Israel Abrahams - "The Book of Delight and Other Papers"

Edward Elmer Smith - "Triplanetary"

Louis Joseph Vance - "The Bronze Bell"

William Elmer Bachman - "The Delta of the Triple Elevens"

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 19-60: G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 13 Feb
53, sub: Segregation of School Children on Military
Installations, G-1 291.2 (15 Jan 53).]

[Footnote 19-61: Memo, Exec Off, SA, for ASD (M&P), 20
Feb 53, sub: Proposed Reply to U.S. Commissioner of
Education Regarding Segregation in Dependent
Schools, copy in G-1 291.2 (15 Jan 53).]

The matter was rescued from bureaucratic limbo when in answer to a
question during his 19 March 1953 press conference President
Eisenhower promised to investigate the school situation, adding:

I will say this--I repeat it, I have said it again and again:
whenever Federal funds are expended for anything, I do not see
how any American can justify--legally, or logically, or
morally--a discrimination in the expenditure of those funds as
among our citizens. All are taxed to provide these funds. If
there is any benefit to be derived from them, I think they must
all share, regardless of such inconsequential factors as race and
religion.[19-62]

[Footnote 19-62: President's News Conference, 19 Mar
53, _Public Papers of the Presidents: Dwight D.
Eisenhower, 1953_, p. 108.]

The sweeping changes implied in this declaration soon became apparent.
Statistics compiled as a result of the White House investigation
revealed that federal dependents attended thousands of schools, a
complex mix of educational institutions having little more in common than
their mutual dependence in whole or part on federal funds.[19-63] (p. 490)
Most were under local government control and the great majority,
including the community public schools, were situated a long distance
from any military base. The President was no doubt unaware of the
ramifications of federal enrollment and impacted aid on the nation's
schools when he made his declaration, and, given his philosophy of
government and the status of civil rights at the time, it is not
surprising that his promise to look into the subject came to nothing.
From the beginning Secretary of Defense Wilson limited the
department's campaign against segregated schools to those on federal
_property_ rather than those using federal _funds_. And even this
limited effort to integrate schools on federal property encountered
determined opposition from many local officials and only the
halfhearted support of some of the federal officials involved.

[Footnote 19-63: Memo for Rcd, Human Relations and
Research Br, G-1 (ca. Mar 53), copy in CMH. See
also Memo, Under SecNav for ASD (M&P), 11 Mar 53,
sub: Schools Operated by the Department of the Navy
Pursuant to Section 6 and 3 of Public Law 874, 81st
Congress, A18, GenRecsNav; "List of States and
Whether or Not Segregation is Practiced in Schools
for Dependents, as Given by Colonel Brody, OPNS
Secn, AGO, In Charge of Dependents Schools, 16 Oct
51," OSA 291.2 Negroes.]

The Department of Defense experienced few problems at first as it
integrated its own schools. Its overseas schools, especially in
Germany and Japan, had always been integrated, and its schools in the
United States now quickly followed suit. Eleven in number, they were
paid for and operated by the U.S. Commissioner of Education because
the states in which they were located prohibited the use of state
funds for schools on federal property. With only minimal public
attention, all but one of these schools was operating on an integrated
basis by 1953. The exception was the elementary school at Fort
Benning, Georgia, which at the request of the local school board
remained a white-only school. On 20 March 1953 the new Secretary of
the Army, Robert T. Stevens, informed the White House that this school
had been ordered to commence integrated operations in the fall.[19-64]

[Footnote 19-64: Memo, SA for James Hagerty, White
House Press Secretary, 20 Mar 53, sub: Segregation
in Army Schools, copy in CMH.]

