Richard F. Burton - "Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2"

Unknown - "My Dog Tray"

Miriam Gaines - "Grandfather's Love Pie"

Amelia Edith Barr - "A Daughter of Fife"

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 2-78: Ltr, TAG to CG, AAF, et al., 8 Jul
44, sub: Recreational Facilities, AG 353.8 (5 Jul
44) OB-S-A-M.]

Little dramatic change ensued in day-to-day life on base. Some
commanders, emphasizing that part of the directive which allowed the
designation of facilities for units and areas, limited the degree of
the directive's application to post exchanges and theaters and ignored
those provisions concerned with individual rights. This interpretation
only added to the racial unrest that culminated in several incidents,
of which the one at the officers' club at Freeman Field, Indiana, was
the most widely publicized.[2-79] After this incident the committee
promptly asked for a revision of WD Pamphlet 20-6 on the command of
black troops that would clearly spell out the intention of the authors
of the directive to apply its integration provisions explicitly to
"officers' clubs, messes, or similar social organizations."[2-80] In
effect the War Department was declaring that racial separation applied
to units only. For the first time it made a clear distinction (p. 046)
between Army race policy to be applied on federal military reservations
and local civilian laws and customs to be observed by members of the
armed forces when off post. In Acting Secretary Patterson's words:

The War Department has maintained throughout the emergency and
present war that it is not an appropriate medium for effecting
social readjustments but has insisted that all soldiers,
regardless of race, be afforded equal opportunity to enjoy the
recreational facilities which are provided at posts, camps and
stations. The thought has been that men who are fulfilling the
same obligation, suffering the same dislocation of their private
lives, and wearing the identical uniform should, within the
confines of the military establishment, have the same privileges
for rest and relaxation.[2-81]

[Footnote 2-79: Actually, the use of officers' clubs
by black troops was clearly implied if not ordained
in paragraph 19 of Army Regulation 210-10, 20
December 1940, which stated that any club operating
on federal property must be open to all officers
assigned to the post, camp, or station. For more on
the Freeman Field incident, see Chapter 5, below.]

[Footnote 2-80: Memo, Secy, Advisory Cmte, for
Advisory Cmte on Special Troop Policies, 13 Jun 45,
sub: Minutes of Meeting, ASW 291.2 NT.]

[Footnote 2-81: Ltr, Actg SW to Gov. Chauncey Sparks
of Alabama, 1 Sep 44, WDCSA 291.2 (26 Aug 44).]

Widely disseminated by the black press as the "anti-Jim Crow law," the
directive and its interpretation by senior officials produced the
desired result. Although soldiers most often continued to frequent the
facilities in their own base areas, in effect maintaining racial
separation, they were free to use any facilities, and this knowledge
gradually dispelled some of the tensions on posts where restrictions
of movement had been a constant threat to good order.

With some pride, Assistant Secretary McCloy claimed on his Advisory
Committee's first birthday that the Army had "largely eliminated
discrimination against the Negroes within its ranks, going further in
this direction than the country itself."[2-82] He was a little
premature. Not until the end of 1944 did the Advisory Committee
succeed in eliminating the most glaring examples of discrimination
within the Army. Even then race remained an issue, and isolated racial
incidents continued to occur.

[Footnote 2-82: Ltr, ASW to Herbert B. Elliston,
Editor, Washington _Post_, 5 Aug 43, ASW 291.2 NT
(Gen).]


_Two Exceptions_

Departmental policy notwithstanding, a certain amount of racial
integration was inevitable during a war that mobilized a biracial army
of eight million men. Through administrative error or necessity,
segregation was ignored on many occasions, and black and white
soldiers often worked and lived together in hospitals,[2-83] rest camps,
schools, and, more rarely, units. But these were isolated cases,
touching relatively few men, and they had no discernible effect on
racial policy. Of much more importance was the deliberate integration
in officer training schools and in the divisions fighting in the
European theater in 1945. McCloy referred to these deviations from
policy as experiments "too limited to afford general conclusions."[2-84]
But if they set no precedents, they at least challenged the Army's
cherished assumptions on segregation and strengthened the postwar
demands for change.

[Footnote 2-83: Ltr, USW to Roane Waring, National
Cmdr, American Legion, 5 May 43, SW 291.2 NT.
Integrated hospitals did not appear until 1943. See
Robert J. Parks, "The Development of Segregation in
U.S. Army Hospitals, 1940-1942," _Military Affairs_
37 (December 1973): 145-50.]

