Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965

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

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This dreary prospect had not always seemed so inevitable. Although
Wilson's order ignored local public schools, civil rights advocates
did not, and the problem of off-base segregation, typified by the
highly publicized school at the Little Rock Air Force Base in 1958,
became an issue involving not only the Department of Defense but the
whole administration. The decision to withhold federal aid to school
districts that remained segregated in defiance of court orders was
clearly beyond the power of the Department of Defense. In a memorandum
circulated among Pentagon officials in October 1958, Assistant
Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Elliot C. Richardson
discussed the legal background of federal aid to schools attended by
military dependents, especially congressional intent and the
definition of "suitable" facilities as expressed in Public Laws 815
and 874. He also took up the question of whether to provide off-base
integrated schooling, balancing the difficult problem of protecting
the civil rights of federal employees against the educational
advantages of a state-sponsored education system. Richardson mentioned
the great variation in school population--some bases having seven high
school aged children one year, none the next--and the fact that the
cost of educating the 28,087 dependents attending segregated schools
in 1957 would amount to more than $49 million for facilities and $8.7
million annually for operations. He was left with one possible
conclusion, that "irrespective of our feelings about the unsuitability
of segregated education as a matter of principle, we are constrained
by the legislative history, the settled administrative construction,
and the other circumstances surrounding the statutes in question to
adhere to the existing interpretation of them."[19-88]

[Footnote 19-88: Memo, Asst Secy of HEW for Secy of
HEW, 4 Oct 58, sub: Payments of Segregated Schools
Under P.L. 815 and P.L. 874, Incl to Ltr, Asst Secy
of HEW to ASD (M&P), 10 Oct 58, OASD (M&P)291.2 (10
Oct 58).]

Richardson might be "constrained" to accept the _status quo_, but some
black parents were not. In the fall of 1958 matters came to a head at
the school near the Little Rock air base. Here was a new facility,
built by the local school board exclusively with federal funds, on
state land, and intended primarily for the education of dependents
living at a newly constructed military base. On the eve of the
school's opening, the Pulaski County school board informed the Air
Force that the school would be for white students only. The decision
was brought to the President's attention by a telegram from a black
sergeant's wife whose child was denied admission.[19-89] The telegram
was only the first in a series of protests from congressmen, civil (p. 497)
rights organizations, and interested citizens. For all the Defense
Department had a stock answer: there was nothing the Air Force could
do. The service neither owned nor operated the school, and the impact
aid laws forbade construction of federal school facilities if the
local school districts could provide public school education for
federal dependents.[19-90]

[Footnote 19-89: Memo, Dir of Pers Policy, OSD, for
Stephen Jackson, 29 Aug 58, sub: Air Force
Segregated School Situation in Pulaski County,
Arkansas (San Francisco _Chronicle_ article of Aug
26, 58); Memo for Rec, Stephen Jackson, OASD (M&P),
8 Oct 58, sub: Integration of Little Rock Air Force
Base School, Jacksonville, Ark., attached to Memo,
ASD (M&P) for SA et al., 10 Oct 58. All in OASD
(M&P) 291.2.]

[Footnote 19-90: See, for example, Ltrs, Dir of Pers
Policy, OSD, to Sen. Richard L. Neuberger, 10 Sep
58, and ASD/M to Congressman Charles C. Diggs, Jr.,
23 Oct 58. See also Memo, Dep Dir of Mil Pers,
USAF, for Asst SecAF (Manpower, Pers, and Res
Forces), 9 Oct 58, sub: Dependent Schools. All in
OASD (M&P) 291.2.]

The department would not get off the hook so easily; the President
wanted something done about the Little Rock school, although he wanted
his interest kept quiet.[19-91] Yet any action would have unpleasant
consequences. If the department transferred the father, it was open to
a court suit on his behalf; if it tried to force integration on the
local authorities, they would close the school. Since neither course
was acceptable, Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles C. Finucane
ordered his troubleshooter, Stephen Jackson, to Little Rock to
investigate.[19-92]

[Footnote 19-91: Memo, Lt Col Winston P. Anderson,
Exec Off, Asst SecAF (M&P), for Asst SecAF (M&P),
24 Nov 58, SecAF files.]

