Personnel
Department some officials asserted that the available evidence
indicated no justification for restricting assignments. Anxiety over
assignments anywhere in the United States was unfounded, they claimed,
and offered in support statistics demonstrating the existence of a
substantial black community in all the duty areas from which Negroes
were unofficially excluded. The Assignment and Classification Branch
also pointed out that the corps had experienced no problems
in the case of the thirteen black marines then assigned to
inspector-instructor duty, including one in Mobile, Alabama. The
branch went on to discuss the possibility of assigning black marines
to recruiting duty. Since recruiters were assigned to areas where they
understood local attitudes and customs, some officials reasoned,
Negroes should be used to promote the corps among potential black
enlistees whose feelings and attitudes were not likely to be
understood by white recruiters.

[Footnote 18-24: See Ltrs, A. W. Gentleman, Hq MC Cold
Weather Tng Cen, Bridgeport, Calif., to Col
Hartley, 12 Nov 57; CO, MB, NAS, Jacksonville,
Fla., to Personnel Dept, 14 Dec 62; CO, MB, NAD,
Hawthorne, Nev., to same, 15 Dec 62.]

These matters were never considered officially by the Marine Corps
staff, and as of 1960 the Inspector General was still keeping a list
of stations to which Negroes would not be assigned. But the picture
quickly changed in the next year, and by June 1962 all restrictions on
the assignment of black marines had been dropped with the exception of
several installations in the United States where off-base housing was
unavailable and some posts overseas where the use of black marines was
limited because of the attitudes of foreign governments.[18-25]

[Footnote 18-25: Draft Memo, Head of Assignment and
Classification Br for Dir, Pers (ca. 1961), sub:
Restricted Assignments; Memo, IG for Dir, Pers, 31
Aug 62; Ltr, Lt Col A. W. Snell to Col R. S.
Johnson, CO, MB, Port Lyautey, 28 Jun 62. See also
Memo, Maj E. W. Snelling, MB, NAD, Charleston,
S.C., for Maj Duncan, 27 Nov 62; and the following
Ltrs: Col S. L. Stephan, CO, MB, Norfolk Nav
Shipyard, to Dir, Pers, 7 Dec 62; K. A. Jorgensen,
CO, MB, Nav Base, Charleston, S.C., to Duncan, 7
Dec 62; Col R. J. Picardi, CO, MB, Lake Mead Base,
to Duncan, 30 Nov 62.]

The perennial problem of an all-black Steward's Branch persisted into
the 1960's. Stewards served a necessary though unglamorous function
in the Marine Corps, and education standards for such duty were (p. 469)
considerably lower than those for the rest of the service. Everyone
understood this, and beyond the stigma many young people felt was
attached to such duties, many Negroes particularly resented the fact
that while the branch was officially open to all, somehow none of the
less gifted whites ever joined. Stewards were acquired either by
recruiting new marines with stewards-duty-only contracts or by
accepting volunteers from the general service. The evidence suggests
that there was truth in the commonly held assumption among stewards
that when a need for more stewards arose, "volunteers" were secured by
tampering with the classification test scores of men in the general
service.[18-26]

[Footnote 18-26: Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks in the
Marine Corps_, pp. 64-65.]

[Illustration: TRAINING EXERCISES _on Iwo Jima, March 1954_.]

The commandant seemed less concerned with methods than results when
stewards were needed. In June 1950 he had reaffirmed the policy of
allowing stewards to reenlist for general duty, but when he learned
that some stewards had made the jump to general duty without being
qualified, he announced that men who had signed contracts for stewards
duty only were not acceptable for general duty unless they scored at
least in the 31st percentile of the qualifying tests. To make the
change to general duty even less attractive, he ruled that if a
steward reenlisted for general duty he would have to revert to the
rank of private, first class.[18-27] Such measures did nothing to
improve the morale of black stewards, many of whom, according to civil
rights critics, felt confined forever to performing menial tasks, nor
did it prevent constant shortages in the Steward's Branch and problems
arising from the lack of men with training in modern mess management.

[Footnote 18-27: Speed Ltr, CMC to Distribution List,
22 Jun 50; Routing Sheet, Pers Dept, 21 Jun 50,
sub: Enlistment of Stewards.]

