Book Cards

Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 Flashcards

Morris J. MacGregor · Public domain edition · 439 cards · 118 chapters

Morris J. MacGregor’s Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940–1965 argues that military integration resulted from the interplay of black protest, presidential action, and institutional resistance. The deck covers MacGregor’s distinctions between desegregation and integration, his source cautions, chapter structure, and the earlier history of black service from the Revolution through World War I.

1 / 439

18+ roast lines

Chapter 1 · Question

What distinction does the preface draw between desegregation and integration?

WakeCards · wakecards.com · Big ideas. Quick review.

Arrow keys move between cards. Space or Enter flips.

All questions and answers

Every card in the deck, in reading order. Click a chapter to expand. The reviewer above uses the same content.

Section 14 cards

What distinction does the preface draw between desegregation and integration?
The author distinguishes desegregation as direct action against segregation—removing legal barriers to equal treatment guaranteed by the Constitution. Integration, following Professor Oscar Handlin, implies more: leveling all barriers to association other than those based on ability, taste, and personal preference, and also the random distribution of a minority throughout society, emphasizing racial balance in occupation, education, and residency.
Chapter 1
What three forces does the author say the book measures influence of?
The author describes the work as essentially an administrative history measuring the influence of several forces on racial policies in the armed forces: most notably the civil rights movement, the tradition of segregated service, and the changing concept of military efficiency. He notes it is not a history of all minorities nor an account of how black Americans responded to discrimination.
Chapter 1
Why does the author caution readers about statements by officials quoted in the book?
The author warns that many attitudes and expressions voiced by participants are now out of fashion, and readers must guard against viewing them out of the context of their times. He argues neither bigotry nor stupidity was the monopoly of some people quoted; their statements matter for what they reveal about societal attitudes rather than about any individual.
Chapter 1
Why did the military prefer 'integration' over 'desegregation' in its files?
The author states the military establishment rightly understood that breaking up the all-black unit in a closed society would necessarily mean more than mere desegregation. It constantly used integration and equal treatment and opportunity to describe its racial goals. Rarely, if ever, does desegregation appear in military files that include much correspondence from civil rights organizations.
Chapter 1

Section 24 cards

Whom does MacGregor thank for preparing the manuscript for panel review?
MacGregor thanks Mary Lee Treadway and Wyvetra B. Yeldell for preparing the manuscript for panel review, and Terrence J. Gough for his helpful pre-publication review. He also credits editors Loretto C. Stevens and Barbara H. Gilbert, John Elsberg for editorial counsel, and William G. Bell for help selecting illustrations, including the loan of two rare items from his personal collection.
Chapter 2
Which three colleagues does MacGregor single out for enduring his doubts and frustrations?
MacGregor especially thanks Alfred M. Beck, Ernest F. Fisher, Jr., and Paul J. Scheips, who bore with him through days of doubts and frustrations and shared his small triumphs. He also particularly thanks Col. James W. Dunn, and hopes some of their good sense and sunny optimism show through the book's pages.
Chapter 2
What does the table of contents show about Chapter 2, on the World War II Army?
Chapter 2, 'World War II: The Army,' begins on page 17 and includes sections on 'A War Policy: Reaffirming Segregation,' 'Segregation and Efficiency,' 'The Need for Change,' 'Internal Reform: Amending Racial Practices,' and 'Two Exceptions.' The contents also list later chapters on the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, postwar reviews, quotas, Executive Order 9981, and integration.
Chapter 2
What does the contents list as the subject of Chapter 24, the Conclusion?
Chapter 24, the Conclusion beginning on page 609, lists sections titled 'Why the Services Integrated,' 'How the Services Integrated, 1946-1954,' and 'Equal Treatment and Opportunity.' The contents also show a Note on Sources beginning on page 625 and an Index beginning on page 635.
Chapter 2

Section 34 cards

Why did Negroes serve in American forces during the Revolution, according to the chapter?
The chapter states that British recruitment of large numbers of Negroes proved more important than revolutionary idealism in creating a place for them. Participation of slaves and freedmen was a pragmatic response to a pressing need for fighting men and laborers. Despite fears of slave insurrection, some 5,000 Negroes, mostly from New England, served, often in integrated units, some as artillerymen and musicians, most as infantrymen or unarmed pioneers repairing roads and bridges.
Chapter 3
What did the 1866 and 1869 laws establishing black Regular Army regiments also do?
The laws guaranteed the existence of four black Regular Army regiments, designated in 1869 as the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry, but they also institutionalized segregation, granting federal recognition to a racially separate system theoretically equal in treatment and opportunity a generation before Plessy v. Ferguson. The chapter notes few in the black community complained, since the regiments' guaranteed existence mattered greatly.
Chapter 3
How did black participation in the Navy change between the Civil War and World War I?
Negroes served in an integrated Navy through most of the nineteenth century, averaging 20 to 30 percent of enlisted strength in the latter half. But employment was abruptly curtailed after 1900, paralleling Jim Crow segregation; by 1909 black sailors were mostly in the galley and engine room. Only 6,750 black sailors, 1.2 percent of enlistment, served in World War I, chiefly in mess duty and coal passing.
Chapter 3
What explains black recruitment in World War I despite resistance from Army leaders?
The chapter states acceptance stemmed from the Army's pressing need for additional manpower, though it was not certain early on that this need would prevail over leaders' reluctance to arm large groups of Negroes, with Brownsville and Houston still remembered. The author also notes Wilson's promise to make the world safe for democracy forced his administration to admit Negroes. The National Army conscripted some 368,000 Negroes, 13.08 percent of those drafted.
Chapter 3

Section 44 cards

What was the Double V campaign and what did it call for?
The Double V campaign was a black press campaign calling for simultaneous victories over Jim Crow segregation at home and fascism abroad during World War II. According to the chapter, it was not limited to a small group of civil rights spokesmen but reflected a new mood permeating all classes of black society, which Myrdal noted and which may mark the beginning of the modern civil rights movement.
Chapter 4
What did the Wagner amendment to the Selective Service Act provide?
Senator Robert F. Wagner's amendment guaranteed that any person aged eighteen to thirty-five, regardless of race or color, would be afforded the opportunity to voluntarily enlist and be inducted into the land and naval forces, including aviation units, if acceptable to those forces. It passed the Senate 53 to 21 without a filibuster, though senators from Louisiana and Alabama objected that it would lead to mixed units.
Chapter 4
What did the Fish amendment add to the Selective Service Act?
Congressman Hamilton Fish introduced a measure aimed at draftees rather than volunteers. It passed the House 121 to 99 and survived the House-Senate conference, making the law read that in selection and training of men and execution of the law 'there shall be no discrimination against any person on account of race or color.' The chapter notes it had little immediate impact on the services' racial patterns.
Chapter 4
How did NAACP goals shift from Houston's 1934 position to White's 1939 demands?
In 1934 Charles Houston and the NAACP emphasized numbers, seeking a quota guaranteeing Negroes at least 10 percent of military strength and defending existing black regiments and similar segregated units. By 1939 Walter White rejected new segregated units as unsatisfactory and urged Roosevelt to appoint a commission to investigate discrimination and recommend removing racial barriers, reflecting the shift toward demanding integration.
Chapter 4

Section 53 cards

What did the March on Washington Movement achieve, and at what price?
The President's meeting with the march leaders won the administration a reprieve from the threat of a mass civil rights demonstration in Washington, but at the price of promising substantial reform in minority hiring for defense industries and creating the Fair Employment Practices Committee to coordinate the reform. The chapter notes it prompted no similar reform in the armed forces' racial policies, though it signaled the start of a popularly based campaign against military segregation.
Chapter 5
Why did civil rights leaders concentrate their campaign on the armed forces?
The chapter says black leaders focused on the services because they were public institutions whose officials were sworn to uphold the Constitution. Leaders also understood that disciplinary powers peculiar to the services enabled them to make changes other organizations could not; the armed forces could command where others could only persuade. The Army bore the brunt because the draft law made it the nation's largest employer of minority groups.
Chapter 5
What racial policy did the Army announce in October 1940?
Released through the White House on 9 October, the statement said the Army would accept Negroes in numbers approximate to their proportion of the national population, about 10 percent. Black officers and enlisted men would serve only in black units formed in each major branch, including air units once specialists were trained. There would be no racial intermingling in regimental organizations, since separation had proved satisfactory and change would destroy morale.
Chapter 5

Section 63 cards

What did the Army representative tell black editors about the Army and social change on 8 December 1941?
Col Eugene R. Householder of The Adjutant General's Office declared the Army "is not a sociological laboratory," arguing military orders cannot change soldiers' racial views and that experiments to satisfy every race and creed would endanger efficiency, discipline, and morale and lead to ultimate defeat. Many present treated his speech as the final word on integration during the war.
Chapter 6
Why did the Army's mental tests disadvantage black recruits despite measuring education rather than intelligence?
The AGCT measured educational achievement, which in 1941 depended on geography and economics. Most black recruits came from areas with inferior schools and poverty, so 49.2 percent scored in Category V versus 8.5 percent of whites. Because low-scoring whites could be spread across many units while low-scoring blacks were concentrated in few black units, segregation made absorption and training harder.
Chapter 6
What did McCloy tell Judge Hastie about segregation and the war's basic issues?
Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy wrote that he did not think the war's basic issues involved whether colored troops served in segregated or mixed units, doubting Americans could be convinced otherwise. He warned that if the United States lost, the black community would be far worse off, and urged unstinting support for the war in anticipation of benefits after victory.
Chapter 6

Section 74 cards

Why did the 477th Bombardment Group face a pilot shortage in late 1943?
The Army Air Forces organized the black 477th Bombardment Group in late 1943 but found too few black pilots and crewmen. Fewer blacks than whites were in the manpower pool because of limited technical and educational opportunities, and Tuskegee, already overburdened and unable to train bomber crews, could not fill the gap. Rather than send cadets to white schools, the Air Forces postponed the 477th, which was not declared operational until after the war.
Chapter 7
What did the Chamberlain Plan propose for black recruits, and what happened to it?
Col. Edwin W. Chamberlain's G-3 group argued in fall 1942 that segregating black recruits wasted manpower and aggravated racial friction. He proposed halting new black units and placing low-scoring (categories IV and V) black recruits into white units at one black to nine whites as cooks, orderlies, and drivers, with higher-scoring blacks sent to existing black units. The plan was abandoned amid service and ground forces opposition.
Chapter 7
Why did the Army reverse its prewar decision against all-black divisions?
The Army had decided in the 1920's, partly from the 92d Division's World War I record, not to form more black divisions, using the regiment as the basic black unit. But with mounting black draftees and the Chamberlain Plan abandoned, the staff reversed course: the 93d was reactivated in spring 1942, the 92d that fall, and the 2d Cavalry Division in February 1943. Each could absorb 15,000 or more men.
Chapter 7
How did Stimson and McNutt clash over the racial quota in Selective Service?
War Manpower Commission chairman Paul V. McNutt called racial quotas of questionable legality and planned to abandon them by January 1944. Secretary Stimson defended the quotas as not discriminatory so long as the Army took its fair percentage, citing the Selective Service Act's 'unless and until' acceptability clause and arguing Negroes were acceptable only at a rate they could be assimilated. A crisis was averted when Army demands outran black inductees from spring 1943.
Chapter 7

Section 84 cards

How did the War Department justify its handling of Negro troops?
The War Department insisted it had no authority or intention to participate in social reform; it framed the Negro soldier issue solely as efficient troop utilization. With a ceiling on Army strength, it held that all officers must ensure the most efficient use of assigned manpower. This rationale came from War Department Pamphlet 20-6, Command of Negro Troops (February 1944), and Army Service Forces Manual M-5.
Chapter 8
What effects did segregation have on black soldiers' morale?
The chapter states segregation deepened the Negro's sense of inferiority and devastated his morale, becoming a major cause of poor performance and disciplinary problems in many black units. It also led black soldiers to blame personal difficulties, many common to any soldier, on racial discrimination. The author argues these effects were more serious for the one in ten black soldiers than segregation's damage to Army organization.
Chapter 8
Why was the Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies created?
Deteriorating morale in black units and pressure from articulate Negroes and their sympathizers pushed the War Department to address its race problem. On 27 August 1942 Secretary Stimson established the Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies, chaired by Assistant Secretary McCloy, after agreeing with a General Staff recommendation for a permanent committee. Caught between black demands and Army traditions, it initially collected information and served as a clearinghouse.
Chapter 8
What obstacles limited black officers' employment in the Army?
Although segregated units logically required a black officer corps, in 1942 only 0.35 percent of Negro soldiers were officers. When black officers increased, obstacles appeared: some white commanders demanded white officers, limited segregated facilities blocked assignments, civilian communities opposed them, and staff practice forbade Negroes to outrank or command white officers in the same unit, undermining their status with enlisted men.
Chapter 8

Section 94 cards

Why did the Army staff refuse to revise its racial policy during the war?
The Army staff insisted segregation was a national issue and that the Army's task was to defend the country, not alter its social customs. Until the nation changed its racial practices or Congress ordered changes for the armed forces, racially separated units would remain. Except for discussion of the Chamberlain Plan, there was no serious thought of revising racial policy in the Army staff until after the war.
Chapter 9
What did the 1942-43 surveys of soldiers show about support for segregation?
One survey of 13,000 soldiers in ninety-two units found 88 percent of whites and 38 percent of Negroes preferred segregated units; 85 percent of whites preferred separate service clubs and 81 percent separate post exchanges, and almost half of Negroes thought separate clubs and exchanges were a good idea. A 1943 Office of War Information survey of five cities found 90 percent of whites and 25 percent of blacks supported segregation.
Chapter 9
How did the Special Services Division qualify the survey support for segregation?
Reviewing the surveys, the Special Services Division commented that many Negroes and some whites who favored separation indicated by their comments that they opposed segregation in principle, favoring separation in the Army only to avoid trouble or unpleasantness. Its report added that the longer a Negro remained in the Army, the less likely he was to support segregation.
Chapter 9
What did General Marshall adopt and reject from the Advisory Committee's recommendations?
Marshall incorporated the committee's recommendations in a letter to the field, warning that a commander's failure to concern himself personally and vigorously with the problem would be evidence of lack of capacity and cause for reclassification and removal. But he did not require commanders to recommend policy changes or report on steps taken, and did not order black combat units to active theaters.
Chapter 9