[Footnote 19-92: Memo, ASD (MP&R) for SA et al., 10
Oct 58, OASD (MP&R) 291.2; Memo for Rcd, Spec Asst
to Asst SecAF, 17 Oct 58, sub: Meeting With Mr.
Finucane and Mr. Jackson re Little Rock Air Force
Base, SecAF files.]

Before he went to Little Rock, Jackson met with officials from the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and decided, with the
concurrence of the Department of Justice, that the solution lay in
government purchase of the land. The school would then be on a
military base and subject to integration. Should local authorities
refuse to operate the integrated on-base school, the Air Force would
do so. In that event, Jackson warned local officials on his arrival in
Arkansas, the school district would lose much of its federal
enrollment and hence its very important federal subsidy. Nor could the
board be assured that the federal acquisition would be limited to one
school. Jackson later admitted the local black school had also been
constructed with federal funds, and he could not guarantee that it
would escape federal acquisition. Board members queried Jackson on
this point, introducing the possibility that the federal government
might try to acquire local high schools, also attended in large
numbers by military dependents and also segregated. Jackson assured
the school board that the department "had no desire to change the
community patterns where schools were already in existence merely
because they received federal aid,"[19-93] a statement that amounted
to a new federal policy.

[Footnote 19-93: Memo for Rcd, Dep ASD (MR&P), 8 Oct
58, sub: Integration of Little Rock Air Force Base
School, Jacksonville, Ark.; attached to Memo, ASD
(MP&R) for SA et al., 10 Oct 58, OASD (MP&R)
291.2.]

Jackson failed to convince the board, and in late October 1958 it
rejected the government's offer to run an integrated school on land
purchased from them.[19-94] Jackson thereupon met with justice
officials and together they decided that sometime before 1 January
1959 the Justice Department would acquire title to the school land for
one year by taking a leasehold through the right of eminent domain.
They did not at that time, however, formulate any definite plan of (p. 498)
action to accomplish the school take-over.[19-95]

[Footnote 19-94: Memo for Rcd, Dep Asst SecAF, 24 Nov
58, SecAF files.]

[Footnote 19-95: Ibid.; Memo, Lt Col Winston P.
Anderson, Exec Off, Asst SecAF (M&P) for Asst SecAF
(M&P), 24 Nov 58, SecAF files.]

It was just as well, for soon after this decision was reached the
NAACP brought up the subject of dependent schools near the Air Force
bases at Blytheville, Arkansas, and Stewart, Tennessee.[19-96] Air
Force Deputy Assistant Secretary James P. Goode was quick to point out
that there were at least five other segregated schools constructed
with federal funds, situated near Air Force bases, and attended almost
exclusively by federal dependents. He also predicted that a careful
survey would reveal perhaps another fifteen schools in segregated
districts serving only Air Force dependents. In light of these facts,
and with a frankly confessed aversion to the administration's
acquisition of the properties by right of eminent domain, Goode
preferred to have the schools integrated in an orderly manner through
the supervision of the federal courts.[19-97]

[Footnote 19-96: Memo, Asst SecAF (M&P) for Under
SecAF, 26 Nov 58, SecAF files.]

[Footnote 19-97: Memo, Dep Asst SecAF (MP&R) for Asst
SecAF (MP&R), 26 Nov 58, sub: Little Rock Air Force
Base Elementary School, SecAF files.]

This attitude was to prevail for some time in the Department of
Defense. In April 1961, for example, the Assistant Secretary for
Manpower informed a Senate subcommittee that, while schools under
departmental jurisdiction were integrated "without reservation and
with successful results," many children of black servicemen stationed
in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and elsewhere still attended
segregated off-post schools. Adjacent to military posts and attended
"in whole or in part by federal dependents," these schools "conformed
to state rather than federal laws."[19-98] And as late as May 1963, a
naval official admitted there was no way for the Navy to require
school officials in Key West, Florida, to conform to the Department of
Defense's policy of equal opportunity.[19-99]

[Footnote 19-98: Memo, ASD (M) for Chmn, Subcommittee
on Education, Cmte on Labor and Pub Welfare, of the
U.S. Senate, 25 Apr 61, OASD (M) 291.2.]