The integration of schools operated by local school authorities on
military posts was not so simple, and before the controversy died down
the Department of Defense found itself assuming responsibility for a
number of formerly state-operated institutions. As of April 1953,
twenty-one of these sixty-three schools in the United States were
operating on a segregated basis. (_Table 12_)

Table 12--Defense Installations With Segregated Public Schools

State Installation

Alabama (C)[1] Maxwell Air Force Base
Craig Air Force Base

Arkansas (S)[2] Pine Bluff Arsenal (Army)

Florida (C) MacDill Air Force Base
Eglin Air Force Base
Tyndall Air Force Base
Naval Air Station, Pensacola
Patrick Air Force Base

Maryland (S) Andrews Air Force Base
Naval Air Station, Patuxent
Naval Powder Factory, Indianhead

Oklahoma (C) Fort Sill (Army)

Texas (C) Fort Bliss (Army)
Fort Hood (Army)
Fort Sam Houston (Army)
Randolph Air Force Base
Reese Air Force Base
Shepherd Air Force Base
Lackland Air Force Base

Virginia (C) Fort Belvoir (Army)
Langley Air Force Base

[Tablenote 1: (C) indicates segregation required by
state constitution.]
[Tablenote 2: (S) indicates segregation required by
state statute.]

The Secretary of the Army promised to investigate the possibility of
integrating schools on Army bases and to consider further action with
the Commissioner of Education "as the situation is clarified." He
warned the President that to "prod the commissioner" into setting up
integrated federal schools when segregated state schools were
available would invite charges in the press and Congress of
squandering money. Moreover, newly assembled faculties would have
state accreditation problems.[19-65] Admitting that there were
complicating factors, the President ignored the secretary's warnings
and noted that if integrated schools could not be provided by (p. 491)
state authorities "other arrangements will be considered."[19-66]

[Footnote 19-65: Ibid.]

[Footnote 19-66: Memo, Eisenhower for SecDef, 25 Mar
53, sub: Segregation in Schools on Army Posts;
Memo, Bernard Shanley (Special Counsel to
President) for SA, 25 Mar 53; both in 124A-4
Eisenhower Library.]

Others in the administration took these complications more seriously.
Oveta Culp Hobby, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, was
concerned with the attitude of Congress and the press. She pleaded for
more time to see what the Supreme Court would rule on the subject and
to study the effect of the conversion to federally operated schools
"so that we can feel confident of our ground in the event further
action should be called for." Going a step further than the Secretary
of the Army, Hobby suggested delaying action on the twenty-one
segregated schools on posts "for the immediate present."[19-67]

[Footnote 19-67: Ltr, Secy of HEW, to SecDef, 13 Apr
53, copy in CMH.]

In marked contrast to Hobby's recommendation, and incidentally
buttressing popular belief in the existence of an interdepartmental
dispute on the subject, Secretary of Defense Wilson told the President
that he wanted to end segregation in all schools on military
installations "as swiftly as practicable." He admitted it would be
difficult, as a comprehensive and partially covert survey of the
school districts by the local commanders had made clear. The
commanders found, for example, that the twenty-one school districts
involved would not operate the schools as integrated institutions. (p. 492)
Wilson also stressed that operating the schools under federal
authority would be very expensive, but his recommendation was
explicit. There should be no exact timetable, but the schools should
be integrated before the 1955 fall term.[19-68]

[Footnote 19-68: Ltr, SecDef to President, 29 May 53,
copy in CMH. On the Army's investigation of the
schools, see also G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 6 Apr
53, sub: Segregation in Schools on Army Posts, CS
291.2 Negroes (25 Mar 53), and the following: Ltrs,
TAG to CG's, Continental Armies et al., 30 Mar 53,
and to CG, Fourth Army, 17 Apr 53, sub: Segregation
in Schools on Army Posts, AGAO-R 352.9 (17 Apr 53);
Memo, Dir of Pers Policy, OSD, for ACS/G-1 and
Chief of NavPers, 6 May 53; Statement for Sherman
Adams in reply to Telg, Powell to President, as
attachment to Memo, ASD (M&P) for SecNav, 5 Jun 53;
last two in OASD (M&P) 291.2.]