[Footnote 2-84: Ltr, ASW to SecNav, 22 Aug 45, ASW
291.2 NT (Gen).]

The Army integrated its officer candidate training in an effort to
avoid the mistakes of the World War I program. In 1917 Secretary of
War Newton D. Baker had established a separate training school for (p. 047)
black officer candidates at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, with disappointing
results. To fill its quotas the school had been forced to lower its
entrance standards, and each month an arbitrary number of black
officer candidates were selected and graduated with little regard for
their qualifications. Many World War I commanders agreed that the
black officers produced by the school proved inadequate as troop
commanders, and postwar staff studies generally opposed the future use
of black officers. Should the Army be forced to accept black officers
in the future, these commanders generally agreed, they should be
trained along with whites.[2-85]

[Footnote 2-85: Ltr, William Hastie to Lee Nichols,
15 Jul 53, in Nichols Collection, CMH; see also
Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_ pp. 15-20; Army
War College Misc File 127-1 through 127-22, AMHRC.]

[Illustration: GUN CREW OF BATTERY B, 598TH FIELD ARTILLERY, _moving
into position near the Arno River, Italy, September 1944_.]

Despite these criticisms, mobilization plans between the wars all
assumed that black officers would be trained and commissioned,
although, as the 1937 mobilization plan put it, their numbers would be
limited to those required to provide officers for organizations
authorized to have black officers.[2-86] No detailed plans were drawn up
on the nature of this training, but by the eve of World War II a
policy had become fixed: Negroes were to be chosen and trained
according to the same standards as white officers, preferably in the
same schools.[2-87] The War Department ignored the subject of race (p. 048)
when it established the officer candidate schools in 1941. "The basic
and predominating consideration governing selections to OCS," The
Adjutant General announced, would be "outstanding qualities of
leadership as demonstrated by actual services in the Army."[2-88]
General Davis, who participated in the planning conferences, reasoned
that integrated training would be vital for the cooperation that would
be necessary in battle. He agreed with the War Department's silence on
race, adding, "you can't have Negro, white, or Jewish officers, you've
got to have American officers."[2-89]

[Footnote 2-86: As published in Mobilization
Regulation 1-2 (1938 and May 1939 versions), par.
11d, and 15 Jul 39 version, par. 13b.]

[Footnote 2-87: Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, p.
50.]

[Footnote 2-88: TAG Ltr, 26 Apr 41, AG 352 (4-10-41)
M-M-C.]

[Footnote 2-89: Davis, "History of a Special Section
Office of the Inspector General."]

[Illustration: TANKERS OF THE 761ST MEDIUM TANK BATTALION _prepare for
action in the European theater, August 1944_.]

The Army's policy failed to consider one practical problem: if race
was ignored in War Department directives, would black candidates ever
be nominated and selected for officer training? Early enrollment
figures suggested they would not. Between July 1941, when the schools
opened, and October 1941, only seventeen out of the 1,997 students
enrolled in candidate schools were Negroes. Only six more Negroes
entered during the next two months.[2-90]

[Footnote 2-90: Eleven of these were candidates at
the Infantry School, 2 at the Field Artillery
School, 7 at the Quartermaster School, and 1 each
at the Cavalry, Ordnance, and Finance Schools.
Memo, TAG for Admin Asst, OSW, 16 Sep 41, sub:
Request of the Civ Aide to the SW for Data Relative
to Negro Soldiers, AG 291.21 (9-12-41) M; Memo, TAG
for Civ Aide to SW, 18 Nov 41, sub: Request for
Data Relative to Negro Soldiers Admitted to OCS, AG
291.21 (10-30-41) RB.]

Some civil rights spokesmen argued for the establishment of a (p. 049)
quota system, and a few Negroes even asked for a return to segregated
schools to insure a more plentiful supply of black officers. Even
before the schools opened, Judge Hastie warned Secretary Stimson that
any effective integration plan "required a directive to Corps Area
Commanders indicating that Negroes are to be selected in numbers
exactly or approximately indicated for particular schools."[2-91] But
the planners had recommended the integrated schools precisely to avoid
a quota system. They were haunted by the Army's 1917 experience,
although the chief of the Army staff's Organizations Division did not
allude to these misgivings when he answered Judge Hastie. He argued
that a quota could not be defended on any grounds "except those of a
political nature" and would be "race discrimination against the
whites."[2-92]

[Footnote 2-91: Ltr, Hastie to SW, 8 May 41, ASW
291.2 NT.]