[Footnote 19-99: Ltr, Rear Adm C. K. Duncan, Asst
Chief for Plans, BuPers, to Mrs. Rosetta
McCullough, 16 May 63, P 8, GenRecsNav.]

Yet even as the principle of noninterference with racial patterns of
the local community emerged intact from the lengthy controversy,
exceptions to its practical application continued to multiply. In the
fall of 1959, less than a year after the administration suspended its
campaign to integrate off-base schools in Arkansas, black Air Force
dependents quietly entered the Little Rock school. At the same time,
schools catering predominantly to military dependents near bases in
Florida and Tennessee integrated with little public attention.[19-100]
Under pressure from the courts, and after President Eisenhower had
discussed the case in a national press conference in terms of the
proper use of impact aid in segregated districts, the city of Norfolk,
Virginia, agreed to integrate its 15,000 students, roughly one-third
of whom were military dependents.[19-101]

[Footnote 19-100: Morton Puner, "What the Armed Forces
Taught Us About Integration," _Coronet_ (June
1960), reprinted in the _Congressional Record_,
vol. 106, pp. 11564-65.]

[Footnote 19-101: Press Conference, 21 Jan 59, _Public
Papers of the Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower,
1959_, p. 122; see also Washington _Post_ January
28, 1959.]

The controversy over schools for dependents demonstrated the (p. 499)
limits of federal intervention in the local community on behalf of the
civil rights of servicemen. Before these limits could be breached a
new administration would have to redefine the scope of the Defense
Department's power. Nevertheless, the armed forces had scored some
dramatic successes in the field of race relations by 1960. Some five
million servicemen, civilians, and their dependents were proving the
practicality of integration on the job, in schools, and in everyday
living. Several writers even suggested that the services' experience
had itself become a dynamic force for social change in the United
States.[19-102] The New York _Times's_ Anthony Lewis went so far as to
say that the successful integration of military society led to the
black crusade against discrimination in civilian society.[19-103]
Others took the services' influence for granted, as Morton Puner did
when he observed in 1959 that "the armed services are more advanced in
their race relations than the rest of the United States. Perhaps it is
uniquely fitting that this should be so, that in one of the greatest
peacetime battles of our history, the armed forces should be leading
the way to victory."[19-104]

[Footnote 19-102: See Fred Richard Bahr, "The
Expanding Role of the Department of Defense as an
Instrument of Social Change" (Ph.D. dissertation,
George Washington University, February 1970), ch.
III.]

[Footnote 19-103: As quoted, ibid., p. 87.]

[Footnote 19-104: Morton Puner, "Integration in the
Army," _The New Leader_ 42 (January 12, 1959).]

As such encomiums became more frequent, successful integration became
a source of pride to the services. Military commanders with experience
in Korea had, according to Assistant Secretary of Defense Hannah,
universally accepted the new order as desirable, conceding that
integration worked "very well" despite predictions to the
contrary.[19-105] Nor was this attitude limited to military
commanders, for there had been considerable change in sentiment among
senior defense officials. Citing the major economies realized in the
use of manpower and facilities, Secretary Wilson reported to President
Eisenhower in March 1955 that the results of integration were
encouraging:

Combat effectiveness is increased as individual capabilities
rather than racial designations determine assignments and
promotions. Economics in manpower and funds are achieved by the
elimination of racially duplicated facilities and operations.
Above all, our national security is improved by the more
effective utilization of military personnel, regardless of
race.[19-106]

[Footnote 19-105: Extracted from an interview given by
Hannah and published in _U.S. News and World
Report_ 35 (October 16, 1953):99. See also Ltr, Lt
Col L. Hill, Chief, Public Info Div, CINFO, to Joan
Rosen, WCBS Eye on New York, 17 Apr 64, CMH Misc
291.2 Negroes.]

[Footnote 19-106: _Semiannual Report of the Secretary
of Defense, January 1-June 30, 1954_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1955), pp. 21-22.]