Section 104 cards

What was the purpose of the February 1944 pamphlet Command of Negro Troops?
The War Department issued Command of Negro Troops (WD Pamphlet 20-6) in February 1944 to give local commanders an official definition of Army racial policy and to improve leadership development in black units. The chapter calls it a landmark publication that frankly stated the Army's racial problems and outlined black rights and responsibilities, reflecting the committee's aim of fostering harmony through greater command responsibility. It served as a model for later Army and Navy statements on race.
Chapter 10
What did the 8 July 1944 War Department directive require regarding recreational facilities?
The directive told commanders that facilities could be allocated to specific areas or units, but post exchanges and theaters had to be open to all soldiers regardless of race. All government transportation was to be available to all troops, and soldiers could not be restricted to certain sections of government vehicles on or off base, regardless of local customs. The black press called it the anti-Jim Crow law, though some commanders limited its application.
Chapter 10
Why did the Army integrate officer candidate training, and what problem did early enrollment reveal?
The Army integrated officer candidate schools to avoid the World War I mistake of a separate black school at Fort Des Moines, which lowered standards and produced officers many commanders judged inadequate. Planners preferred training blacks alongside whites under the same leadership standards. But ignoring race in directives meant few black candidates were nominated: only seventeen of 1,997 students enrolled between July and October 1941 were Negroes, with six more in the next two months.
Chapter 10
How did Acting Secretary Patterson distinguish Army racial policy on post from off-post customs?
Patterson wrote that the War Department was not an appropriate medium for effecting social readjustments, but insisted all soldiers regardless of race enjoy equal opportunity at recreational facilities on posts, camps, and stations. Men fulfilling the same obligation and wearing the same uniform should have the same privileges for rest and relaxation within the military establishment. This marked a clear distinction between Army policy on federal reservations and local civilian laws and customs observed off post.
Chapter 10

Section 114 cards

What did the Army's first formal integration experiment involve, and what did it prove?
Officer candidate training was the Army's first formal experiment with integration. Black and white candidates generally trained together, though some schools still segregated billeting and messing, and the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps segregated black candidates until late 1942. The author argues the experiment proved the Army would abandon segregation when economy and efficiency issues were made sufficiently clear and compelling.
Chapter 11
What prompted General Lee's plan for black infantry volunteers in December 1944?
The need for infantry replacements during the Allied advance across Western Europe in summer and fall 1944 prompted it. General Lee suggested black service troops be allowed to volunteer for infantry training as individual replacements. Eisenhower agreed, and on 26 December Lee called for volunteers, limited to privates in the upper four AGCT categories with some infantry training; noncommissioned officers had to accept a reduction in grade.
Chapter 11
How did Eisenhower revise Lee's circular, and what did the revision fail to clarify?
Eisenhower eliminated the special call for black volunteers and the promise of individual integration, substituting a general appeal and saying excess suitable Negro volunteers would be 'suitably incorporated in other organizations.' The revision was unclear: it mentioned replacement needs of black combat units, but no black infantry units were in the theater, and the replacement command could not retrain men for artillery, tank, and tank destroyer units.
Chapter 11
What did the May–June 1945 survey of white officers and sergeants find about black rifle platoons?
Trained interviewers asked 250 officers and platoon sergeants in seven infantry divisions, plus an unsigned questionnaire to about 1,700 white enlisted men; no black soldier was asked his opinion. Over 80 percent of officers and NCOs said the black troops performed 'very well'; 77 percent reported more favorable feelings afterward, none less favorable. Enlisted men often changed from distrust to respect after combat.
Chapter 11

Section 124 cards

What did Judge Hastie argue about segregation to War Department officials?
Hastie repeatedly argued before the highest War Department officials that segregation itself was discriminatory. His recommendations, criticisms, and arguments crystallized the demands of civil rights leaders. The Army resisted this proposition, and its Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies under John McCloy modified but did not appreciably alter the segregation policy.
Chapter 12
What inefficiency did McCloy and others see in Army segregation?
The chapter notes that both civil rights activists and Army leaders tended to ignore that segregation was inefficient. Segregated units caused myriad problems, in contrast to the efficient integrated officer candidate schools and integrated infantry platoons in Europe. McCloy was an exception, dissatisfied with the policy's inefficiency, and after the Japanese surrender he questioned Navy Secretary Forrestal about Navy integration experiments.
Chapter 12
How did the Bureau of Navigation justify excluding Negroes from general service?
The Bureau of Navigation reasoned that since segregation was impractical, exclusion was necessary. It claimed experience proved Negroes given supervisory responsibility could not maintain discipline among white subordinates, harming teamwork, harmony, and ship's efficiency. All-black units were deemed impossible because the training and distribution system required any man in a rating to be available for any duty in any ship or activity.
Chapter 12
What compromise did Roosevelt suggest at the June 1941 White House conference?
Roosevelt agreed with Knox that integration was impractical in wartime, but where Knox saw exclusion as the alternative, Roosevelt sought a compromise. He suggested the Navy 'make a beginning' by putting some 'good Negro bands' aboard battleships so white and black would learn to know and respect each other, then 'move on from there.' Knox ignored the suggestion.
Chapter 12

Section 134 cards

Why did Secretary Knox oppose integrating general service during the war?
Knox argued he could not risk crews "impaired in efficiency because of racial prejudice" while a war was being fought. He claimed enough skilled men could not be found even from the entire Negro population, and that limiting Negroes to steward duties prevented them from rising to command whites, which he said "instantly provokes serious trouble." He conceded the problem would have to be faced someday, but not during a war.
Chapter 13
What did Rear Adm. Snyder propose to the General Board in January 1942?
Snyder suggested employing Negroes outside the servant class: in the Musician's Branch (calling the race "very musical"), the Aviation Branch where the Army reported some success, and on auxiliaries and minor vessels such as transports. He foresaw segregated training schools and admitted the program would be "troublesome," but argued the Navy had to begin accepting Negroes somewhere, even if segregated.
Chapter 13
What plan did the General Board recommend in February 1942, and how did Roosevelt respond?
After bureaus opposed any change, the board reported it could submit no plan and urged the current policy stand, calling discrimination part of similar discrimination nationwide. Roosevelt rejected the exclusion-versus-total-integration choice, wanting further study of assignments that would not "inject" the race question. The board then recommended segregated black units ashore, local defense craft, Seabees regiments, and composite Marine battalions.
Chapter 13
What did Knox announce on 7 April 1942, and how did black leaders react?
Knox announced the Navy would accept 277 black volunteers weekly for all general-service ratings in the reserve components of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, aiming for 14,000 in the first year, with entry awaiting segregated facilities. Reactions were mixed: the Crisis called it progress and the National Negro Congress praised Knox, but critics noted segregation, limits to petty officer rank, and exclusion from sea duty except as stewards.
Chapter 13

Section 144 cards

Why did black volunteers show little interest in the Navy early in the war?
The chapter states that Negroes shunned the Navy because of its recent reputation as the exclusive preserve of white America. The Navy only began to overcome this reluctance after assigning black recruiting specialists to naval districts and using black chief petty officers, World War I reservists, at recruiting centers to explain new opportunities. Before that, over half of the few who volunteered were rejected, and seventeen-year-old inductees chose the Army over the Navy at a ratio of 10 to 1.
Chapter 14
What did Stimson propose about Navy recruitment, and how did Roosevelt respond?
Secretary Stimson complained to Roosevelt that voluntary recruiting let the Navy avoid accepting any considerable number of Negroes, leaving the Army to absorb a greater proportion with adverse effect on combat efficiency; he proposed the Navy take recruits from Selective Service. Roosevelt refused, accepting the Navy's argument that segregation would be difficult to maintain on board ship, and said it was best to continue the present system at that time.
Chapter 14
What did Executive Order 9279 of 5 December 1942 direct?
The chapter states that the President directed the discontinuance in all services of volunteer enlistment of men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-eight, beginning in February 1943, when all men in this age group would be obtained through Selective Service. The order also placed Selective Service under the War Manpower Commission. This followed broader manpower conflicts, of which the question of the number of Negroes in the Navy was only part.
Chapter 14
How did the Navy distribute its increased black strength, and what operating rules guided it?
Knox told Roosevelt the Navy would continue to segregate Negroes and restrict them to certain occupations: twenty-seven new black Seabee battalions serving overseas as stevedores, black crews for harbor craft and local defense, and billets for cooks and port hands, with the rest sent to shore stations for guard and miscellaneous duties up to about 50 percent of station strength. The bureau assigned Negroes only where need existed and, when possible, kept northern Negroes out of the south.
Chapter 14

Section 154 cards

Why were educated Black sailors a major source of racial tension in the Navy?
Black specialists trained in segregated schools found so few billets in their ratings that they were often assigned to unskilled laboring jobs instead. Many were among the best-educated Negroes in the Navy and natural leaders. They resented being barred from fighting, and their resentment spread through the thousands of Negroes in the shore establishment, becoming a prime cause of racial tension.
Chapter 15
How did the Navy respond to protests about excluding Black women from the WAVES and Nurse Corps?
No Black women had been admitted to the Navy. Race was not mentioned in the 1942 WAVES legislation, but exclusion by color was not expressly forbidden either, so the WAVES, SPARS, and Marine Women's Reserve stayed all-white. The Navy Nurse Corps was also totally white. In November 1943 the Navy admitted a 500-nurse shortage but said 500 white nurses were already in training, so the need for colored personnel was 'not apparent.'
Chapter 15
What did the Special Programs Unit do about illiterate Black draftees and misassigned specialists?
The unit established a remedial training center at Camp Robert Smalls, staffed by Black servicemen who had been educators, giving a twelve-week course equal to a fifth-grade education plus recruit training; about 15,000 Negroes took it before consolidation at Bainbridge. It also attacked improper assignments, getting the bureau to rule in December 1943 that, except for supply units at South Boston and Norfolk, no Black sailor could be assigned to civilian-type jobs like maintenance and stevedoring in the continental United States.
Chapter 15
What did the USS Mason experiment reveal, and how did the bureau and Special Programs Unit interpret it?
In early 1944 the bureau assigned 196 Black enlisted men and 44 white officers and petty officers to the USS Mason, a new destroyer escort, plus 53 Black rated seamen to PC 1264. The Mason passed its shakedown, but bureau observers said rated men generally could not maintain discipline and nonrated men lacked respect for petty officers. The Special Programs Unit conceded this but argued it only proved Black sailors did not respond well in all-Black organizations under white officers, while showing a reservoir of able but underused seamen.
Chapter 15

Section 164 cards

What did Adlai Stevenson recommend to Secretary Knox in September 1943?
Stevenson recommended the Navy commission ten or twelve Negroes from among "top notch civilians just as we procure white officers" and a few from the ranks, treating it as a matter of course without special publicity. He warned that with 12,000 Negroes inducted monthly, demand for black officers would mount, and suspicion of discrimination was hurting recruitment of the best qualified.
Chapter 16
What did Knox stipulate when he approved commissioning twenty-two black officers in December 1943?
Knox approved the Bureau of Naval Personnel's recommendation of twelve line and twenty-two total staff officers, but conditioned approval: "After you have commissioned the twenty-two officers you suggest, I think this matter should again be reviewed before any additional colored officers are commissioned." Admiral King had endorsed the bureau's recommendation before Knox's conditional approval on 15 December 1943.
Chapter 16
What happened to the first sixteen black officer candidates at Great Lakes in 1944?
Entering segregated training on 1 January 1944, all sixteen survived the course, but only twelve were commissioned as line officers on 17 March. In the final week, three were returned to the ranks not for failing but because the bureau suddenly limited the first group to twelve. A thirteenth man, the only one without a college degree, became a warrant officer for outstanding work.
Chapter 16
What did the 1944 Guide to the Command of Negro Naval Personnel state about segregation?
The pamphlet, published February 1944, stated officially for the first time that discrimination flowed of necessity out of the doctrine of segregation. It noted compulsory racial segregation was disliked by almost all Negroes and hated by many, partly because it embodied a doctrine of racial inferiority. The Special Programs Unit overcame internal bureau opposition to publish it.
Chapter 16

Section 174 cards

What limits did Admiral King set for assigning Negroes to fleet auxiliaries in August 1944?
King set the maximum number of Negroes at 10 percent of a ship's general service. Of these, 15 percent would be third-class petty officers from shore activities, chosen as far as possible from volunteers and those with the longest shore duty. The rest would come 43 percent from Class A schools and 42 percent from recruit training. The 10 percent figure proved a theoretical maximum; no ship received that many.
Chapter 17
How did Admiral King handle berthing and preparation for integrated auxiliary ships?
King insisted on equal treatment in training, promotion, and duty assignments, but left berthing to commanding officers. He noted that shore experience showed blacks and whites could share compartments successfully when the black percentage was small. He also said thorough indoctrination of white sailors before the Negroes arrived had helped prevent racial friction ashore.
Chapter 17
Why did traditionalists in the Bureau of Naval Personnel oppose admitting Negroes to the WAVES?
They argued the WAVES were organized to replace men, and since there were more than enough black sailors to fill all billets open to Negroes, there was no need to recruit black women. The chapter says both this and McAfee's argument masked other motives, as did Knox's rejection on grounds that integrating women was difficult enough without the race problem.
Chapter 17
How did the black WAVES program become more racially progressive than Forrestal initially outlined?
Forrestal told the President the women would be quartered separately, which the bureau read as separate recruit companies of 250. Captain McAfee insisted on a personal ruling, warning the concept was strange to Navy practice. Forrestal agreed the Negroes would be integrated with other recruits, and the bureau ordered the WAVES assimilated without special or separate arrangements.
Chapter 17

Section 182 cards

Why did the Navy close its black specialist training schools?
The Special Programs Unit found integration in specialist training relatively easy because too few Negroes were eligible to justify costly duplication of equipment and services. The black aviation metalsmith school at Great Lakes averaged only eight students in 1943, so it was quietly closed and its students integrated with whites. The bureau closed the last black school in June 1945.
Chapter 18
Why did Admiral King reject integrating net tender and mine ship crews?
On 30 August 1944 King rejected a bureau recommendation to integrate crews of net tenders and mine ships. He reasoned these vessels were kept in readiness for overseas assignment and required the highest degree of experienced seamanship and precision work. He also cited crowded living quarters and less experienced officers as further reasons for banning Negroes.
Chapter 18