[Footnote 2-92: Memo, ACofS, G-3, for CofS, 12 May
41, sub: Negro Officers; Memo, ACofS, G-3, for
ACofS, G-1 (ATTN: Col Wharton), 12 Jun 41, same
sub. Both in WDGOT 291.2.]

General Marshall agreed that racial parity could not be achieved at
the expense of commissioning unqualified men, but he was equally
adamant about providing equal opportunity for all qualified
candidates, black and white. He won support for his position from some
of the civil rights advocates.[2-93] These arguments may not have swayed
Hastie, but in the end he dropped the idea of a regular quota system,
judging it unworkable in the case of the officer candidate schools. He
concluded that many commanders approached the selection of officer
candidates with a bias against the Negro, and he recommended that a
directive or confidential memorandum be sent to commanders charged
with the selection of officer candidates informing them that a certain
minimum percentage of black candidates was to be chosen. Hastie's
recommendation was ignored, but the widespread refusal of local
commanders to approve or transmit applications of Negroes, or even to
give them access to appropriate forms, halted when Secretary Stimson
and the Army staff made it plain that they expected substantial
numbers of Negroes to be sent to the schools.[2-94]

[Footnote 2-93: Pogue, _Organizer of Victory_, p.
96.]

[Footnote 2-94: Memo, Hastie for ASW, 5 Sep 41,
G-1/15640-120; Ltr, Hastie to Nichols, 15 Jul 53;
Tab C to AG 320.2 (11-24-42).]

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
meanwhile moved quickly to prove that the demand for a return to
segregated schools, made by Edgar G. Brown, president of the United
States Government Employees, and broadcaster Fulton Lewis, Jr.,
enjoyed little backing in the black community. "We respectfully
submit," Walter White informed Stimson and Roosevelt, "that no leader
considered responsible by intelligent Negro or white Americans would
make such a request."[2-95] In support of its stand the NAACP issued a
statement signed by many influential black leaders.

[Footnote 2-95: Telg, Walter White, NAACP, to SW and
President Roosevelt, 23 Oct 41, AG 291.21
(10-23-41) (3); Ltr, Edgar W. Brown to President
Roosevelt and SW, 15 Oct 41, AG 291.2 (10-15-41)
(1). See also Memo, ACofS, G-3, for CofS, 23 Oct
41, sub: Negro Officer Candidate Schools,
G-3/43276.]

[Illustration: WAAC REPLACEMENTS _training at Fort Huachuca, December
1942_.]

The segregationists attacked integration of the officer candidate (p. 050)
schools for the obvious reasons. A group of Florida congressmen, for
example, protested to the Army against the establishment of an
integrated Air Corps school at Miami Beach. The War Department
received numerous complaints when living quarters at the schools were
integrated. The president of the White Supremacy League complained
that young white candidates at Fort Benning "have to eat and sleep
with Negro candidates," calling it "the most damnable outrage that was
ever perpetrated on the youth of the South." To all such complaints
the War Department answered that separation was not always possible
because of the small number of Negroes involved.[2-96]

[Footnote 2-96: Ltr, Horace Wilkinson to Rep. John J.
Sparkman (Alabama), 24 Aug 43; Ltr, TAG to Rep.
John Starnes (Alabama), 15 Sep 43. Both in AG 095
(Wilkinson) (28 Aug 43). See also Interv, Nichols
with Ulysses Lee, 1953.]

In answering these complaints the Army developed its ultimate
justification for integrated officer schools: integration was
necessary on the grounds of efficiency and economy. As one Army
spokesman put it, "our objection to separate schools is based (p. 051)
primarily on the fact that black officer candidates are eligible
from every branch of the Army, including the Armored Force and tank
destroyer battalions, and it would be decidedly uneconomical to
attempt to gather in one school the materiel and instructor personnel
necessary to give training in all these branches."[2-97]

[Footnote 2-97: Ltr, SGS to Sen. Carl Hayden
(Arizona), 12 Dec 41, AG 352 (12-12-41). See also
Memo, ACofS, G-3, for CofS, 23 Oct 41, sub: Negro
Officer Candidate Schools, G-3/43276.]