In other reports he expatiated on this theme, explaining how
integration cut down racial incidents in the services and improved
"national solidarity and strength."[19-107] After years of claiming
the contrary, defense officials were justifying integration in the
name of military efficiency.

[Footnote 19-107: Office of the Assistant Secretary of
Defense, Manpower, "Advances in the Utilization of
Negro Manpower: Extracts From Official Reports of
the Secretary of Defense, 1947-1961." The quotation
is from Secretary Wilson's report, 10 Dec 53.]

Certainly racial incidents in the armed forces practically (p. 500)
disappeared in the immediate post-integration period, and the number
of complaints about on-base discrimination that reached the Pentagon
from individual black servicemen dropped dramatically. Moreover,
supporting Secretary Wilson's claim of national solidarity, major
civil rights organizations began to cite the racial experiences of the
armed forces to strengthen their case against segregated American
society. Civil rights leaders continued to press for action against
discrimination outside the military reservation, but in the years
after Korea their sense of satisfaction with the department's progress
was quite obvious. At its national conventions in 1953 and 1954, for
example, the NAACP officially praised the services for their race
policy. As one writer observed, integration not only increased black
support for the armed forces and black commitment to national defense
during the cold war, but it also boosted the department's prestige in
the black and white community alike, creating indirect political
support for those politicians who sponsored the racial reforms.[19-108]

[Footnote 19-108: Bahr, "The Expanding Role of the
Department of Defense," pp. 86-87.]

But what about the black serviceman himself? A Negro enlisting in the
armed forces in 1960, unlike his counterpart in 1950, entered an
integrated military community. He would quickly discover traces of
discrimination, especially in the form of unequal treatment in
assignments, promotions, and the application of military justice, but
for a while at least these would seem minor irritants to a man who was
more often than not for the first time close to being judged by
ability rather than race.[19-109] It was a different story in the
civilian community, where the black serviceman's uniform commanded
little more respect than it did in 1950. Eventually this contrast
would become so intolerable that he and his sympathizers would
beleaguer the Department of Defense with demands for action against
discrimination in off-base housing, schools, and places of public
accommodation.

[Footnote 19-109: Ginzberg, _The Negro Potential_, p.
90.]

CHAPTER 20 (p. 501)

Limited Response to Discrimination

The good feelings brought on by the integration of the armed forces
lasted less than a decade. By the early 1960's the Department of
Defense and the civil rights advocates had begun once more to draw
apart, the source of contention centering on their differing
interpretations of the scope of the Truman order. The Defense
Department professed itself unable to interfere with community laws
and customs even when those laws and customs discriminated against men
in uniform. The civil rights leaders, however, rejected the federal
government's acceptance of the _status quo_. Reacting especially to
the widespread and blatant discrimination encountered by servicemen
both in communities adjacent to bases at home and abroad and in the
reserve components of the services in many parts of the country, they
stepped up demands for remedial action against a situation that they
believed continued at the sufferance of the armed forces.

Nor were their demands limited to the problem of discrimination in the
local community. Civil rights spokesmen backed the complaints of those
black servicemen who had begun to question their treatment in the
military community itself. Lacking what many of them considered an
effective procedure for dealing with racial complaints, black
servicemen usually passed on their grievances to congressmen and
various civil rights organizations, and these, in turn, took the
problems to the Defense Department. The number of complaints over
inequalities in promotion, assignment, and racial representation never
matched the volume of those on discrimination in the community, nor
did their appearance attest to a new set of problems or any particular
increase in discrimination. It seemed rather that the black
serviceman, after the first flush of victory over segregation, was
beginning to perceive from the vantage of his improved position that
other and perhaps more subtle barriers stood in his way. Whatever the
reason, complaints of discrimination within the services themselves,
rarely heard in the Pentagon in the late 1950's, suddenly
reappeared.[20-1] Actually, the complaints about discrimination both
in the local civilian community and on the military reservation called
for a basic alteration in the way the services interpreted their
policies of equal treatment and opportunity. In the end it would prove
easier for the services to attack the gaudier but ultimately less
complicated problems outside their gates.