The corps tried to attack these problems in the mid-1950's. At the
behest of the Secretary of the Navy it eliminated the stewards-duty-only
contract in 1954; henceforth all marines were enlisted for general
duty, and only after recruit training could volunteers sign up for
stewards duty. Acceptance of men scoring below ninety in the
classification tests would be limited to 40 percent of those
volunteering each month for stewards duty.[18-28] The corps also
instituted special training in modern mess management for stewards. In
1953 the Quartermaster General had created an inspection and
demonstration team composed of senior stewards to instruct members (p. 470)
of the branch in the latest techniques of cooking and baking,
supervision, and management.[18-29] In August 1954 the commandant
established an advanced twelve-week course for stewards based on the
Navy's successful system.

[Footnote 18-28: Ltrs, CMC to Distribution List, 16
Apr 55 and 18 Nov 55.]

[Footnote 18-29: Memo, Head, Enlisted Monitoring Unit,
Detail Br, for Lt Col Gordon T. West, 29 Oct 54,
Pers A. See also Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks in the
Marine Corps_, pp. 65-66.]

[Illustration: MARINES FROM CAMP LEJEUNE ON THE USS VALLEY FORGE _for
training exercises, 1958_.]

These measures, however, did nothing to cure the chronic shortage of
men and the attendant problems of increased work load and low morale
that continued to plague the Steward's Branch throughout the 1950's.
Consequently, the corps still found it difficult to attract enough
black volunteers to the branch. In 1959, for example, the branch was
still 8 percent short of its 826-man goal.[18-30] The obvious
solution, to use white volunteers for messman duty, would be a radical
departure from tradition. True, before World War II white marines had
been used in the Marine Corps for duties now performed by black
stewards, but they had never been members of a branch organized
exclusively for that purpose. In 1956 tradition was broken when white
volunteers were quietly signed up for the branch. By March 1961 the
branch had eighty white men, 10 percent of its total. Reviewing the
situation later that year, the commandant decided to increase the
number of white stewards by setting a racial quota on steward
assignment. Henceforth, he ordered, half the volunteers accepted (p. 471)
for stewards duty would be white.[18-31]

[Footnote 18-30: Memo, J. J. Holicky, Detail Br, for
Dir of Pers, USMC, 3 Aug 59, sub: Inspection of
Occupational Field 36 (Stewards), Pers 1, MC
files.]

[Footnote 18-31: Memo, Asst Chief for Plans, BuPers
(Rear Adm B. J. Semmes, Jr.), for Chief of NavPers,
22 Jun 61.]

[Illustration: COLONEL PETERSEN (_1968 photograph_).]

The new policy made an immediate difference. In less than two months
the Steward's Branch was 20 percent white. In marked contrast to the
claims of Navy recruiters, the marines reported no difficulty in
attracting white volunteers for messman duties. Curiously, the
volunteers came mostly from the southeastern states. As the racial
composition of the Steward's Branch changed, the morale of its black
members seemed to improve. As one senior black warrant officer later
explained, simply opening stewards duty to whites made such duty
acceptable to many Negroes who had been prone to ask "if it [stewards
duty] was so good, why don't you have some of the whites in
it."[18-32] When transfer to general service assignments became easy
to obtain in the 1960's, the Marine Corps found that only a small
percentage of the black stewards now wished to make the change.

[Footnote 18-32: USMC Oral History Interview, CWO
James E. Johnson, 27 Mar 73.]

There were still inequities in the status of black marines, especially
the near absence of black officers (two on active duty in 1950,
nineteen in January 1955) and the relatively slow rate of promotion
among black marines in general. The corps had always justified its
figures on the grounds that competition in so small a service was
extremely fierce, and, as the commandant explained to Walter White in
1951, a man had to be good to compete and outstanding to be promoted.
He cited the 1951 selection figures for officer training: out of 2,025
highly qualified men applying, only half were selected and only half
of those were commissioned.[18-33] Promotion to senior billets for
noncommissioned officers was also highly competitive, with time in
service an important factor. It was unlikely in such circumstances
that many black marines would be commissioned from the ranks or a
higher percentage of black noncommissioned officers would be promoted
to the most senior positions during the 1950's.[18-34] The Marine
Corps had begun commissioning Negroes so recently that the development
of a representative group of black officers in a system of open
competition was of necessity a slow and arduous task. The task was
further complicated because most of the nineteen black officers on (p. 472)
active duty in 1955 were reservists serving out tours begun in the
Korean War. Only a few of them had made the successful switch from
reserve to regular service. The first two were 2d Lt. Frank E.
Petersen, Jr., the first black Marine pilot, and 2d Lt. Kenneth H.
Berthoud, Jr., who first served as a tank officer in the 3d Marine
Division. Both men would advance to high rank in the corps, Petersen
becoming the first black marine general.