Although both Wilson and Hobby later denied that the Department of
Health, Education, and Welfare was opposed to integrating the schools,
rumors and complaints persisted throughout the summer of 1953 that
Hobby opposed swift action and had carried her opposition "to the
cabinet level."[19-69] Lending credence to these rumors, President
Eisenhower later admitted that there was some foot-dragging in his
official family. He had therefore ordered minority affairs assistant
Rabb, already overseeing the administration's fight against segregated
shipyards, to "track down any inconsistencies of this sort in the rest
of the departments and agencies of the government."[19-70]

[Footnote 19-69: DOD OPI Release, 1 Feb 54; UPI News
Release, 31 Jan 54; Telg, Powell to President, ca.
1 Jun 53; Ltr, President to Powell, 6 Jun 53; Press
Release, Congressman Powell, 10 Jun 53; NAACP Press
Release, 16 Nov 53; White, Address Delivered at
44th NAACP Annual Convention, 28 Jun 53. Copies of
all in Nichols Collection, CMH. See also New York
_Times_, February 1, 1954.]

[Footnote 19-70: Eisenhower, _Mandate for Change_, p.
293.]

The interdepartmental dispute was quickly buried by Wilson's dramatic
order of 12 January 1954. Effective as of that date, the secretary
announced, "no new school shall be opened for operation on a
segregated basis, and schools presently so conducted shall cease
operating on a segregated basis, as soon as practicable, and under no
circumstances later than September 1, 1955."[19-71] Wilson promised to
negotiate with local authorities, but if they were unable to comply
the Commissioner of Education would be requested to provide integrated
facilities through the provisions of Public Law 874. Interestingly,
the secretary's order predated the Supreme Court decision on
segregated education by some four months.

[Footnote 19-71: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 12 Jan
54, sub: Schools on Military Installations for
Dependents of Military and Civilian Personnel,
SecDef 291.2.]

The order prompted considerable public response. The Anti-Defamation
League of B'nai B'rith telegraphed "hearty approval of your directive
... action is consonant with democratic ideals and in particular with
the military establishment's successful program of integration in the
armed forces."[19-72] Walter White added the NAACP's approval in a
similar vein, and many individual citizens offered congratulations.[19-73]
But not all the response was favorable. Congressman Arthur A. Winstead
of Mississippi asked the secretary to outline for him "wherein you
believe that procedure will add anything whatsoever to the defense of
this country. Certainly it appears to me that you have every reason
anyone could desire to refuse to take action which is in total (p. 493)
violation of certain state laws."[19-74]

[Footnote 19-72: Telg, Anti-Defamation League of B'nai
B'rith to Wilson, 1 Feb 54, SecDef 291.2.]

[Footnote 19-73: Telg, Walter White to SecDef, 1 Feb
54; and as an example of a letter from an
individual citizen, see Ltr, Mrs. Louis Shearer to
SecDef, 1 Feb 54; both in SecDef 291.2.]

[Footnote 19-74: Ltr, Winstead to SecDef, 18 Feb 54,
SecDef 291.2.]

The three services quickly responded to the order. By 18 February all
had issued specific directives for enforcing it. The Secretary of the
Navy, for example, declared that the "policy of non-segregation" would
apply

to the operation of existing schools and school facilities
hereafter constructed on Navy and Marine Corps installations
within the United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the
Virgin Islands, the area in which Public Law 874 and ... 815 ...
are operative.... In the case of PL 874 this area will be
extended, effective 1 July 1954, to include Wake Island ... the
same policy of non-segregation will apply in all Navy-operated
schools for dependent children of military and civilian personnel
of the Department of Defense.[19-75]

[Footnote 19-75: SecNav Instruction 5700.1, 18 Feb 54,
which was renewed by SecNav Instruction 17755.1A,
31 Jul 58. For other services, see Memo, Chief,
Pers Ser Div, USAF, for all Major ZI Commands and
Alaskan Air Command, 8 Feb 54, sub: Elimination of
Segregation in On-Base Schools, AFPMP-12, AF files;
Ltr, TAG to CG's, Continental Armies, MDW, 4 Feb
54, sub: Elimination of Segregation in On-Post
Public Schools, AGCP 352.9 (4 Feb 54).]