Section 194 cards

What did Forrestal do instead of creating an advisory council and full-time assistant?
Forrestal rejected Granger's proposal for a race relations council and a full-time black assistant in the secretary's office, pleading he must avoid creating another formal organization. Instead he assembled an informal committee, inviting Granger to join, to standardize the Navy's handling of Negroes.
Chapter 19
Why did the Bureau of Naval Personnel order integration of recruit training in June 1945?
The bureau ordered black general service recruits assigned to the nearest recruit training command for maximum utilization of training and housing facilities. It acknowledged the change was at variance with some individual attitudes but justified it on administrative efficiency grounds.
Chapter 19
What forces does the chapter credit for the Navy's wartime racial progress?
The chapter credits political pressure from civil rights spokesmen and allies in Congress and the parties, which led Roosevelt to demand an end to exclusion. It also stresses the Navy's own internal civil rights advocates pressing reform in the name of military efficiency, while cautioning that civil rights influence on the Navy was sporadic and easily deflected.
Chapter 19
How limited was black participation in the Navy on V-J day?
The Navy counted 164,942 enlisted Negroes, 5.37 percent of enlisted strength, less than half the national ratio. It had 60 black officers, including 6 women, and 68 unsegregated enlisted WAVES. About 68,000 black men, roughly 40 percent, were in steward ratings, and most others served in segregated labor units.
Chapter 19

Section 204 cards

Why did the Marine Corps keep early black reservists on inactive status after 1 June 1942?
Although black enlistment in the Marines began on 1 June 1942, the corps held the reservists on inactive status until it could enlist a training-size unit and build segregated facilities at Montford Point, on the New River reservation in North Carolina (later Camp Lejeune). The first contingent began recruit training on 26 August as the 51st Composite Defense Battalion under Col. Samuel A. Woods, Jr.
Chapter 20
What recruiting restrictions did the commandant initially place on black Marine enlistment?
The commandant set black quotas for three of the four recruiting divisions and required more than half of recruits to qualify in needed specialist skills, hoping to avoid training men as typists and truck drivers. The west coast division was excluded on the theory that few volunteers would appear and sending them to North Carolina would be too expensive; only white marines trained in California.
Chapter 20
Why did the Marine Corps' strict occupational qualifications slow black enlistment?
By 29 October only 647 of the scheduled 1,200 men had enlisted. The Director of Plans and Policies blamed the occupational qualifications, doubting even white recruits could be procured under such strictures. The commandant then approved enlisting Negroes without specific qualifications and a modified specialist training: black marines would not attend specialist schools unless a colored school existed, so instructors taught in the black camp, and many first specialists trained at nearby Army installations.
Chapter 20
What did Commandant Holcomb instruct regarding black noncommissioned officers and white marines?
In his May 1943 instruction Holcomb said all Marines were entitled to the same rights and privileges under Navy Regulations and wanted white noncommissioned officers removed from black units to protect morale. But he also insisted no black noncommissioned officer be senior to a white man in the same unit and that few, if any, be of the same rank, wanting black corporals transferred before promotion out of units containing white corporals.
Chapter 20

Section 213 cards

What role did the 51st Defense Battalion play for other black Marine units?
The 51st was the first black Marine unit and effectively served as a specialist training school. Its cadre was drawn on to staff the Recruit Depot Battalion at Montford Point, ammunition and depot companies, and the 52d Defense Battalion. By deployment it had been reorganized several times and lost many of its best men as leaders for new units, while absorbing inexperienced draftees.
Chapter 21
How were the two black defense battalions deployed compared with white ones?
When the Marine Corps dismantled defense battalions in 1944, the eighteen white units were reorganized as antiaircraft artillery battalions for forward amphibious groups. The two black battalions were also reorganized but assigned to routine garrison duty in rear areas: the 51st at Eniwetok and the 52d at Guam, where nearly half its combat-trained men worked as stevedores. The author argues racial considerations governed deployment.
Chapter 21
What opportunities were black Marines denied during the war?
Black Marines were excluded from the corps' combat divisions and its air arm, and from the Women's Reserve. Not until the last months of the war did the corps accept its first black officer candidates; spokesmen justified the delay by claiming the corps lacked segregated facilities for training black officers. The author notes civil rights protests to Secretary Knox and the White House achieved little.
Chapter 21

Section 224 cards

What did the General Board chairman argue about assigning Black Coast Guardsmen to small vessels?
Admiral Sexton told Secretary Knox that assigning Black men to captains of the ports allowed segregation in service units, but assignment to small vessels made "necessary segregation and limitation of authority" harder to maintain and left few opportunities for advancement. He concluded such use was practical but not desirable. The General Board was overruled.
Chapter 22
How was training of the first 150 Black Coast Guard volunteers organized at Manhattan Beach?
Recruited in spring 1942, they formed a separate training company because the program was too small for a separate station. Training classes and duty activities were integrated, but sleeping and messing facilities were segregated. The author notes this impressed recruits with the reality of segregation, though they were not geographically separated like sailors at Camp Smalls.
Chapter 22
Why did the Coast Guard's mission make large segregated units impractical for Black draftees?
By January 1943 the Steward's Branch could absorb only half the expected Black draftees, forcing the rest into general service. The Coast Guard had no ammunition, depot, or large Seabee-style units, so about 37 percent of Black Coast Guardsmen served in general service, making integration inevitable; the small numbers (1,300 men, under 1 percent) made it socially acceptable.
Chapter 22
What did Lt. Carlton Skinner recommend in June 1943, and how was it received?
Skinner proposed giving Black seamen practical seagoing experience under a sympathetic commander in a fully integrated operation, distributing them across seagoing vessels. He stressed this was efficient manpower use for the war, not an experiment in social democracy. His immediate superior marked it "disapproved," but Admiral Waesche accepted, transferring Skinner to command the Sea Cloud.
Chapter 22

Section 234 cards

How did black Coast Guard officers first typically reach a commission?
The position of instructor at Manhattan Beach became the usual avenue to a commission for a Negro. Joseph C. Jenkins went from Manhattan Beach to officer candidate school at the Coast Guard Academy, graduating as an ensign in the Coast Guard Reserve in April 1943, almost a year before Negroes were commissioned in the Navy. Clarence Samuels, a warrant officer and instructor there, was commissioned as a lieutenant (junior grade) and assigned to the Sea Cloud in 1943.
Chapter 23
What did Samuels and Russell achieve with integrated crews during and after the war?
These men commanded integrated enlisted seamen throughout the rest of the war. Samuels became the first Negro in this century to command a Coast Guard vessel in wartime, first as captain of Lightship No. 115 and later of the USCGC Sweetgum in the Panama Sea Frontier. Russell was transferred from the integrated Hoquim to serve as executive officer on a cutter operating out of the Philippines, assuming command of the racially mixed crew shortly after the war.
Chapter 23
Why did blacks never exceed 2.1 percent of Coast Guard wartime personnel?
Negroes never rose above 2.1 percent of the Coast Guard's wartime population, well below the figures for the other services. This was because the other services were forced to obtain draft-age men, including a significant number of black inductees from Selective Service, whereas the Coast Guard ceased all inductions in early 1944. The author notes this progress was experienced by only a minuscule group.
Chapter 23
How did the Coast Guard integrate its Women's Reserve, the SPARS?
At the behest of the White House, the Coast Guard joined with the Navy in integrating its Women's Reserve. In the fall of 1944 it recruited five black women for the SPARS. The author calls this only token representation, but understandable since the SPARS ceased all recruitment except for replacements on 23 November 1944, just weeks after the decision to recruit Negroes was announced. The five trained at Manhattan Beach and were assigned to district offices without regard to race.
Chapter 23

Section 244 cards

What did the Freeman Field incident concern regarding a post commander's authority?
In April 1945 black officers at Freeman Field, Indiana, demonstrated against segregation of the officers' club. The issue was whether a post commander could exclude individuals on grounds of race from recreational facilities on an Army post. The Army Air Forces backed the commander, arguing the Army should follow rather than depart from national custom against racial intermingling.
Chapter 24
How did Assistant Secretary McCloy resolve the Freeman Field dispute?
McCloy considered the Army Air Forces' position a backward step, reversing the War Department stance in an earlier similar case at Selfridge Field, Michigan. He contended that a commander's administrative discretion did not extend to excluding individuals from recreational facilities provided by the federal government or maintained with its funds. Secretary of War Stimson agreed to amend basic policy accordingly.
Chapter 24
What did the Le Havre and Bremerhaven incidents reveal about Navy policy?
At Le Havre in December 1945, Navy officers objected to 123 black enlisted men because the ship could not provide separate accommodations; Army port authorities substituted a group with only one black officer and five black enlisted men. Secretary Forrestal had declared the Navy did not differentiate by race and reiterated this for all services, yet six months later port officials at Bremerhaven withdrew black officers and men, citing segregation as War Department policy.
Chapter 24
What demands did civil rights spokesmen make for postwar use of black servicemen?
They demanded fair representation of Negroes in postwar forces, training and employment in all military specialties, and promotion of a proportionate share of competent black officers and noncommissioned officers, stressing the link between poor leaders and poor units. They highlighted off-base humiliations, including German POWs fed in a railroad restaurant while their black guards ate outside, and urged complete abolition of segregation in the peacetime Army and Navy.
Chapter 24

Section 254 cards

Why did Truman Gibson doubt the Army's questionnaire on Negro troops?
Gibson doubted soliciting information from senior commanders, believing they would offer subjective material of little real assistance. He argued that mere injunctions of objectivity do not work in the racial field, where decisions are often made on emotion, prejudice, or pre-existing opinion. He suggested scientific inquiry into soldiers' attitudes and public opinion instead.
Chapter 25
How did the black press react to Gibson's Rome press conference on the 92d Division?
News reports stressed Gibson's confirmation of the division's disappointing performance but neglected his reasons for its failure. Many organizations and journals condemned his evaluation outright; the NAACP's Crisis charged he had 'carried the ball for the War Department.' Other black journals took a more detached view, saying his remarks revealed nothing new and that segregation was the real problem.
Chapter 25
What did Lt. Col. Marcus H. Ray conclude caused the 92d Division's problems?
Ray concluded the division was doomed from activation by racial antipathy, distrust, and prejudice. Withholding promotion from deserving black officers and preferential assignments for white officers prolonged the malady. He argued the basic misconception was that southern white officers understood Negroes, promoting those who fit the stereotype while discouraging self-reliant leaders. He called it a failure of white leadership.
Chapter 25
How did Generals Truscott, Devers, and Almond explain the 92d's infantry shortcomings?
Truscott endorsed a board's view that many infantrymen 'would not fight,' while praising white commanders. Devers said the infantry failed because their commanders weren't good enough. Almond later claimed the division did many things well — artillery, technical units, intelligence work — but infantry elements tended to 'melt away,' which he blamed on black riflemen's lack of dedication.
Chapter 25

Section 264 cards

What did Gibson argue the comparison of the 92d Division with integrated black platoons would show?
Gibson believed the comparison would demonstrate that the Army's segregation policy needed critical reexamination. He cited "many officers" who thought problems with large segregated combat units justified abolishing them in favor of integrating black platoons into larger white units. He concluded such integration would not abolish segregation completely but would let the Army use men and small units on the basis of ability alone.
Chapter 26
How did senior officers responding to the McCloy questionnaire characterize black soldiers and what did they want retained?
With few exceptions they gave uniform reactions: they described frustration training and employing black units, called black soldiers unreliable and inefficient, and criticized black officers and NCOs. They blamed racial disturbances on agitators plus poor morale and a sense of discrimination. Yet they wanted to retain segregation in smaller units, mostly commanded by white officers, and many believed segregation enhanced black pride.
Chapter 26
What did the Army Air Forces admit about black and white individuals with similar aptitude and test scores?
The Army Air Forces admitted that individuals of both races with similar aptitudes and test scores had the same success in technical schools, could be trained as pilots and technicians in the same period, and showed the same mechanical proficiency. Yet black units required considerably more training time, sometimes because they were understrength. It also admitted whites advanced further than blacks even after discounting time in service and job assignment, offering no explanation.
Chapter 26
What did the Army Ground Forces study conclude about proportional black service and battle losses?
The Army Ground Forces study concluded that the conception that Negroes should serve in the military, or particular parts of it, or sustain battle losses in proportion to their population in the United States, may be desirable but is impracticable and should be abandoned in the interest of a logical solution to utilizing Negroes in the armed forces. The study was shot full with blatant racism, quoting a 1925 War College study on the black officer.
Chapter 26

Section 274 cards

Why did the Army avoid racial innovations in 1945, according to the chapter?
The author explains that the Army feared any innovation might jeopardize its chance for universal military training, then under congressional discussion. Southern congressmen's votes hinged on how the Army would use and train Negroes, so prudence dictated avoiding changes. Many officers also prioritized Army stability, believing mixing the races was a dangerous move bordering on irresponsibility.
Chapter 27
How did Army commanders and civil rights spokesmen differ on black units' wartime performance?
Commanders generally agreed that, with certain exceptions such as small service and combat support units, black units performed below the Army average and well below the best white units; they recommended making these units smaller and filling them with better-qualified men. Most civil rights spokesmen and their allies in the Army instead viewed segregation itself as the underlying cause of poor performance.
Chapter 27
What did the Navy's Committee on Negro Personnel recommend in May 1945?
The committee found current policies sound but recommended sweeping change: Negroes available for assignment to all ships and shore stations in all classifications, selected solely on merit; gradual assimilation to end shore concentration; attacking the Steward's Branch by assigning white stewards and letting qualified stewards transfer to general service; legal advisers at major trials; and better public relations and indoctrination.
Chapter 27
What key omissions did the Navy committee's recommendations have, per the chapter?
The author notes the committee overlooked the dearth of black officers and the Marine Corps' continued strict segregation, and ignored Granger's key proposal guaranteeing Negroes a place in the Regular Navy. Almost all Negroes in general service were reservists, and nearly all black regulars were stewards. Without assurance of conversion or regular enlistment, the integration recommendations lacked substance, yet Forrestal ignored these gaps.
Chapter 27