[Footnote 18-33: Ltr, CMC to Walter White, 2 Jul 51,
AO-1, MC files. See also Memo, Div of Plans and
Policies (T. J. Colley) for Asst Dir of Public
Info, 4 Jun 51, sub: Article in Pittsburgh
_Courier_ of 26 May 51.]

[Footnote 18-34: Memo, Exec Off, ACofS, G-1, for
William L. Taylor, Asst Staff Dir, U.S. Commission
on Civil Rights, 27 Feb 63, sub: Personnel
Information Requested, AO-1C, MC files.]

[Illustration: SERGEANT MAJOR HUFF.]

As for the noncommissioned officers, there were a number of senior
enlisted black marines in the 1950's, many of them holdovers from the
World War II era, and Negroes were being promoted to the ranks of
corporal and sergeant in appreciable numbers.

But the tenfold increase in the number of black marines during the
Korean War caused the ratio of senior black noncommissioned officers
to black marines to drop. Here again promotion to higher rank was
slow. The first black marine to make the climb to the top in the
integrated corps was Edgar R. Huff. A gunnery sergeant in an
integrated infantry battalion in Korea, Huff later became battalion
sergeant major in the 8th Marines and eventually senior sergeant major
of the Marine Corps.[18-35]

[Footnote 18-35: Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks in the
Marine Corps_, pp. 62-63. 66.]

By 1962 there were 13,351 black enlisted men, 7.59 percent of the
corps' strength, and 34 black officers (7 captains, 25 lieutenants,
and 2 warrant officers) serving in integrated units in all military
occupations. These statistics illustrate the racial progress that
occurred in the Marine Corps during the 1950's, a change that was both
orderly and permanent, and, despite the complicated forces at work, in
essence a gift to the naval establishment from the Korean battlefield.

CHAPTER 19 (p. 473)

A New Era Begins

On 30 October 1954 the Secretary of Defense announced that the last
racially segregated unit in the armed forces of the United States had
been abolished.[19-1] Considering the department's very conservative
definition of a segregated unit--one at least 50 percent black--the
announcement celebrated a momentous change in policy. In the little
more than six years since President Truman's order, all black
servicemen, some quarter of a million in 1954, had been intermingled
with whites in the nation's military units throughout the world. For
the services the turbulent era of integration had begun.

[Footnote 19-1: New York _Times_, October 31, 1954;
ibid., Editorial, November 1, 1954.]

The new era's turbulence was caused in part by the decade-long debate
that immediately ensued over the scope of President Truman's guarantee
of equal treatment and opportunity for servicemen. On one side were
ranged most service officials, who argued that integration, now a
source of pride to the services and satisfaction to the civil rights
movement, had ceased to be a public issue. Abolishing segregated
units, they claimed, fulfilled the essential elements of the executive
order, leaving the armed forces only rare vestiges of discrimination
to correct. Others, at first principally the civil rights bloc in
Congress and civil rights organizations, but later black servicemen
themselves, contended that the Truman order committed the Department
of Defense to far more than integration of military units. They
believed that off-base discrimination, so much more apparent with the
improvement of on-base conditions, seriously affected morale and
efficiency. They wanted the department to challenge local laws and
customs when they discriminated against black servicemen.

This interpretation made little headway in the Department of Defense
during the first decade of integration. Both the Eisenhower and
Kennedy administrations made commitments to the principle of equal
treatment within the services, and both admitted the connection
between military efficiency and discrimination, but both presumed, at
least until 1963, severe limitations on their power to change local
laws and customs. For their part, the services constantly referred to
the same limitations, arguing that their writ in regard to racial
reform ran only to the gates of the military reservation.

Yet while there was no substantive change in the services' view of
their racial responsibilities, the Department of Defense was able to
make significant racial reforms between 1954 and 1962. More than
expressing the will of the Chief Executive, these changes reflected
the fact that military society was influenced by some of the same
forces that were operating on the larger American society. Possessed
of a discipline that enabled it to reform rapidly, military society
still shared the prejudices as well as the reform impulses of the (p. 474)
body politic. Racial changes in the services during the first decade
of integration were primarily parochial responses to special internal
needs; nevertheless, they took place at a time when civil rights
demands were stirring the whole country. Their effectiveness must be
measured against the expectations such demands were kindling in the
black community.