Any local school official hoping for a reprieve from the deadlines
expressed in these orders was likely to be disappointed. In response
to queries on the subject, the services quoted their instructions, and
if they excused continued segregation during the 1954 school year they
were adamant about the September 1955 integration date.[19-76] The
response of Secretary of the Air Force Talbott to one request for an
extension revealed the services' determination to stick to the letter
of the Wilson order. Talbott agreed with the superintendent of the
Montgomery County, Alabama, school board that local school boards were
best qualified to run the schools for dependent children of the
military, but he refused to extend the deadline. "Unilateral action in
the case of individual Air Force base schools would be in violation of
the directive," he explained, adding: "At such time as the Alabama
legislature acts to permit your local board of education to operate
the school at Maxwell AFB on an integrated basis, the Air Force will
return operational responsibility for the school to the local board at
the earliest practicable date."[19-77]

[Footnote 19-76: Ltr, SecNav to Clarence Mitchell, 30
Apr 54; Ltr, Jack Cochrane, BuPers Realty Legal
Section, to B. Alden Lillywhite, Dept of HEW, 20
Apr 54; both in P 11-1, GenRecsNav. See also Ltr,
ASD (M&P) to Commissioner of Educ, 3 May 55; Ltr,
ASD (M&P) to Dr. J. W. Edgar, Texas Education
Agency, 3 May 55; both in OASD (M&P) 291.2 (3 May
55).]

[Footnote 19-77: Ltr, SecAF to Superintendent of
Montgomery Public Schools, 12 Jan 55, SecAF files.]

As a result of this unified determination on the part of departmental
officials, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense could
announce in December 1954 that two of the schools, the one at Craig
Air Force Base, Alabama, and Fort Belvoir, Virginia, were integrated;
two others, the Naval Air Station school at Pensacola, Florida, and
Reese Air Force Base, Texas, had been closed; the remaining seventeen
would be fully integrated by the September 1955 deadline.[19-78] Lee
Nichols, a prolific writer on integration, reported in November 1955
that schools segregated for generations suddenly had black and white
children sitting side by side. This move by the armed forces, he (p. 494)
pointed out, could have far-reaching effects. Educators from
segregated community schools would be watching the military experiment
closely for lessons in how to comply with the Supreme Court's
desegregation order.[19-79]

[Footnote 19-78: Memo for Rcd, Chief, Morale and
Welfare Br, ASD (M&P), 17 Dec 54, sub: Integration
of Certain Schools Located on Military
Installations, OASD (M&P) 291.2.]

[Footnote 19-79: UPI News Release, Incl to Memo, Dir,
DOD Office of Public Information, for ASD (M&P), 10
Nov 55, OASD (M&P) 291.2.]

Strictly speaking there were more than twenty-one segregated schools
operating on federal installations. A small group of institutions
built and operated by local authorities stood on land leased from the
services. At the time of Secretary Wilson's order this category of
schools included three with 75-year leases, those at Fort Meade,
Maryland, and Fort Bliss and Biggs Air Force Base, Texas, and one with
a 25-year lease at Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas.[19-80] The Air
Force's general counsel believed the lease could be broken in light
of the Wilson order, but the possibility developed that some
extensions might be granted to these schools because of the lease
complication.[19-81] The Secretary of the Army went right to the
point, asking the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Carter L. Burgess,
for an extension in the case of Fort Meade pending Maryland's
integration of its schools under the Supreme Court's decision.[19-82]
In response Burgess ordered, as of 1 June 1955, the exemption of four
schools. "No attempt shall be made," he informed the services, "to
break the lease or take over operation of the schools pending further
instruction from the Secretary of Defense."[19-83]

[Footnote 19-80: Ltr, Col Staunton Brown, USA,
District Engineer, Little Rock District, to
Division Engineer, Southwestern Div, 8 Jun 56, sub:
Meeting With Representatives of White Hall School
District, Pine Bluff Arsenal; Memo, Asst Adjutant,
Second Army, for CG, Second Army, 7 Jun 56, sub:
Lease for Meade Heights Elementary School; copies
of both in OASD (M&P) 291.2.]

[Footnote 19-81: Memo, AF General Counsel for Dir of
Mil Pers, 29 Mar 55, sub: Lease on Property
Occupied by Briggs Air Force Base Dependent's
School; Memo, Asst SecAF for ASD (M&P), 24 May 55,
sub: Biggs Air Force Base Dependent School; both in
SecAF files.]

[Footnote 19-82: Memo, ASA for ASD (M&P), 3 May 55,
sub: Elimination of Segregation in On-Post Public
Schools, OASD (M&P) 291.2.]