Section 284 cards

What did Granger identify as the primary cause of the Navy's racial problems?
Granger stressed that segregation itself, not merely overt prejudice, was the primary cause of the Navy's racial troubles. He called segregation impractical and inefficient because racial isolation bred suspicion, which inflamed resentment and provoked insubordination. He recommended eliminating all special provisions and cautions regarding black employment, arguing the racial factor would disappear only when such problems were treated as part of the Navy's general efficiency program.
Chapter 28
Why did Granger consider black base companies badly conceived?
Granger regarded base companies as badly conceived from the racial standpoint because they were composed almost entirely of nonrated men, leaving no spaces for black petty officers. The subordinate leadership needed to support officers' authority was absent, as were chances for individual advancement. Some units were re-formed into logistic support companies with new ratings quickly filled, a partial remedy that left many Pacific base companies unchanged.
Chapter 28
How did the Marine Corps compare with the rest of the naval establishment?
The Marine Corps lagged far behind the rest of the naval establishment, with little pretense of conforming to the Navy's racial policy. Black marines remained rigidly segregated and none of the few qualified black officer candidates had been commissioned. About 85 percent of black marines in the Pacific were in depot, ammunition, and steward companies, often mismatched to their qualifications, and some were denied schooling privileges given to whites of similar status.
Chapter 28
What did Granger concede about black numbers in the postwar Regular Navy?
Despite earlier insistence on a fair percentage of Negroes in the postwar Regular Navy, Granger conceded the number and proportion would probably decrease in peacetime. He doubted black enlistment would exceed 5 percent of total strength, a manageable proportion, and saw advantages in smaller numbers: as educational standards rose, integrating fewer but better qualified Negroes would make for greater racial harmony and improved performance.
Chapter 28

Section 294 cards

What two complementary principles did the Gillem Board say its recommendations rested on?
The board declared its recommendations were based on two complementary principles: black Americans had a constitutional right to fight, and the Army had an obligation to make the most effective use of every soldier. It also weighed the Army's wartime experience with black units, citing satisfactory performance of service units and smaller combat units but unsatisfactory results in large black combat units, often blamed on junior officers and NCOs lacking leadership ability.
Chapter 29
How did the Gillem Board compare the Navy's and Marine Corps' racial practices?
After comparing the other services' racial practices, the board decided the Navy's partial integration had stimulated competition that improved black performance without causing racial friction. By contrast, strict segregation in the Marine Corps required longer training periods and closer supervision for black marines. Gillem noted the Army already integrated black and white patients in hospitals because duplicating complex medical equipment was expensive and impractical, but he refrained from drawing the logical conclusion about other facilities.
Chapter 29
What did the Gillem Board recommend about using qualified Negroes in overhead units?
The board recommended that combat and service units be organized from available Negro manpower and that qualified individuals also be used in appropriate special and overhead units. This was the first break with traditional segregation: black enlisted men would still eat and sleep in segregated messes and barracks, but they would work alongside white soldiers performing the same duty in the same unit. The board made eighteen specific recommendations in total.
Chapter 29
What criticisms did McCloy and Gibson make of the Gillem Board Report?
Both agreed the report needed a clear statement on segregation and wanted the quota eliminated. Gibson argued the board's long-range objective of using all persons by individual ability meant 'a completely integrated Army,' and attacked the vagueness of its recommendations, demanding an explicit policy that segregation was outmoded. McCloy called the report a 'fine achievement' but said it did 'not speak with the complete clarity necessary,' and rejected the quota, writing he saw no place for a quota in a policy based on ability.
Chapter 29

Section 304 cards

What did Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker argue about the Army's role in race relations?
Eaker, deputy commander of the Army Air Forces, agreed the Army should not be "a testing ground for problems in race relationships." He argued the War Department "should never be ahead of popular opinion on this subject," warning that doing so would stimulate racial disorders rather than overcome them. He also protested regulations for joint use of clubs and theaters where such use contradicted local civilian practices.
Chapter 30
What were the Gillem Board's initial and ultimate objectives for black manpower?
The initial objective was utilizing the proportionate ratio of available manpower in the postwar period. The ultimate objective was effective use of all manpower in a major mobilization "without regard to antecedents or race." The board declined to visualize intermediate objectives, saying timely phasing could be adjusted to future conditions, and called its policy flexible and a guide for the future.
Chapter 30
How did Army Service Forces and Army Ground Forces respond to the Gillem Board?
Army Ground Forces concurred generally but urged a policy for the entire military establishment first, and called proportional service and battle losses "impracticable." The Army Service Forces commander said his organization already used a larger percentage of Negroes than the board contemplated, warned against dictating use of Negroes in the field as infringing command prerogatives, and called integration infeasible for the present and foreseeable future.
Chapter 30
What did the Gillem Board decide when it reconvened in January 1946?
After two more weeks of deliberation and additional witnesses, the board stood firm on its conclusions and recommendations. It rejected letting individual commanders choose where Negroes were employed, refused to drop the quota (calling it needed for planning), and rejected reestablishing the color line in officers' messes and recreational facilities. Secretary Patterson approved the policy on 28 February 1946; it was published as War Department Circular 124.
Chapter 30

Section 314 cards

Why did the Gillem Board's recommendations prove useful to commanders favoring segregation?
The author argues the board discussed black soldiers as a social problem rather than a matter of military efficiency, so its recommendations worked within the traditional segregated framework even while naming integration an ultimate goal. It blessed continued segregated units and never asked whether segregation itself caused black units' inefficiency. Because the policy no longer required segregation but did not order integration, inertia would keep segregation in place.
Chapter 31
What did General Devers tell fellow officers in 1946 about using black battalions?
Devers said, "we are going to put colored battalions in white divisions. This is purely business--the social side will not be brought into it." The author uses this to show most Army officers saw segregated service as the acceptable norm and to raise the dilemma of whether the Army was a social institution as well as a fighting organization.
Chapter 31
Why did the Navy integrate the general service when the Army did not?
The author argues the Navy's size and mission made immediate change necessary while the Army could postpone it. Inundated with unskilled black sailors, the Navy saw the link between large segregated units and racial tension and questioned wasting qualified men. Partial integration proved insufficient; only total integration of the general service could serve justice and efficiency.
Chapter 31
What reasons did Admiral Denfeld give for integrating the general service in January 1946?
Denfeld told Admiral Nimitz that restricting Negroes to auxiliary ships had become extremely difficult to manage now that sailors transferred from shore to sea and ship to ship, and was contrary to the secretary's non-differentiation policy. He proposed removing restrictions on the type of duty general service Negroes could be assigned, while limiting their numbers per ship or station to their overall Navy percentage.
Chapter 31

Section 324 cards

How did Forrestal justify the Navy's policy of integration to a segregationist congressman?
Forrestal explained that men were quartered and messed aboard ship according to their place in the ship's organization without regard to race, and that the Navy made no attempt to prescribe the nature or extent of their social relationships, which were beyond its authority. He said the Navy had decided segregation was the surest way to emphasize and perpetuate the gap between the races, and had therefore adopted a policy of integration.
Chapter 32
Why did Forrestal's new Navy racial policy risk being proclaimed but not practiced?
The chapter states that translating the postwar policy into widespread equal treatment and opportunity still lay before Forrestal and his officers, who would have to fight racism in American society and bureaucratic inertia. It notes that because of Forrestal's failure to give clear-cut direction, a characteristic of his approach to racial reform, the Navy might proudly trumpet a new policy while continuing its old racial practices.
Chapter 32
Why did Marine Corps planners favor small segregated labor units after World War II?
Planners justified employing black marines in small, self-contained units doing traditional laboring tasks because the average black draftee was less well-educated and experienced with modern equipment. They also pointed to the corps' relative freedom from the flare-ups that plagued other services. The chapter notes they ignored the basic cause: rigid concentration of undertrained men subjected to slurs and insensitive treatment.
Chapter 32
What guidelines did General Thomas's division set for black marines in the postwar corps?
Thomas's Division of Plans and Policies proposed that, besides the Steward's Branch holding 10 percent of blacks, Negroes would serve in segregated units in every branch, totaling some 2,800 men, a ratio near 1 in 30 based on estimated billets rather than population. It opened aviation and other assignments but ignored black officers and women marines, seeking a separate-but-equal system without the Gillem Board's fixed quota or integrated service.
Chapter 32

Section 334 cards

What did the Navy's postwar racial policy provide and where did it fall short?
The Navy announced the most progressive policy, providing for integration of its general service. However, it failed to break the heavy concentration of Negroes in the Steward's Branch, where no whites served. Also, unlike the segregated Army, the integrated Navy's admission standards were too high to encourage black enlistments, and it did not guarantee to take any black officers or specialists.
Chapter 33
Why did the War Department's implementation of the Gillem Board recommendations founder?
The policy foundered for several reasons: some implicit in the nature of the policy itself, others the result of manpower exigencies, and still others because of prejudices lingering in the staff, the Army, and the nation at large. In the end only parts of the new policy for the use of black manpower were ever carried out.
Chapter 33
What did General Spaatz propose regarding the Army's black manpower quota?
Spaatz suggested the Army abandon the quota in favor of admitting men on the basis of intelligence and professional ability, forbidding enlistment to anyone scoring below eighty on entry tests. He wanted composite black-white organizations held to a minimum and none smaller than an air group, with most black units as service units and no jobs created especially for them.
Chapter 33
Why did the Army postpone curtailing admission of low-scoring men despite Paul's concerns?
In rapid demobilization the Army was critically short of troops, especially overseas replacements, and could maintain strength only by accepting all the men it could get. Until Paul had more definite information on Selective Service operations and voluntary Regular Army enlistment rates, he had to postpone action to curtail admission of low-scoring men.
Chapter 33

Section 344 cards

What did Army Service Forces technical service chiefs propose regarding black troops in 1946?
When queried, the chiefs of the Army Service Forces' technical and administrative services agreed they could use only small percentages of black troops, and only those in higher classification-test categories. None planned to use Negroes in as much as 10 percent of spaces, several wanted to exclude black units altogether, and the ASF staff advocated that no more than 3.29 percent of overhead and miscellaneous positions be entrusted to black troops.
Chapter 34
How did actual black strength in April 1946 compare with Army plans?
Plans for 1 April 1946 projected Negroes at 15.2 percent of Army Service Forces, 15.4 percent of Army Ground Forces, and 17 percent of Army Air Forces in the continental United States. Actual figures on 30 April 1946 were 14.86 percent, 5.62 percent, and 11.86 percent respectively. The 184,124 Negroes in the Army amounted to 10.14 percent of the whole.
Chapter 34
What enlistment standards did the Army adopt in April 1946 to restrict black enlistments?
In April 1946, alongside the Gillem Board recommendations, the Army began denying enlistment or reenlistment in the Regular Army to anyone scoring below seventy on the Army General Classification Test. Exceptions were men decorated for valor and prior-service men who scored sixty-five and were recommended by their commanders. The Army also stopped enlisting men with active venereal disease and stopped recruiting for special stations.
Chapter 34
What did Secretary of War do on 17 July 1946 regarding black enlistment?
Based on a 15 July meeting involving Marcus Ray and Dean Rusk, the Secretary of War suspended enlistment of Negroes in the Regular Army on 17 July 1946. He excepted men who qualified and had served six months in any of forty-eight unusual military occupational specialties with chronic shortages, and Negroes already regulars who wanted to reenlist because of manpower shortages.
Chapter 34

Section 354 cards

What effect did the new enlistment measures have on black strength in the Army by mid-1947?
The measures lowered the black share of the Army. By 30 June 1947 blacks were 7.91 percent of the Army, 8.99 percent of enlisted strength, and 9.4 percent of Regular Army strength. Overseas black enlisted strength fell to 8.75 percent from 10.77 percent the previous December. The European theater dropped to 9.96 percent, the Mediterranean to 8.03, and Alaska to 14.54.
Chapter 35
How did the Army respond to black soldiers denied their choice of overseas theater?
During summer 1946 black soldiers and airmen complained that the Army rejected black enlistments for the European theater. The NAACP urged the War Department to honor its pledges or release all Negroes refused their choice of location. The Army offered honorable discharge to soldiers who, denied their preferred theater, rejected any substitute assignment.
Chapter 35
What did the 1946 lawsuit against the Secretary of War allege about black enlistment standards?
A young Negro sued the Secretary of War and a Pittsburgh recruiting officer for refusing to enlist him. He alleged that higher standards for black applicants than whites violated the Preamble and Fifth Amendment, and that enlistment inducements like the GI Bill constituted a property right denied because of race. He asked that enlistments stop until Negroes were accepted on equal terms.
Chapter 35
How did the Army's view of the Gillem Board quota shift between 1946 and 1949?
The Gillem Board devised the quota as a temporary expedient to guarantee black participation, and Assistant Secretary Petersen called it a temporary ceiling in December 1946. Traditionalists saw it as a permanent limit. General Paul argued a ceiling was needed to prevent an uncontrolled rise in low-aptitude black career soldiers. The quota was built into the 1949 mobilization plan, and enlistment was suspended for nine months from April 1949.
Chapter 35

Section 364 cards

How did attached status differ from assigned status for black units?
An attached unit was temporarily included in a larger organization, while an assigned unit was permanently given to a larger organization as part of its organic establishment. The chapter states that attached status, common for black units, weakened morale and hampered training. General Devers justified attachment rather than assignment of the 555th Parachute Battalion to the 82d Airborne Division as part of the progressive adoption of the composite unit policy.
Chapter 36
Why did Devers oppose assigning the 555th to the 82d?
Devers argued that the Army's race policy called for progressive adoption of the composite unit, and attachment was part of that process, while assignment belonged to a long-range plan still needing study. He cited the division's low strength from lack of volunteers, said the effect on combat efficiency must first be studied, and questioned having a black unit assume a white unit's history—though the intention was to assign a black unit with its black history.
Chapter 36
What did General Paul propose in November 1946 for black soldiers?
Paul's office prepared plans listing occupational specialties for black recruits and proposed converting several organizations to black units, including a field artillery (155-mm. howitzer) battalion, a tank company, a chemical mortar company, and an ordnance heavy automotive maintenance company. Men would be specially selected and distributed by ability, officers Negro insofar as practical, morale and learning monitored, and after six months the units measured against comparable white units.
Chapter 36
How did the Army treat integration of small black and white units?
The Army staff remained adamantly opposed to combining small black with small white units. G-1 and G-3 rejected the Mediterranean theater's 1946 plan for composite service units in the 88th Infantry Division as not in accordance with Circular 124. General Paul said grouping company-size or larger was permissible, but two white and two black companies could not yet form a single battalion, and integration of platoons in a company was precluded by policy.
Chapter 36