Officer candidate training was the Army's first formal experiment with
integration. Many blacks and whites lived together with a minimum of
friction, and, except in flight school, all candidates trained
together.[2-98] Yet in some schools the number of black officer
candidates made racially separate rooms feasible, and Negroes were
usually billeted and messed together. In other instances Army
organizations were slow to integrate their officer training. The
Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, for example, segregated black candidates
until late 1942 when Judge Hastie brought the matter to McCloy's
attention.[2-99] Nevertheless, the Army's experiment was far more
important than its immediate results indicated. It proved that even in
the face of considerable opposition the Army was willing to abandon
its segregation policy when the issues of economy and efficiency were
made sufficiently clear and compelling.

[Footnote 2-98: Dollard and Young, "In the Armed
Forces."]

[Footnote 2-99: Memos, Hastie for ASW, 4 Nov 42 and
15 Dec 42; Ltr, Maj Gen A. D. Bruce, Cmdr, Tank
Destroyer Center, to ASW, 31 Dec 42. All in ASW
291.2 NT (12-2-42).]

The Army's second experiment with integration came in part from the
need for infantry replacements during the Allied advance across
Western Europe in the summer and fall of 1944.[2-100] The Ground Force
Replacement Command had been for some time converting soldiers from
service units to infantry, and even as the Germans launched their
counterattack in the Ardennes the command was drawing up plans to
release thousands of soldiers in Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee's
Communications Zone and train them as infantrymen. These plans left
the large reservoir of black manpower in the theater untapped until
General Lee suggested that General Dwight D. Eisenhower permit black
service troops to volunteer for infantry training and eventual
employment as individual replacements. General Eisenhower agreed, and
on 26 December Lee issued a call to the black troops for volunteers to
share "the privilege of joining our veteran units at the front to
deliver the knockout blow." The call was limited to privates in the
upper four categories of the Army General Classification Test who had
had some infantry training. If noncommissioned officers wanted to
apply, they had to accept a reduction in grade. Although patronizing
in tone, the plan was a bold departure from War Department policy: "It
is planned to assign you without regard to color or race to the units
where assistance is most needed, and give you the opportunity of
fighting shoulder to shoulder to bring about victory.... Your
relatives and friends everywhere have been urging that you be granted
this privilege."[2-101]

[Footnote 2-100: For a detailed discussion, see Lee,
_Employment of Negro Troops_, Chapter XXII.]

[Footnote 2-101: Ltr, Lt Gen John C. H. Lee to
Commanders of Colored Troops, ComZ, 26 Dec 44, sub:
Volunteers for Training and Assignment as
Reinforcements, AG 322X353XSGS.]

The revolutionary nature of General Lee's plan was not lost on (p. 052)
Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force. Arguing that the
circular promising integrated service would embarrass the Army, Lt.
Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, the chief of staff, recommended that General
Eisenhower warn the War Department that civil rights spokesmen might
seize on this example to demand wider integration. To avoid future
moves that might compromise Army policy, Smith wanted permission to
review any Communications Zone statements on Negroes before they were
released.

General Eisenhower compromised. Washington was not consulted, and
Eisenhower himself revised the circular, eliminating the special call
for black volunteers and the promise of integration on an individual
basis. He substituted instead a general appeal for volunteers, adding
the further qualification that "in the event that the number of
suitable negro volunteers exceeds the replacement needs of negro
combat units, these men will be suitably incorporated in other
organizations so that their service and their fighting spirit may be
efficiently utilized."[2-102] This statement was disseminated throughout
the European theater.

[Footnote 2-102: Revised version of above, same date.
Copies of both versions in CMH. Later General
Eisenhower stated that he had decided to employ the
men "as individuals," but the evidence is clear
that he meant platoons in 1944, see Ltr, D.D.E. to
Gen Bruce C. Clarke, 29 May 63, in CMH.]