[Footnote 19-83: Memo, ASD (M&P) for SA et al., 1 Jun
55, sub: Operation of Dependent Schools on Military
Installations on an Integrated Basis; idem for
SecDef et al., 25 Aug 55, sub: Status of Racial
Integration in Schools on Military Installations
for Dependents of Military and Civilian Personnel;
both in OASD (M&P) 291.2 (25 Aug 55).]

It was some time before the question of temporary extensions was
resolved. Two of the leased property schools, Biggs and Fort Bliss,
were integrated before the September deadline as a result of a change
in state law in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision. Then, on 16
July 1956, the Assistant Secretary of the Army reported that the
phased integration of Fort Meade's elementary school had
started.[19-84] The Pine Bluff Arsenal case was still unresolved in
1956, but since at that time there were no black dependents at the
installation it was not considered so pressing by Burgess, who allowed
the extension to continue beyond 1956. Besides, it turned out there
were still other schools in this category that the Navy had
temporarily exempted from the September 1955 deadline. The school at
the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, for example, which had no black
dependents eligible for attendance, was allowed to continue to operate
as usual while negotiations were under way for the transfer of the
school and property to the St. Mary's County, Maryland, school (p. 495)
board.[19-85] A lease for the temporary use of buildings by local
authorities for segregated schools on the grounds of the New Orleans
Naval Air Station was allowed to run on until 1959 because of
technicalities in the lease, but not, however, without considerable
public comment.[19-86]

[Footnote 19-84: Memo, ASA for ASD (M&P), 16 Jul 56,
sub: Status of Racial Integration in Schools at
Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, and Pine Bluff
Arsenal, Arkansas, OASD (M&P) 291.2.]

[Footnote 19-85: Memo, Cmdr Charles B. Reinhardt, OASD
(M&P), for Brig Gen John H. Ives, Mil Policy Div,
OASD (M&P), 26 Oct 55, sub: School at Patuxent
River Naval Air Stations, OASD (M&P) 291.2.]

[Footnote 19-86: See the following Memos: ASD (M&P)
for SecNav, 18 Nov 55, sub: Integration in Schools
on Military Installations for Department of
Military and Civilian Personnel; idem for Asst
SecNav (P&RF), 23 Jan 56, sub: Segregation in
Schools at the New Orleans Naval Base, Algiers,
Louisiana; Asst SecNav (P&RF) for ASD (M&P), 7 Apr
56, same sub; ASD (M&P) for Asst SecNav (FM), 15
Aug 58, sub: U.S. Naval Station, New Orleans,
Louisiana: One Year Extension of Outlease With
Orleans Parish School Board, New Orleans,
Louisiana; Ltrs, CO, New Orleans Naval Station, to
Rev. Edward Schlick, 24 Feb 56, and Rear Adm John
M. Will, OASD (M&P), to Clarence Mitchell, NAACP, 6
Dec 55 and 18 Apr 56. All in OASD (M&P) 291.2. For
public interest in the case, see the files of the
Chief of Naval Personnel (P 11-1) for the years
1956-59.]

[Illustration: READING CLASS IN THE MILITARY DEPENDENTS SCHOOL,
_Yokohama, Japan, 1955_.]

The Department of Defense could look with pride at its progress. In
less than three years after President Eisenhower had promised to look
into segregated schools for military dependents, the department had
integrated hundreds of classrooms, inducing local authorities to
integrate a series of schools in areas that had never before seen
blacks and whites educated together. It had even ordered the
integration of classes conducted on post by local universities and (p. 496)
voluntarily attended by servicemen in off-duty hours.[19-87] Yet many
dependent schools were untouched because Wilson's order applied only
to schools on federal property. It ignored the largest category of
dependent schools, those in the local community that because of heavy
enrollment of federal dependents were supported in whole or part by
federal funds. In these institutions some 28,000 federal dependents
were being educated in segregated classes. Integration for them would
have to await the long court battles that followed _Brown_ v. _Board
of Education_.

[Footnote 19-87: Ltr, Sen. Herbert Lehman to SecDef,
10 Oct 56; Ltr, SecDef to Lehman, 15 Oct 56, both
in SD 291.2.]

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