Section 372 cards

What did the Hodes survey of compliance with Circular 124 reveal?
Most commanders reported full compliance, but statistics proved their claims specious. The Far East Command reported no Negroes in overhead spaces; the Mediterranean theater, 8 percent black, had four Negroes in 2,700 overhead spaces; the Alaskan Department, over 20 percent black, had none. Europe had 2,125 overhead spaces, 18.5 percent, filled by Negroes.
Chapter 37
Why did Paul reject Davenport's plan to drop the test score requirement?
Paul was mindful of strong opposition to his recent attempts to train Negroes for overhead assignments. He did not see how occupational specialties could increase until new or converted units were formed, or how school quotas could increase unless positions existed to justify training. He believed the Army should first widen employment of black units and individuals in overhead spaces.
Chapter 37

Section 384 cards

What did Maj. James D. Fowler recommend after surveying the converted units?
Fowler, a black 1941 West Point graduate, surveyed the nineteen newly converted units and recommended that 1,134 men—about 20 percent of those enlisted for the general reserve expansion—be trained in thirty-seven courses, an increase of 103 black spaces. He also recommended 172 more spaces in another thirty-seven courses and new quotas of thirty-nine spaces in eleven military occupational specialties.
Chapter 38
How did the Army's school quotas for Negroes change after Fowler's recommendations?
The Army raised the number of courses with Negro quotas from 30 to 62, increased black quotas in 14 courses, and opened new courses at schools including the Adjutant General's, Infantry (airborne), Artillery, Armored, Engineer, Medical, Military Police, Ordnance, Quartermaster, Signal, and Transportation schools. Black enrollment in entry courses grew from 5 to 13.7 percent, and courses open to Negroes rose from 30 to 48 percent.
Chapter 38
Why did the Army's approved school quota increases prove short-lived?
Once the converted units' needs were met, quotas were cut to a level sufficient only to fill black units' replacement needs. By March 1949 black spaces in replacement stream courses had fallen from Fowler's 237 to 82, and courses open to Negroes dropped from 48 to 19.8 percent. No further overhead positions were converted, so no further quota studies were needed, and Paul's proposed three-point study was never made.
Chapter 38
What did the chapter conclude about the Gillem Board policy and the racial quota?
The author argues the policy was a qualified success in numbers—thousands of Negroes served in new assignments—but it failed to gain equal treatment and opportunity, and the quotas and separate units better served those wanting a segregated Army. The quota restricted black numbers, the variety of black units and jobs, and school openings; segregation concentrated the less able and intensified problems.
Chapter 38

Section 392 cards

How did black soldiers' serious-incident rates compare with whites' in Europe, 1946-47?
In June 1946 black soldiers in the European theater had 2.57 serious incidents per 1,000 men versus .79 for whites. In 1947 the black yearly average rose to 3.94 per 1,000 while whites reached 1.88. The chapter notes these rates were not out of line with U.S. national crime statistics, which averaged about 3.25 across a sample of 173 cities.
Chapter 39
What did Marcus Ray conclude caused high black venereal disease and court-martial rates?
Ray, the Secretary of War's civilian aide, told Patterson the rates were 'in direct proportion to the high percentage of Class IV and Vs among the Negro personnel.' He urged vigorous implementation of the policy to discharge soldiers scoring below seventy. He also argued black crime statistics were meaningless while segregation concentrated black units, and favored desegregating and spreading troops out.
Chapter 39

Section 404 cards

What did Ray claim the Army failed to see about prejudice?
Ray charged that the Army generally failed to see the connection between prejudice and national security, and that many leaders even denied prejudice existed in the Army. He claimed ignoring racial prejudice condemned the Army to perpetual racial upsets, and urged the secretary to restate racial objectives and launch an information and education program for commanders and troops.
Chapter 40
What did the Army staff conclude about segregation ten months after the Gillem Board Report?
The staff judged that the presence of Negroes near 10 percent of Army strength at the current qualitative level made segregation necessary indefinitely. They argued segregation kept possible troublemakers out of combat divisions, promoted efficiency, and placated regional prejudices in the Army and Congress. Integration must wait until numbers were regulated and black troops' quality improved.
Chapter 40
What did General Huebner establish at Kitzingen Air Base in December 1947?
Huebner established a permanent training center combining drill and supervision with broad education: six hours daily of basic military training plus up to two hours of academic instruction to the twelfth grade level. All black replacements and casuals from the United States were sent there for classification and training, and black units rotated through for refresher and individual instruction.
Chapter 40
What results did the European training program produce by mid-1950?
At its 1950 peak over 62 percent of Negroes in the command were enrolled in the Kitzingen course or on-duty education in over two-thirds of black companies. By June 1950 the program had over 2,900 students and 200 instructors. A 1950 sampling of three black units showed average scores twenty points higher on Army classification tests after training.
Chapter 40

Section 414 cards

Why did black officer numbers fall from 7,748 in 1945 to 1,184 in 1947?
The chapter attributes the drop chiefly to postwar demobilization affecting all services. Most black officers could not compete on length of service, combat experience, and other retention factors, so their numbers fell sharply. This decline more than offset a slight rise in the black percentage of the officer corps, from .8 percent in 1945 to 1.0 percent in 1947.
Chapter 41
How did General Paul first respond to Petersen's 1946 proposal for special black officer recruitment?
Paul was initially passive. He noted that all appointments were based on merit and competition, and argued that special consideration for Negroes was itself a form of discrimination. The chapter says it was not until April 1948 that the Personnel and Administration Division launched a major effort to get more black officers.
Chapter 41
What did the April 1948 Manpower Control Group find about officers in 78 black units?
The group found a shortage of 72 officers across the 78 units. Applying Circular 124, which prescribed more officers for units with many low-test-score men, it calculated 187 additional officers beyond regular allotment. Applying Circular 124's rule that black officers command black troops, it found another 477 black officer replacements were needed. The group recommended extra officers for units with 70 percent or more men in grades IV and V.
Chapter 41
What did Regular Army integration statistics show about acceptance rates by race?
Of applicants, 927 Negroes and 122,520 whites applied; the Army and Air Force commissioned 96 black officers (10.3 percent) and 27,798 white officers (22.7 percent). Preliminary rejections for efficiency and education ran near 40 percent for both races. The disparity appeared at the Selection Board: 18.55 percent of remaining black applicants were accepted versus 39.35 percent of white applicants.
Chapter 41

Section 424 cards

What did the January 1947 reform remove from overseas travel orders, and who opposed it?
On the civilian aide's recommendation, the Assistant Secretary of War removed racial designations from overseas travel orders and authorizations for dependents and War Department civilian employees. Some Army staff members strongly opposed it, and the Secretary of the Army had to repeat the order in 1951. Secretary Frank Pace, Jr., later sought to extend the ban to all travel orders, but the staff persuaded him that broader abolition would harm strength, accounting, and overseas replacement systems.
Chapter 42
How did the Army resolve the 1947 dispute over integrating national cemeteries?
The Quartermaster General recommended opening new sections of all national cemeteries to eligible citizens of all races while leaving older segregated graves undisturbed, to avoid a breach of faith with next of kin. General Paul and the Army Ground Forces commander supported this; the Air Forces commander and the Chief of Staff opposed it, and the Chief of Staff rejected it in February 1947. After NAACP and civilian aide pressure, Secretary Patterson directed on 15 April that new sections be integrated.
Chapter 42
What did Army Talk 170 say about the Army's role in race relations?
Published 1 April 1947 at General Paul's request, the pamphlet was progressive for its time, stressing projected reforms including eventual integration, but it defended continued segregation as promoting interracial harmony. It stated the official position baldly: 'The Army is not an instrument of social reform. Its interest in matters of race is confined to considerations of its own effectiveness.' General Handy questioned some claims, and Eisenhower ordered publication, telling commanders to add local instructions as needed.
Chapter 42
Why did Army leaders defend segregation, according to the chapter?
The chapter says their arguments fell into four categories. First, segregation was deemed necessary to preserve internal stability: Eisenhower told a Senate committee in 1948 that prejudice was a condition of American society and the Army 'is merely one of the mirrors that holds up to our faces the United States of America.' He believed integration by platoons could be handled, yet made no move toward it while Chief of Staff, citing social difficulties and the push to get soldiers home.
Chapter 42

Section 433 cards

What did the 1946 Army survey find about white enlisted men's views on segregation?
The Army staff found enlisted men in substantial agreement on segregation: most supported expanded use of Negroes in the Army, yet an overwhelming majority voted for racially separate working and living arrangements. However, opposition dropped when questions were put personally ("How do you feel about...?"), and only southerners as a group showed a clear majority for segregated working conditions. Most opposition came from older, less educated men.
Chapter 43
What happened to the Gillem Board's original goal of progressive experimentation?
The Gillem Board policy originally provided for "progressive experimentation" leading to "effective manpower utilization without regard to race or color," an approach recognized by the War Department and many black spokesmen. But the goal was soon abandoned: Secretary Royall postponed integration indefinitely in the "interest of National Defense," individual integration below company level was forbidden, and the Kitzingen Training Center lessons were never applied elsewhere.
Chapter 43
Why did the Army's postwar policy rest on a false premise, according to the author?
The author argues the Gillem Board assumed Negroes who fought poorly in segregated divisions in two world wars might fight better in smaller segregated units within white units. But few officers believed this, since it was commonly accepted that Negroes made poor combat soldiers, making unit size immaterial. Given manpower from reenlistments and Selective Service, any black unit would likely be inefficient and spiritless, largely Class IV and V men, with motivation further undermined.
Chapter 43

Section 443 cards

How did tradition both hinder and help Navy racial integration?
The author argues tradition worked two ways. Many senior officers resisted equal treatment from a traditional belief that Negroes needed special treatment. But the Navy also had a tradition of an integrated general service, since black sailors had served in significant numbers during the nation's first century and a half, which made partial integration acceptable.
Chapter 44
What did Forrestal believe was necessary for racial reform to succeed?
Forrestal was convinced racial reform must first be accepted by men already in uniform. Integration, if quietly and gradually put into effect, would soon demonstrate its efficiency and make the change acceptable to all members. Quiet gradualism became the hallmark of his effort, as he appealed to colleagues and the public in terms of military efficiency.
Chapter 44
What did postwar statistics show about black sailors in the Navy?
In 1946, 3,300 Negroes (16 percent) served in the integrated general service while 17,300 (84 percent) were in the Steward's Branch. By mid-1948 only 38 percent held general service jobs and 62 percent remained stewards, with only three black officers on active duty. The Navy then stopped publishing racial statistics.
Chapter 44

Section 454 cards

Why did critics call the Navy's claim that the Steward's Branch was open to all unconvincing?
The branch was technically open to all but remained strictly nonwhite in practice. Activists noted six times as many illiterate whites as Negroes in the wartime Navy, yet no whites were assigned or transferred to the branch. When the Bureau of Naval Personnel predicted a 7,577-man shortage, the Navy recruited 3,500 Filipinos and Guamanians rather than white sailors, and some recruiters rejected black volunteers for any duty but steward.
Chapter 45
What reforms did Lt. Dennis D. Nelson propose for the Steward's Branch?
Nelson urged eliminating the branch as a racially separate division of labor, providing permanent officer supervision for steward units, developing capable noncommissioned officers with privileges like other petty officers, indoctrinating personnel in the integration policy, and creating a committee to work out details. He also recommended changing the steward's uniform to a regular seaman's look and ending the practice of addressing stewards as 'Boy.'
Chapter 45
What steps did the Bureau of Naval Personnel take regarding the Steward's Branch, and what did they fail to address?
In October 1945 it required written requests for Negroes in general service to transfer into the branch; in mid-1946 it closed the branch to first enlistment; later it instituted a more rigorous training course at Bainbridge, Maryland; and in June 1947 it removed personnel manual restrictions on messmen transferring to general service. These changes failed to attack racial separation, the branch's major problem.
Chapter 45
How did the Navy treat and assign its black officers during World War II?
The Bureau of Naval Personnel insisted black officers receive privileges of rank, crushing a tacit ban on the officers' club at Great Lakes, and integration was more the rule than exception in their training. Most served overseas in all-black logistical and stevedore companies with limited responsibilities and little chance for advancement, though by July 1945 some were assigned to seagoing vessels after sea duty training.
Chapter 45

Section 464 cards

Why were there so few black officers in the postwar Navy?
The Navy drew officers almost entirely from Annapolis, officer candidate programs, and NROTC. Ens. Wesley A. Brown, graduating in 1949, was the first Negro to graduate from the academy in its 104-year history. Officer candidate schools had no Negroes from 1946 through 1948, and in 1947 only fourteen Negroes were enrolled among more than 5,600 NROTC students. The ACLU attributed part of the shortage to exclusion of Negroes from private prep schools that produced successful academy applicants.
Chapter 46
How did state selection committees affect black NROTC candidates?
Unlike Army and Air Force programs, Navy reserve officer training relied heavily on state selection committees dominated by civilians, who had wide leeway and final say in filling state NROTC quotas. No Negro served on any committee. Fourteen of the fifty-two selected colleges barred Negroes by law and others by policy. Only six black candidates won commissions in 1948. The chapter notes statistics pointed at least to the possibility of discrimination.
Chapter 46
Why did the Navy reject adding V-12/NROTC units at black colleges?
The Navy justified exclusion on inadequacies in enrollment, academic credentials, and physical facilities, as it did for many white schools. The Special Programs Unit argued that units at predominantly black colleges could be seen as enforced segregation and would draw all black candidates to them. Some black spokesmen, including Nelson, instead urged increasing Negroes at integrated NROTC schools. President Mordecai Johnson of Howard wryly questioned how a nondiscriminatory selection of fifty-two colleges excluded all black institutions.
Chapter 46
What did the shrinking numbers of black WAVES and nurses suggest?
The Navy had 68 black enlisted women and 6 officers, including 4 nurses, on V-J day; a year later only 5 black WAVES and 1 nurse remained. Roy Wilkins concluded the new policy hadn't worked on the officer or women's level. The Navy attributed the paucity to Negroes being barred from the WAVES until December 1944, just before recruiting of all WAVES stopped, and said remaining black WAVES were integrated. Critics like Adam Clayton Powell pressed anti-discrimination amendments, which were defeated.
Chapter 46