_The Civil Rights Revolution_

The post-World War II civil rights movement was unique in the nation's
history. Contrasting this era of black awakening with the post-Civil
War campaign for black civil rights, historian C. Vann Woodward found
the twentieth century phenomenon "more profound and impressive ...
deeper, surer, less contrived, more spontaneous."[19-2] Again in
contrast to the original, the so-called second reconstruction period
found black Americans uniting in a demand for social justice so long
withheld. In 1953, the year before the Supreme Court decision to
desegregate the schools, Clarence Mitchell of the NAACP gave voice to
the revolutionary rise in black expectations:

Twenty years ago the Negro was satisfied if he could have even a
half-decent school to go to (and took it for granted that it
would be a segregated school) or if he could go to the hotel in
town or the restaurant maybe once a year for some special
interracial dinner and meeting. Twenty years ago much of the
segregation pattern was taken for granted by the Negro. Now it is
different.[19-3]

[Footnote 19-2: C. Vann Woodward, _Strange Career of
Jim Crow_, p. 170. This account of the civil rights
movement largely follows Woodward's famous study,
but the following works have also been consulted:
Benjamin Muse, _Ten Years of Prelude: The Story of
Integration Since the Supreme Court's 1954
Decision_ (New York: Viking Press, 1964); Constance
M. Green, _The Secret City: A History of Race
Relations in the Nation's Capital_ (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1967); Anthony Lewis
and the New York _Times_, _Portrait of a Decade_
(New York: New York _Times_, 1964); Franklin, _From
Slavery to Freedom; Freedom to the Free: A Report
to the President by the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights_ (Washington: Government Printing Office,
1963); _Report of the National Advisory Commission
on Civil Disorders_; Interv, Nichols with Clarence
Mitchell, 1953, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]

[Footnote 19-3: Interv, Nichols with Mitchell.]

The difference was understandable. The rapid urbanization of many
black Americans, coupled with their experience in World War II,
especially in the armed forces and in defense industries, had enhanced
their economic and political power and raised their educational
opportunities. And what was true for the war generation was even truer
for its children. Possessed of a new self-respect, young Negroes began
to demonstrate confidence in the future and a determination to reject
the humiliation of second-class citizenship. Out of this attitude grew
a widespread demand among the young for full equality, and when this
demand met with opposition, massive participation in civil rights
demonstrations became both practical and inevitable. Again historian
Woodward's observations are pertinent:

More than a black revolt against whites, it was in part a
generational rebellion, an uprising of youth against the older
generation, against the parental "uncle Toms" and their
inhibitions. It even took the N.A.A.C.P. and CORE (Congress of
Racial Equality) by surprise. Negroes were in charge of their (p. 475)
own movement, and youth was in the vanguard.[19-4]

[Footnote 19-4: Woodward, _Strange Career of Jim
Crow_, p. 170.]

[Illustration: CLARENCE MITCHELL.]

To a remarkable extent, this youthful vanguard was strongly religious
and nonviolent. The influence of the church on the militant phase of
the civil rights movement is one of the movement's salient
characteristics.

This black awakening paralleled a growing realization among an
increasing number of white Americans that the demands of the civil
rights leaders were just and that the government should act. World War
II had made many thoughtful Americans aware of the contradiction
inherent in fighting fascism with segregated troops. In the postwar
years, the cold war rivalry for the friendship and allegiance of the
world's colored peoples, who were creating a multitude of new states,
added a pragmatic reason for ensuring equal treatment and opportunity
for black Americans. A further inducement, and a particularly forceful
one, was the size of the northern black vote, which had become the key
to victory in several electorally important states and had made the
civil rights cause a practical political necessity for both major
parties.

The U.S. Supreme Court was the real pacesetter. Significantly
broadening its interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court
reversed a century-old trend and called for federal intervention to
protect the civil rights of the black minority in transportation,
housing, voting, and the administration of justice. In the _Morgan_ v.
_Virginia_ decision of 1946,[19-5] for example, the Court launched an
attack on segregation in interstate travel. In another series of cases
it proclaimed the right of Negroes to be tried only in those courts
where Negroes could serve on juries and outlawed the all-white primary
system, which in some one-party states had effectively barred Negroes
from the elective process. The latter decision partly explains the
rise in the number of qualified black voters in twelve southern states
from 645,000 in 1947 to some 1.2 million by 1952. However, many
difficulties remained in the way of full enfranchisement. The poll
tax, literacy tests, and outright intimidation frustrated the
registration of Negroes in many areas, and in some rural counties
black voter registration actually declined in the early 1960's. But
the Court's intervention was crucial because its decisions established
the precedent for federal action that would culminate in the Voting
Rights Act of 1965.