[Footnote 20-1: For discussion of charges of
discrimination within the services, see Ltrs, ASD
(M) to Congressman Charles C. Diggs, Jr., 15 Mar
and 5 Sep 61; and the following Memos: Under SecNav
for ASD (M), 16 Mar 62, sub: Discrimination in U.S.
Military Services; Dep SecAF for Manpower,
Personnel, and Organization for ASD (M), 29 Mar 62,
sub: Alleged Racial Discrimination With the Air
Force; Dep Under SA (M) For ASD (M), 30 Mar 62,
sub: Servicemen's Complaints of Discrimination in
the U.S. Military. All in ASD (M) 291.2.]

It would be a mistake to equate the notice given the persistent (p. 502)
but subtle problem of on-base discrimination with the sometimes brutal
injustice visited on black servicemen off-base in the early 1960's.
Black servicemen often found the short bus ride from post to town a
trip into the past, where once again they were forced to endure the
old patterns of segregation. Defense Department officials were aware,
for example, that decent housing open to black servicemen was scarce.
With limited income, under military orders, and often forced by
circumstances to reside in the civilian community, black servicemen
were, in the words of Robert S. McNamara, President Kennedy's
Secretary of Defense, "singularly defenseless against this
bigotry."[20-2] While the services had always denied responsibility
for combating this particular form of discrimination, many in the
black community were anxious to remind them of John F. Kennedy's claim
in the presidential campaign of 1960 that discrimination in housing
could be alleviated with a stroke of the Chief Executive's pen.

[Footnote 20-2: Robert S. McNamara, _The Essence of
Security_ (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), p. 124.]

But housing was only part of a larger pattern of segregation that
included restrictions on black servicemen's use of many places of
public accommodation such as restaurants, theaters, and saloons, some
literally on the doorstep of military reservations. James Evans listed
some twenty-seven military installations in the United States where in
1961 segregation in transportation and places of public accommodation
was established in adjacent communities by law or custom.[20-3]
Moreover, instances of blatant Jim Crow tactics were rapidly
multiplying near bases in Japan, Germany, the Philippines, and
elsewhere as host communities began to adopt the prejudices of their
visitors.[20-4] The United States Commission on Civil Rights charged
that black servicemen were often reluctant to complain to their
superiors or the Inspector General because of the repeated failure of
local commands to show concern for the problem and suspicion that
complainers would be subjected to reprisals.[20-5]

[Footnote 20-3: James C. Evans, OASD (M), "Suggested
List of Military Installations," 9 Jun 61, copy in
CMH. Evans's list was based on incomplete data. A
great number of military installations were located
in Jim Crow areas in 1961. See also Memo, Dep ASD
(Military Personnel Policy) for ASD (M), 19 Oct 62,
sub: Forthcoming Conference With Representatives
From CORE, ASD (M) 291.2.]

[Footnote 20-4: Memo, Lee Nichols (UPI reporter) for
SecDef, Attn: Adam Yarmolinsky, 13 May 63, sub:
Racial Integration in the U.S. Armed Forces, copy
in CMH. Nichols had recently toured military bases
under Defense Department sponsorship. See also
Puner, "Integration in the Army"; news articles in
_Overseas Weekly_ (Frankfurt), November 18 and 25,
1962, and _Stars and Stripes_, November 15, 1962.]

[Footnote 20-5: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,
_Civil Rights_ '63 (Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1963), p. 206.]

Civil rights leaders were particularly distressed by this form of
discrimination, which, considering the armed forces' persistent
declaration of impotence in the matter, seemed destined to remain a
permanent condition of service life. "These problems involve factors
which are not directly under the control of the Department of
Defense," Assistant Secretary for Manpower Carlisle P. Runge noted in
a typical response.[20-6] Similar sentiments were often expressed by
local commanders, although some tried to soften their refusal to act
with the hope that the military example might change local community
attitudes in the long run.[20-7] Congressman Charles C. Diggs, (p. 503)
Jr., did not share this hope. Citing numerous examples for the
President of discrimination against black servicemen, he charged that,
far from influencing local communities to change, commanders actually
cooperated in discrimination by punishing or otherwise identifying
protesting servicemen as troublemakers.[20-8]