Section 474 cards

Where did planners decide to limit black assignments outside the Fleet Marine Force?
Planners limited black assignments outside the Fleet Marine Force to naval ammunition depots at McAlester, Oklahoma, and Earle, New Jersey, where Negroes would occupy separate barracks; to Guam and Saipan, principally as antiaircraft artillery; and to a small training cadre at Montford Point. Eighty stewards would also serve with units outside the Fleet Marine Force. With the exception of Earle, all these installations had been assigned Negroes during the war.
Chapter 47
What did the January 1947 plan do to black marines and steward spaces?
General Thomas reported that antiaircraft requirements at Guam and Saipan and the Montford Point artillery unit were canceled, so his division wanted to cut black marines to 1,500, assignable to depot companies, service units, and Marine barracks outside the Fleet Marine Force, or as stewards. The commandant's approval reduced Negroes in the corps by 35 percent, or 700 men, while spaces for black stewards rose 17 percent to 350.
Chapter 47
How did the Marine Corps' racial quota differ from the Army's and Air Force's?
By mid-1947 the corps abandoned gearing black numbers to available assignments and adopted a racial quota, but with a distinction: the Army and Air Force, though rarely achieving it, were committed to accepting a fixed percentage of Negroes, while the Marine Corps established a straight numerical quota of about 1,500 men until the Korean War. Actual black strength rose from 1.3 percent of 155,679 in June 1946 to slightly over 2 percent of 74,279 in June 1950.
Chapter 47
Why did recruiters struggle to fill the black quota after 1945?
The corps stopped drafting in November 1945 and recruited regulars from reservists and expiring enlistments, including some 17,000 Negroes. It admitted no new black recruits were accepted because preference went to men already in the corps. In truth black reservists rejected recruiters overwhelmingly: by May 1946 only 522 Negroes, less than a quarter of the small postwar black complement, had enlisted in the regular service.
Chapter 47

Section 484 cards

Why did black Marine strength drop by 700 men in late 1947?
In mid-1947 the Division of Plans and Policies sought to reduce black marines under a modified manpower ceiling. It found that about one-third of all Negroes would apply for discharge if offered the chance, with an even higher rate expected overseas. The commandant agreed to make the offer, except to stewards, and black strength fell by 700 over six months.
Chapter 48
How did the Marine Corps' steward recruiting requirements change between 1946 and 1947?
Thomas assured the commandant in spring 1946 that offering steward duty to black reservists would fill the 300-man quota, but only four volunteered. In March 1947 Thomas opened the branch to Negroes with prior military service in any armed force; that failed too. In April the commandant canceled the prior-service requirement, and in October dropped the 'clearly established qualifications' requirement.
Chapter 48
What complication arose when the corps dropped the prior-service requirement for stewards?
Recruits for steward duty had to undergo basic training, and their enlistment contracts read 'general duty.' Navy regulations required reclassification to 'stewards duty only' at the recruit's request. In August 1947 three men refused to change their contracts after basic training, and the commandant chose not to contest their right to remain in general service. Others later failed steward tests or refused to modify contracts.
Chapter 48
Why did the Steward's Branch fail to fill its quotas despite repeated measures?
The chapter states that the commander of Camp Lejeune blamed civilian agitation labeling steward duty degrading, slow promotion, and badgering from black marines on regular duty. His public relations campaign failed because it ignored the central issue: a segregated branch in which black marines performed menial, nonmilitary duties. The corps entered the Korean War with most Negroes still in general service.
Chapter 48

Section 494 cards

Why was Port Chicago dropped as a site for a black Marine unit in 1947?
The commandant of the Twelfth Naval District intervened, declaring a black unit undesirable in a predominantly white area experiencing almost constant labor turmoil. He warned that clashes between white pickets and black guards would invite racial conflict. His warnings carried the day, and Port Chicago was dropped in favor of the Marine Barracks, Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, New York, with station at Bayonne, New Jersey.
Chapter 49
What reasons did officials give for opposing black Marines at Hingham, Massachusetts?
The Marine commander argued the assignment would jeopardize the fire-fighting ability of the ammunition depot; the naval depot commander added that guard duty including vehicle search would create an industrial relations problem. The commandant of the First Naval District discounted these but still objected, citing the lack of a substantial black population, restricted residential neighborhoods, and Hingham's status as a major summer resort.
Chapter 49
Who was the first Negro to obtain a regular commission in the Marine Corps, and when?
John E. Rudder of Paducah, Kentucky, a Marine veteran and Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps graduate, was appointed a second lieutenant in the Regular Marine Corps on 28 May 1948 and ordered to Quantico for basic schooling. The Director of Plans and Policies had warned that rejecting him on account of race might jeopardize the reserve corps program. Rudder resigned in 1949.
Chapter 49
What did the author identify as the main cause of the two-year delay in assigning black Marine units?
The author argues most blame must fall on the Marine Corps' policy of segregation. Segregation required finding assignments for a whole enlisted complement and placed an intolerable administrative burden on the corps. The dictum that black Marines could not deal with white civilians, especially when giving orders, further limited assignments. The author also indicts commanders and communities, but calls segregation neither just nor practical.
Chapter 49

Section 504 cards

Why did the Marine Corps begin attaching black units to Fleet Marine Force units in 1947?
The corps found it inefficient to assign combat-trained Negroes, surplus after the black defense battalions were inactivated, to black service and supply units while Fleet Marine Force battalions were seriously understrength. Despite strictures against integration, this forced the corps to begin attaching black units to depleted Fleet Marine Force units, as in the 2d Combat Service Group at Camp Geiger.
Chapter 50
What did General Robinson recommend regarding black reservists, and what limited the reform?
Robinson recommended that when volunteer numbers warranted, the corps form black units of company size or greater, either separate or organic to larger reserve units. He remained opposed to integrated units, claiming experience proved integration served neither the individual nor the corps. The commandant approved, but the company-size-or-larger stipulation effectively limited the degree of reform.
Chapter 50
Why did the Air Force move toward integration in late 1948, according to the chapter?
The author argues integration was forced on the service when the inefficiency of its racial practices could no longer be ignored, not mainly from humanitarian promptings or civil rights pressure. Budget restrictions made enlarging service units hard to justify, and segregation wasted the Air Force's few black pilots and specialists and its large supply of unskilled black recruits.
Chapter 50
How did segregation create administrative burdens for the wartime black flying units?
Segregation required not only pilots but ground support specialists—mechanics, supply clerks, armorers—to be black. Competing with the rest of the Army for skilled, high-scoring Negroes, the Air Forces could not fill its black air units' needs. While white air and ground crews were surplus, black fighter units suffered shortages of replacements for combat veterans, damaging morale.
Chapter 50

Section 514 cards

What did the Army Air Forces recommend to the Gillem Board regarding black troops?
The Air staff admitted discrimination was at the heart of its racial problem but failed to connect discrimination with segregation. Adopting its senior commanders' consensus, it recommended blacks be trained to the same standards as whites but employed in separate units and segregated for recreation, messing, and social activities both on and off post, in keeping with surrounding civilian customs.
Chapter 51
Why did the Army Air Forces integrate aviation training at Randolph Field and close Tuskegee in 1947?
The move was unrelated to the Gillem Board Report or civil rights demands; the Tuskegee operation had simply become impractical. Under severe postwar retrenchment, cadet enrollment dropped sharply—only nine men graduated in the October 1945 class. The few black cadets shared quarters and classes with whites, to the black community's general satisfaction, with nine cadets training at the end of 1947.
Chapter 51
What happened to the 477th Composite Group by July 1947?
By February 1946 the group had been reduced to sixteen B-25 bombers, twelve P-47s, and only 746 men—a 40 percent drop in four months. Despite satisfactory ratings and improved morale at Lockbourne Field, it was inactivated in July 1947 and replaced by the 332d Fighter Group. Black bomber pilots were converted to fighter pilots and bomber crews removed from flying status.
Chapter 51
What did the author identify as the real cause of the Air Force's inefficient use of black troops?
The author argues it was not too many black enlisted men or too few black officers or specialists, but the policy of strict segregation that kept the Air Force from using black troops efficiently. Segregation caused maldistribution among commands—Tactical Air Command held some 5,000 black airmen, close to 28 percent of its strength—and restricted all but forty-five black officers in the continental United States to one base.
Chapter 51

Section 523 cards

What four specific problems pushed the Air Force toward changing race policy in 1948?
The chapter lists four: the distribution of black airmen threatening Tactical Air Command's operational efficiency; personnel shortages in black tactical units requiring controversial, inefficient reorganization; intensified demands by black leaders for broader use of black servicemen; and the Secretary of the Air Force's personal inclination, which made strict segregation of black officers and specialists increasingly untenable. These coalesced during 1948 into a policy reassessment and volte-face.
Chapter 52
What did Colonel Barr mean by calling the surplus of Negroes 'potentially parasitic'?
Barr, TAC's Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, found in March 1948 that the large number of Negroes gave the command a surplus of 'marginal individuals'—men who could not be trained economically for needed skills. He argued this theoretical surplus was 'potentially parasitic' and threatened the command's mission. The black percentage in TAC had fallen from a postwar high of 28 percent to 15.4 percent by end of 1947, still above the Gillem Board's 10 percent quota.
Chapter 52
What was the immediate cause of the change in Air Force policy regarding the 332d?
The chronic shortage of black field grade officers in the 332d Fighter Wing. By February 1948 the wing had only thirteen of forty-eight authorized field grade officers; its three tactical units were commanded by captains instead of lieutenant colonels. If Colonel Davis left for the Air War College, his successor would be a major with five years' service. General Quesada then recommended filling 'practically all' key field grade positions with whites.
Chapter 52

Section 533 cards

What did Assistant Secretary Zuckert call segregation when black leaders challenged him in April 1948?
Zuckert told the National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs that segregation was a "practical military expediency," not an "endorsement of belief in racial distribution." He offered this in response to black leaders who demanded to know why segregation was necessary in the Air Force at all.
Chapter 53
What did Lt. Gen. Edwards admit and promise to black leaders about Air Force segregation?
Edwards, Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, admitted segregation was unnecessary and promised eventual integration, but stated firmly that for the present segregation remained Air Force policy. He cited peaceful integration of black officers in training at Randolph Field as evidence of progress.
Chapter 53
What did James C. Evans recommend to Secretary Symington in 1948?
Evans asked that Colonel Davis be sent to advanced military schooling without delay, with a white replacement acceptable. He wanted Lockbourne de-emphasized as the black air base, black units scattered, and men assigned by technical specialty and proficiency rather than race, opening varied training and opportunity.
Chapter 53

Section 544 cards

Why did black servicemen gain new prominence in national defense after WWII?
Because of postwar racial quotas, particularly in the Army and Air Force, black servicemen constituted a significant segment of the service population. Their abilities and well-being had a direct bearing on the nation's cold war defenses, and the black community represented 10 percent of the country's manpower, which also influenced defense planning.
Chapter 54
What three factors does the chapter cite as stimuli for integrating the armed forces?
First, the sheer number of black servicemen and the black community's demands, including boycott threats, made integration a defense issue amid the cold war. Second, the Truman administration's civil rights program gave executive sanction to a national movement. Third, service unification and James V. Forrestal's emergence as Secretary of Defense converged these problems on his office.
Chapter 54
What was Forrestal's approach to integration, and why did it fail?
Forrestal made integration a departmental goal, guided by a humane interest in racial equality, though he doubted social change through executive fiat and was disposed to avoid clashes with the services. His technique proved inadequate against strong service opposition, so the President had to issue an executive order to strengthen the defense secretary's hand.
Chapter 54
What did Truman's 1940 speech reveal about his views on black aspirations?
Truman said he was not appealing for social equality of the Negro, claiming the Negro himself knows better and that the highest types of Negro leaders prefer the society of their own people, and that Negroes want justice, not social relations. The chapter notes little in his background suggested he would sponsor basic social changes.
Chapter 54

Section 554 cards

Why did Truman avoid pressing for armed forces civil rights legislation in 1948?
Truman considered a new draft law and universal military training too vital to national defense to risk on racial controversy. He had two pieces of military legislation to get through Congress, so integration was played down and civil rights progress in the Department of Defense depended on James Forrestal's persuasiveness.
Chapter 55
What did the National Security Act of 1947 create and how did it limit the Secretary of Defense?
It created the Office of the Secretary of Defense, a separate Department of the Air Force, the CIA, and the National Security Council, and reconstituted the War Department as the Department of the Army. The Secretary of Defense got only authority to set general policies and exercise general direction and control; services kept large autonomy and service secretaries retained cabinet rank.
Chapter 55
What was Forrestal's approach to racial integration in the services?
Forrestal promised his office would be concerned with equal opportunity but insisted the job must develop 'in an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary manner.' He held specific racial problems remained the province of individual services, believed progress came from education and administrative action, and resisted executive fiat, doubting his authority and weighing Capitol Hill consequences.
Chapter 55
Why did A. Philip Randolph oppose universal military training legislation?
Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, worried the bill did not prohibit segregation and quoted an advisory commission member saying the racial issue was ignored because the South might oppose UMT if Negroes were included. He charged that drafting eighteen-year-olds into a segregated Army threatened black progress, and with Grant Reynolds formed the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training.
Chapter 55