The Eisenhower revision needed considerable clarification. It
mentioned the replacement needs of black combat units, but there were
no black infantry units in the theater;[2-103] and the replacement
command was not equipped to retrain men for artillery, tank, and tank
destroyer units, the types of combat units that did employ Negroes in
Europe. The revision also called for volunteers in excess of these
needs to be "suitably incorporated in other organizations," but it did
not indicate how they would be organized. Eisenhower later made it
clear that he preferred to organize the volunteers in groups that
could replace white units in the line, but again the replacement
command was geared to train individual, not unit, replacements. After
considerable discussion and compromise, Eisenhower agreed to have
Negroes trained "as members of Infantry rifle platoons familiar with
the Infantry rifle platoon weapons." The platoons would be sent for
assignment to Army commanders who would provide them with platoon
leaders, platoon sergeants, and, if needed, squad leaders.

[Footnote 2-103: The 92d Division was assigned to the
Mediterranean theater.]

Unaware of how close they had come to being integrated as individuals,
so many Negroes volunteered for combat training and duty that the
operations of some service units were threatened. To prevent
disrupting these vital operations, the theater limited the number to
2,500, turning down about 3,000 men. Early in January 1945 the
volunteers assembled for six weeks of standard infantry conversion
training. After training, the new black infantrymen were organized
into fifty-three platoons, each under a white platoon leader and
sergeant, and were dispatched to the field, two to work with armored
divisions and the rest with infantry divisions. Sixteen were shipped
to the 6th Army Group, the rest to the 12th Army Group, and all (p. 053)
saw action with a total of eleven divisions in the First and Seventh
Armies.

[Illustration: VOLUNTEERS FOR COMBAT IN TRAINING, _47th Reinforcement
Depot, February 1945_.]

In the First Army the black platoons were usually assigned on the
basis of three to a division, and the division receiving them normally
placed one platoon in each regiment. At the company level, the black
platoon generally served to augment the standard organization of three
rifle platoons and one heavy weapons platoon. In the Seventh Army, the
platoons were organized into provisional companies and attached to
infantry battalions in armored divisions. General Davis warned the
Seventh Army commander, Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch, that the men had
not been trained for employment as company units and were not being
properly used. The performance of the provisional companies failed to
match the performance of the platoons integrated into white companies
and their morale was lower.[2-104] At the end of the war the theater
made clear to the black volunteers that integration was over. Although
a large group was sent to the 69th Infantry Division to be returned
home, most were reassigned to black combat or service units in the
occupation army.

[Footnote 2-104: Davis, "History of a Special Section
Office of the Inspector General," p. 19.]

The experiment with integration of platoons was carefully scrutinized.
In May and June 1945, the Research Branch of the Information and
Education Division of Eisenhower's theater headquarters made a (p. 054)
survey solely to discover what white company-grade officers and
platoon sergeants thought of the combat performance of the black rifle
platoons. Trained interviewers visited seven infantry divisions and
asked the same question of 250 men--all the available company officers
and a representative sample of platoon sergeants in twenty-four
companies that had had black platoons. In addition, a questionnaire,
not to be signed, was submitted to approximately 1,700 white enlisted
men in other field forces for the purpose of discovering what their
attitudes were toward the use of black riflemen. No Negro was asked
his opinion.

More than 80 percent of the white officers and noncommissioned
officers who were interviewed reported that the Negroes had performed
"very well" in combat; 69 percent of the officers and 83 percent of
the noncommissioned officers saw no reason why black infantrymen
should not perform as well as white infantrymen if both had the same
training and experience. Most reported getting along "very well" with
the black volunteers; the heavier the combat shared, the closer and
better the relationships. Nearly all the officers questioned admitted
that the camaraderie between white and black troops was far better
than they had expected. Most enlisted men reported that they had at
first disliked and even been apprehensive at the prospect of having
black troops in their companies, but three-quarters of them had
changed their minds after serving with Negroes in combat, their
distrust turning into respect and friendliness. Of the officers and
noncommissioned officers, 77 percent had more favorable feelings
toward Negroes after serving in close proximity to them, the others
reported no change in attitude; not a single individual stated that he
had developed a less favorable attitude. A majority of officers
approved the idea of organizing Negroes in platoons to serve in white
companies; the practice, they said, would stimulate the spirit of
competition between races, avoid friction with prejudiced whites,
eliminate discrimination, and promote interracial understanding.
Familiarity with Negroes dispersed fear of the unknown and bred
respect for them among white troops; only those lacking experience
with black soldiers were inclined to be suspicious and hostile.[2-105]

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