Section 564 cards

What did the Army specify about black recruits in its postwar manpower plans?
Citing the Gillem Board Report as its authority, the Army specified that black recruits be trained in segregated units. Those black units would form parts of larger, racially mixed units and would be trained in racially mixed camps. The President's Advisory Commission on Universal Training (the Compton Commission) strongly objected to the segregation provisions, but to no avail. In 1947 the Army trained an experimental universal military training unit at Fort Knox that carefully excluded black volunteers.
Chapter 56
What did A. Philip Randolph pledge at the 1948 Senate Armed Services Committee hearings?
Randolph pledged to openly counsel, aid, and abet youth, both white and Negro, to quarantine any Jim Crow conscription system, whether labeled universal military training or selective service. He said he would call on Negro veterans to recruit younger brothers in an organized refusal to register and be drafted, and appeal to white youths to ignore the registration and induction machinery. He argued gains in education, jobs, and housing would be nullified by federal legislation supporting segregation.
Chapter 56
How did black leaders at Forrestal's National Defense Conference respond to segregation?
Though refraining from endorsing Randolph's position, the conferees also refrained from criticizing him and strongly supported his thesis that segregation in itself was discrimination. They unanimously recommended that the armed services eliminate segregation and challenged the Army's interpretation of its own policy, insisting segregation could be abolished within the Gillem Board framework. The Secretary of Defense had to announce they declined to serve as advisers while segregation continued.
Chapter 56
How did the administration and Congress react to Randolph's civil disobedience pledge?
The pledge had no visible effect on the position of the President or Congress. With a draft bill and a national political convention pending, the President was not about to change his hands-off policy toward segregation in the services, and showed some heat at what he saw as extremists exploiting an issue. Most members of Congress who debated the draft bill simply ignored the threatened boycott. The Washington Post cautioned against exaggerating the protest's significance.
Chapter 56

Section 574 cards

Why did Forrestal delay sending his reply opposing the Russell amendment?
Marx Leva persuaded Forrestal to hold the reply until the selective service bill had safely passed Congress. Forrestal was seriously concerned about the legislation's fate and wanted to oppose Senator Russell's amendment guaranteeing segregated units for draftees who wished to serve only with members of their own race. Congress ultimately rejected both the Russell amendment and Senator Langer's amendment to prohibit all segregation, passing a draft bill without special racial provisions on 19 June 1948.
Chapter 57
What did Forrestal believe was the proper method for achieving progress in race relations?
Forrestal declared that the difficult problem could not be solved by issuing an executive order or passing a law, for progress in this field must be achieved by education, and not by mandate. The author notes this was a long-cherished belief and that the advisory board proposal proved to be Forrestal's last attempt to change racial practices through gradualism. The author argues that by 1948 too much opposition was emotional, rooted in prejudice and tradition, to yield to anything but forceful methods.
Chapter 57
Why did Truman's advisers draft the services order around equal treatment rather than condemning segregation outright?
Philleo Nash, advised by Truman Gibson, argued against publishing an order that spelled out integration or condemned segregation. Instead the order should call for equal treatment and opportunity, the language of the Democratic platform, tied to military efficiency. The advisers assumed the services, guided by a White House committee, would discover the inefficiency of segregation and quickly conclude that equal treatment and opportunity were impossible in a segregated system.
Chapter 57
What did Forrestal request regarding deadlines in the draft executive order?
In keeping with his theory that the services should work out their own methods of compliance, Forrestal wanted no deadlines set. To keep antagonisms to a minimum he wanted the order to call simply for progress as rapidly as feasible, and the President agreed. Marx Leva also proposed a sentence about putting necessary alterations into effect as rapidly as possible; Forrestal approved it, but the President did not accept it.
Chapter 57

Section 584 cards

Why did Executive Order 9981 avoid the words segregation and integration?
The vagueness was deliberate: the order omitted both terms to give the least offense possible to voters who supported segregation. The author argues that emphasizing equality of treatment and opportunity, rather than integration, was appropriate, since integration did not precisely describe the complex social change civil rights leaders demanded. Truman nonetheless admitted at a press conference that he expected the order to abolish racial segregation.
Chapter 58
What did the order say about the committee's placement, and what did Truman intend?
The order created the advisory committee "in" the National Military Establishment, but this wording was misleading. Truman apparently intended a presidential committee overseeing the manpower policies of all the services, operating as a creature of the White House and reporting to the President rather than to the Secretary of Defense.
Chapter 58
How did Royall try to shape the committee's membership?
Secretary of the Army Royall objected that some candidates had publicly favored abolishing segregation, naming Lester Granger as critical of the Army and of Royall personally. He wanted no one with fixed opinions on segregation, and no one who had spoken publicly on it, questioned to ensure they could give the subject "fair consideration." He favored Jonathan Daniels, Ralph McGill, Colgate Darden, and Douglas Southall Freeman.
Chapter 58
How did the black press and Randolph respond to Executive Order 9981?
The order brought a surge of hope to the black community; Roy Wilkins said publishing it made Truman the "darling of the Negroes." The Chicago Defender ran "Mr. Truman Makes History," while the Pittsburgh Courier questioned Truman's sincerity for not explicitly ending segregation yet praised the order's efficiency. A. Philip Randolph canceled his call for a draft boycott, leaving only a few diehards.
Chapter 58

Section 594 cards

What did General Paul ask the National Guard Policy Committee to do in 1947?
General Paul, the Army's Director of Personnel and Administration, asked the committee to amend its regulation on employing black troops to conform with the Gillem Board policy. Specifically, he requested it spell out the prohibition against integrating white and black troops below battalion level, warning that federal recognition would be denied to any state unit organized in violation of that order.
Chapter 59
How did Secretary Royall distinguish state legislative action from a governor's executive action on integration?
Royall excepted New Jersey after its constitution prohibited segregation in the state militia, and said he would be inclined to make similar concessions to states whose legislation barred governors from conforming to federal requirements. But he would not recognize a governor's own decision to integrate, because it was subject to speedy reversal by a successor and could cause serious confusion in the guard.
Chapter 59
Why did the Army staff reject the National Guard Committee's proposal to let states decide on separate black units?
The committee recommended permitting individual states to decide on the wisdom and utility of organizing separate black units. The Army staff rejected this on the grounds that it gave too much discretionary power to state guard authorities. Neither the committee nor the staff disputed the War Department's right to withhold federal recognition in racial matters, and both showed little concern for states' rights.
Chapter 59
What happened when the Army tried to reactivate the 313th Infantry as a black unit in 1946?
Former members of the old white 313th, by then prominent citizens, expressed very strong sentiments against the designation, and the Army beat a hasty retreat. The staff then decided that future black reserve units would either carry the name and history of inactive black units or be newly constituted, since guard and reserve units reflected local community attitudes.
Chapter 59

Section 604 cards

How did Secretary Royall view the Army's role in social change?
Royall conceded Negroes were right to insist on integration but adamantly opposed using the Army to support or oppose any social cause. He contended the Army must follow the nation, not lead it, and must not experiment. Steps toward reducing segregation should come one at a time, and he told black leaders in April 1948 that the time was not right.
Chapter 60
What interservice dispute arose over selective service mental standards in 1948?
With selective service reinstituted, the Army received more black recruits, especially in lower mental categories, than segregation could absorb. The Navy and Air Force set higher minimum achievement scores, excluding many Negroes the Army had to accept. Royall demanded Forrestal impose uniform standards and allocate inductees by ability and race; the other services refused to lower their standards.
Chapter 60
How did Forrestal resolve the dispute over parity of mental standards?
Forrestal referred the controversy to the Munitions Board and then a special interservice committee; both failed to reach agreement. On 12 October he decided not to force parity, explaining it could be imposed only during full mobilization, which conditions from October 1948 to June 1949 did not match. He found no evidence of discrimination but warned serious discrimination by two services would burden the third.
Chapter 60
What was Royall's new tactic after the Truman order, and how did Forrestal use it?
Royall proposed experimenting with integration, perhaps to prove it would not work on a large scale, buy time for Circular 124, and frustrate demands for change. The staff planned a 10 percent black experimental unit at Camp Campbell, Kentucky. Forrestal wanted the project kept secret and hoped to turn the experiment back on the Army, using it to gain a foothold for integration in the largest service.
Chapter 60

Section 613 cards

Why did the Air Force refuse to join Royall's experimental integrated units?
Secretary Symington objected that the experiment would be inconclusive because of artificial features, especially volunteer-only units. He charged that arbitrary quotas violated equal opportunity and were unfair to Negroes, since fewer than 1 in 10 could compete with whites. He also warned that success would be credited to special conditions and failure would unjustly reflect on black capabilities.
Chapter 61
How did Navy statistics undercut Brown's claim of satisfactory progress?
Brown cited a rise from 6 to 38 percent of black sailors in the integrated general service. But total black strength was about 17,000, only 4.5 percent, and the number in general service fell from 9,900 in 1946 to about 6,000 in 1948. Some 62 percent, 10,871 men, remained in the separate Steward's Branch; there were four black officers and six black WAVES.
Chapter 61
How did the Army staff respond to Huebner's request to integrate black infantry at platoon level?
The staff refused, arguing organic black units in the constabulary might harm its mission and citing Circular 124's company-level limit. General Bull told Huebner he could use black units in composite groupings only at company level, and platoon-level integration was not contemplated as Army policy. Black infantrymen arrived in late 1948 as three attached battalion-size units.
Chapter 61

Section 624 cards

Why did the Marine Corps integrate basic training in 1949?
The corps integrated recruit training for military efficiency, not civil rights. With fewer than twenty new black recruits a month, maintaining a separate program was too expensive and inefficient. On 1 July 1949 General Cates ordered black recruits trained at Parris Island in separate platoons, but that too proved costly, leading to full integration of recruit training on 22 September.
Chapter 62
How did General Cates justify continued segregation in the Marine Corps?
Cates argued the defense establishment could not be an agency for experimentation in civil liberty without harming readiness. He held that unit efficiency was a command responsibility, so commanders must decide assignments. Segregation, he concluded, was a national problem that must be accepted as a national custom before adoption in the armed forces.
Chapter 62
What happened to the separate camp at Montford Point?
The cutback in the size and kinds of black units and the integration of recruit training removed the need for Montford Point, home base for black marines since World War II. Its last two organizations, a provisional company and a headquarters company, were inactivated on 31 July and 9 September respectively, ending an era in the history of Negroes in the Marine Corps.
Chapter 62
Were the Marine Corps' 1949 administrative changes a response to Truman's order?
The text argues no. The timing of recruit training integration and the breakup of some large black units perhaps suggested a concession to the Truman order, but these changes were actually made in response to manpower restrictions of the Truman defense budget. The position of black marines in small black units became even more isolated afterward.
Chapter 62

Section 634 cards

What reasons did Symington give Zuckert for Air Force integration, and how did Symington handle Congress?
Zuckert reported that Symington gave him about eight reasons for integration, the last being "because I said do it." Symington's tough attitude, plus the presidential order, eased the burden on Air Force personnel abandoning an Army tradition. A master of congressional relations, he reassured southern leaders, especially Congressman Carl Vinson of Georgia, that integration had to come but would come quietly and in a way least calculated to provoke opponents.
Chapter 63
How did General Edwards bypass staff opposition when formulating the integration plan?
To avoid conflict with colleagues, Edwards used the unorthodox means of ignoring usual staff coordination. He sent proposals directly to the Chief of Staff and then to the secretary for approval without reference to other staff agencies, one of which—the Office of the Vice Chief of Staff under General Muir S. Fairchild—was the focal point of staff opposition.
Chapter 63
What did Edwards conclude about Air Force black manpower policy, and what did he propose?
Edwards concluded current policy was "wasteful, deleterious to military effectiveness and lacking in wartime application," and judged the Navy's policy superior in effectiveness, economy, and morale. He proposed a vigorously implemented, monitored program to inactivate the all-black fighter wing and transfer qualified black servicemen to white units, except specialists essential to their black units; some black units would remain for those ineligible for transfer or discharge.
Chapter 63
How did the plan treat quotas and the "barracks problem"?
The program abolished the 10 percent quota and sought only the "best qualified" enlistees of both races, eliminating the chronically ineligible. Edwards said an administratively determined ceiling on Negro intake could be set if too many enlisted, but no minimum was intended—a racial floor, the Director of Personnel Planning argued, is as much a quota as a ceiling. On barracks, the plan proposed separate sleeping quarters as a conservative but progressive step.
Chapter 63

Section 644 cards

Why did Forrestal decline to issue the proposed directive before leaving office?
Forrestal resigned on 3 March, and although Leva hoped the directive could be issued before his departure given his long-standing interest, Forrestal was reluctant to commit his successor to so drastic a course. Instead he asked Reid and Lanham to submit the proposal to the service secretaries for review, honoring his belief in service autonomy.
Chapter 64
What defects did the Reid-Lanham draft directive have?
It failed to address qualitative imbalance in the peacetime services, probably deferring to Forrestal's rejection of the Army's call for fair distribution of high-scoring enlistees. It also limited Negro assignment to a strict 10 percent quota per unit, which would have been an administrative nightmare, with trained men beyond the quota pushed into other duties.
Chapter 64
What did Secretary Johnson's 6 April 1949 directive require of the services?
Signed by Johnson the day after board approval, it reiterated the President's executive order, stating all persons would be considered on individual merit and qualify by prescribed standards for enlistment, promotion, assignment, and school attendance. All would get equal opportunity for appointment, advancement, and retention; some segregated units remained, but qualified Negroes would be assigned without regard to race. Services had to submit detailed implementation plans.
Chapter 64
How did the Army and Navy replies to Johnson's directive fall short?
Both outlined current policies and ignored the request for future plans. The Army offered statistics proving its program guaranteed equal opportunity; the Navy found no inconsistencies with the secretary's policy. Reid said the Army had a poor policy satisfactorily administered, the Navy an acceptable policy poorly administered, and neither complied with the spirit or letter of the request.
Chapter 64

Section 654 cards

What did Fahy understand Truman's executive order to require of the services?
Fahy understood Truman's executive order to mean unequivocally that the services would have to abandon segregation, an interpretation he said was reinforced in a later discussion with the President. In his view the committee's purpose was not to impose integration but to convince the services of the order's merits and agree with them on an effective plan.
Chapter 65
What advantages did General Bradley concede integration might bring the Army?
Bradley testified that spreading black soldiers through white ranks might remove false charges that equal opportunities are not provided, simplify administration and manpower use, and distribute battle losses more nearly in proportion to the two races' percentages. Yet the Army had so often rehearsed integration's disadvantages that he could readily offer a well-rehearsed apology for continuing segregation.
Chapter 65
Why did the Army claim its situation differed from the Navy and Air Force?
Army officials repeatedly testified that their situation fundamentally differed from the other services: the Army had a much higher proportion of Negroes, 10 to 11 percent during the committee's life, and was required by law to accept thousands of recruits whose aptitude or education would disqualify them for the Air Force or Navy. Armed with these inequities, the Army defended segregation as necessary for combat efficiency.
Chapter 65
What strategy did Kenworthy urge the committee to adopt toward the services?
Kenworthy, convinced appeals to morality would waste time, pressed the committee to meet the military on its own ground: military efficiency. He argued segregation actually impeded efficiency, asking whether the Army had used Negro manpower efficiently and whether segregation, especially in large units like the 92nd and 93rd Divisions, adversely affected morale and efficiency.
Chapter 65

Section 664 cards

What link did the Fahy Committee claim existed between military efficiency and equal opportunity?
The committee argued that maximum military efficiency required all servicemen to have an equal opportunity to discover and exploit their talents, creating an indivisible link between efficiency and equal opportunity. It adopted this as a basic premise and repeatedly pressed it until the committee's end.
Chapter 66
Why did the committee not demand immediate, total Army integration?
The committee accepted the Army's argument that reassigning its concentration of low-scoring 'professional black privates' to white units would be dangerous. Fahy saw virtue in the Army's position, and Davenport warned that drastic change would cause serious administrative confusion. The committee also feared a Capitol Hill outcry endangering the whole reform program.
Chapter 66
What did the committee recommend regarding the Army's racial quota?
The committee decided the racial quota had helped defeat the Gillem Board's aim of using Negroes on a broad professional scale, since it was filled largely by professional privates while qualified black men were denied enlistment. It therefore demanded the quota be abandoned in favor of a quota based on aptitude, in the name of military efficiency.
Chapter 66
What did the committee suggest to the Navy about chief stewards?
The committee suggested the Navy give chief stewards all the perquisites of chief petty officers, charging that the lack of this rating cast doubt on the Navy's professed policy. It stated there was no reason except custom why a chief steward should not be a chief petty officer, and that custom seemed hardly worth the suspicion it evoked.
Chapter 66

Section 674 cards

What did the Fahy Committee's Kenworthy argue about the Army's quota of segregated black units?
Kenworthy contended that unless the Army took intermediate steps, its first objective—a specific quota of black units segregated at the battalion level—would always block realization of integration, its ultimate objective. He drew up a point-by-point rebuttal after the committee rejected Secretary Gray's statement.
Chapter 67
What two fundamental points did the Army and Fahy Committee disagree on in July 1949?
The Army was determined to retain segregated units and opposed reassigning school-trained Negroes to vacancies in white units. It also insisted on retaining the numerical quota to prevent an influx of Negroes in low achievement categories. The committee wanted school-trained Negroes freely assigned and the quota abolished.
Chapter 67
What did Secretary Johnson agree to and refuse at the 1 June 1949 meeting with the Fahy Committee?
Johnson agreed to reject the Army's latest response and order the Secretary of the Army and Chief of Staff to confer informally with the committee to produce an acceptable program. He made no move to order a common enlistment standard, telling Fahy the matter was extremely controversial and would involve rescinding previous interdepartmental agreements.
Chapter 67
What did General Lanham want Johnson to tell the Army, and what did Johnson do with it?
Lanham drafted a response saying the Department of the Army must meet the equal opportunity issue squarely and that its action, however modest at first, must be progressive and carry the promise of an ultimate solution. Johnson rejected the Army's second reply but deleted Lanham's demand for immediate steps toward equal opportunity.
Chapter 67

Section 684 cards

Why did Fahy reject the Army's newest proposal despite Johnson's approval?
Fahy admitted the proposal was an improvement but refused it because it used "equivocal" language on assigning black specialists to white units, a key part of the committee's program. The quota issue also remained unresolved, and the committee resented being ignored in the approval process, since the President had charged it with advising the services and it was determined to be heard.
Chapter 68
How did Truman publicly characterize Johnson's news release about the Army plan?
Truman told the press that Johnson's release was merely a "progress report," not final, and that the committee was continuing its investigation. He added that eventually the goal he hoped for would be reached, saying "You can't do it all at once," and declared that his aim was the racial integration of the Army.
Chapter 68
What did the Army staff's 27 October message to commanders do?
Sent after the 1 October message that included Gray's order opening all military occupational specialties to Negroes, the second message specifically forbade integrating black specialists in white units "except on Department of Army orders." It authorized Negroes only for black units and "Negro spaces" in overhead units, in effect ordering commanders to interpret the secretary's plan in its narrowest sense.
Chapter 68
How did Kenworthy obtain and use the second message?
Kenworthy never locked his office or desk, expecting black workers in the message centers to tip him off anonymously. Days after the second message went out, he found a copy in his desk drawer. Breaking his rule of relying on in camera negotiations, he gave both messages to the Washington Post's editorial page editor, triggering accusations and headlines that the brass gave Gray the run-around.
Chapter 68

Section 694 cards

What did Roy Davenport tell Gordon Gray about his staff advisers?
Davenport told Gray that the staff officers advising him and writing the memos and directives he signed had deceived him. Gray was first annoyed and incredulous, then angry once convinced. Kenworthy later wrote that the Gray-Davenport discussion was decisive in changing Gray's mind on the assignment issue and greatly helped the Fahy Committee.
Chapter 69
What did Special Regulation 600-629-1 provide when issued on 16 January 1950?
The regulation, Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army, stated that Negro manpower with appropriate skills and qualifications would be utilized accordingly and assigned to any unit without regard to race or color. It also required periodic lists of critical specialties with vacancies, and commanders had to fill them with qualified Negroes regardless of race. Fahy reported it consistent with the executive order.
Chapter 69
What did the Fahy Committee propose instead of the Army's racial quota?
The committee wanted enlistment decided by General Classification Test scores, not race: open enlistment to anyone scoring ninety or above, limit those scoring eighty to eighty-nine to 13.4 percent of Army strength, and mostly close enlistment below eighty. It argued the racial quota wasted manpower and blocked qualified blacks, citing June 1949 high school graduates who could not enlist because the black quota was full.
Chapter 69
What proviso did Secretary Gray attach to dropping the racial quota?
Gray told Truman on 1 March 1950 that the Army would drop the racial quota on the understanding that if a fair trial produced a disproportionate balance of racial strengths in the Army, he had authority to return to a system controlling enlistments by race. The President agreed. Open recruiting to all races was ordered on 27 March 1950.
Chapter 69

Section 704 cards

What did the Fahy Committee demonstrate about segregation and military manpower?
The committee subjected the services' racial policies to the first rigorous examination by an agency outside the Department of Defense. As a result, it clearly demonstrated that segregation was an inefficient way to use military manpower and demolished the arguments the services habitually used against serious change. It also kept alive the spirit of reform created by Truman's order, and its definition of equal treatment and opportunity became the standard for future action.
Chapter 70
What did the Fahy Committee win from the Army?
After protracted argument the committee won the Army's agreement to abolish the racial quota and to open all specialties in all Army units and all Army schools and courses to qualified Negroes. It also won the Army's promise to stop restricting black servicemen to black units and overhead installations, and instead to assign them on the basis of individual ability and the Army's need.
Chapter 70
Why did unequal enlistment standards threaten the Army's abolition of the racial quota?
The committee argued that parity of enlistment standards was vital to abolishing the Army's quota. If standards were not equalized, especially while the Army drew manpower from Selective Service, the number of men in categories IV and V would increase, providing strong justification for reviving the quota. The President had given the Secretary of the Army authority to act if there was a disproportionate balance of racial strengths.
Chapter 70
What did Kenworthy conclude about the Army's implementation by July 1950?
Kenworthy told Fahy that so long as additions were not progressively made to the critical list of military occupations open to Negroes, and so long as segregated units remained the rule, all specialties and schools could not be said to be open, because Negro units lacked calls for many advanced specialties. He was also disturbed that the Army disbanded the staff agency created to monitor the new policies, concluding the Army intended to do as little as possible.
Chapter 70

Section 714 cards

Why did Spanish-speaking Americans object to recruiter practices in 1949?
Recruiters often scratched out "white" and inserted "Mexican" on applications of Spanish-speaking volunteers. Congressman Chet Holifield told the Secretary of Defense these young men wanted integration into every phase of community life, warning that treating them as a group apart was "extremely repellent" and caused demoralization and hostility. He suggested asking about parents' birthplace and home language instead.
Chapter 71
What five racial categories did the Personnel Policy Board adopt in October 1949?
Caucasian, Negroid, Mongolian, Indian (American), and Malayan. The board simplified the department's categories and made their use uniform across the services, but kept racial designations because the Army's quota system still depended on the information. The list, approved by the secretary and published 11 October, immediately drew complaints from department members.
Chapter 71
How did Admiral McCrea propose defining the racial categories?
The board's chief of staff recommended the Army and Navy consult Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary for definitions. He offered generalizations: Puerto Ricans are Caucasian unless of Indian or Negro birth; Filipinos and Hawaiians are Malayan; Latin Americans are Caucasian or Indian; and Indian-Negro and White-Negro mixtures follow the laws of their birth states. The chapter notes World War II's lessons on defining race were ignored.
Chapter 71
What did the April 1950 directive say about an applicant's declaration of race?
The board stated an applicant's declaration of race should be accepted, subject to "sufficient justification" when the declaration created "reason to doubt." This returned to the Selective Service's practical method. But when services translated the directive into regulation, the applicant's role was practically abolished: unresolved cases went to the highest local commander, whose decision was final.
Chapter 71

Section 724 cards

How did the State Department limit black unit assignments to Panama in 1949?
The State Department declined to restrict its excepted-areas list to the six named areas. In December 1949 it informally told the Army it had no objection to assigning individual Negroes or nonsegregated units to Panama but raised grave objections to assigning black units. As a result, only individual Negroes were assigned to temporary units in the Panama Command.
Chapter 72
What did Secretary Johnson's 5 April 1950 policy statement direct the services to do?
Johnson stated that the State Department endorsed freely assigning Negro personnel or Negro or nonsegregated units worldwide and would support Defense's desires. But because some governments had indicated unwillingness to accept black servicemen, he directed the services to inform him in advance before sending black troops to countries where none were then stationed, so host countries could be consulted.
Chapter 72
Why did the Army cancel a black soldier's assignment to Turkey in 1951?
The chief of the military mission in Turkey asked the Army staff to reconsider assigning black soldiers to Turkey because of the attitude of the Turks. The Army then canceled the assignment. Earlier, in 1949, the Army's G-3 had concluded race was not a factor in mission eligibility but that host countries should be informed of a prospective applicant's race.
Chapter 72
What was the Russell amendment and how was it defeated?
Senator Richard B. Russell proposed allowing inductees and enlistees, on written declaration, to serve in units manned exclusively by their own race. It gained prominence after the executive order and Fahy Committee Report and was discharged from committee unanimously. After debate over efficiency, legality, equality, and states' rights, it was defeated 45 to 27, with 24 not voting.
Chapter 72

Section 734 cards

What dilemma did Anna Rosenberg face as manpower assistant regarding integration?
The author argues Rosenberg had to reassure integrationists that the new racial policy would be enforced by pressing reluctant services to end discrimination, while avoiding provoking segregationist congressmen who might retaliate by blocking other defense legislation. Her primary assignment was the universal military training bill, so she accomplished little specific racial reform during the first year of the Korean War.
Chapter 73
How did Rosenberg keep civil rights legislators informed of department progress?
Rosenberg met with legislators interested in civil rights to outline current progress and future plans for equal treatment of black servicemen. She arranged for her assistants and Brig. Gen. B. M. McFayden, the Army's Deputy G-1, to brief civil rights organization officials. She had congressional complaints speedily investigated and demanded periodic progress reports from the services, which she issued to civil rights backers.
Chapter 73
Why did the Defense Department decline to push federal protection legislation for servicemen?
Rosenberg said the department would not itself propose legislation extending to servicemen the protection given civilian federal employees but would support such a proposal from another source. Marshall opposed attaching it to the training bill, calling it an extraneous issue, and Assistant Secretary Daniel K. Edwards refused Mitchell's drafting request, saying the department did not act as a drafting service for outside agencies.
Chapter 73
What did the Qualitative Distribution of Military Manpower Program require?
Approved by Secretary Marshall on 10 April 1951, the program let volunteer enlistments continue but required all services to give a uniform entrance test to volunteers and draftees, adopting the Army's test renamed the Armed Forces Qualification Test. Each service had to recruit from four mental categories per quota. During the Korean War each service took 24 percent of recruits from category IV, later reduced to 18 percent and then 12 percent in 1958.
Chapter 73

Section 744 cards

How did black airmen react to the 332d Fighter Wing's inactivation at Lockbourne?
The Fahy Committee staff reported that black troops generally supported the inactivation as a necessary step toward integration. However, news reports often linked the disbandment to 1950 budget belt-tightening, leading some Negroes in the 332d to conclude the move aimed at saving money rather than integration. They feared being relegated to unskilled labor units despite their training and experience.
Chapter 74
What did General Vandenberg report to the War Council about implementing integration?
On 11 January, Vandenberg reported the Air Force would "effect full and complete implementation" of its integration plan by issuing required directives and orders, and by assigning responsibility for monitoring worldwide implementation to his deputy for personnel. He also planned to meet senior commanders to discuss problems and stress the personal attention they must give to carrying it out in the field.
Chapter 74
How did the final AF Letter 35-3 differ from the January draft on barracks segregation?
Despite Edwards's April comments, the provision allowing commanders to segregate barracks "if considered necessary" was removed before the plan was first forwarded to the Secretary of Defense. The deletion was made in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, probably by Zuckert, who said he wouldn't want to give commanders that sweeping power, fearing how it might be exercised. Black airmen were billeted routinely in assigned units' living quarters.
Chapter 74
What two major first-phase steps did General Edwards outline at the April 1949 commanders' conference?
First, the 332d Fighter Wing would be inactivated on or before 30 June and all blacks removed from Lockbourne; a board would screen officers into three groups—skilled reassigned worldwide to white units, usable men to black service units, and the unqualified discharged. Second, all commands would similarly screen black troops, and racial quotas for recruitment and school attendance would be abolished.
Chapter 74

Section 754 cards

Why were Lockbourne's reassignments delayed after screening finished?
Reassignment was drawn out partly because of indecision over Lockbourne's own future, caused by budgetary uncertainties. By 25 July, two months after screening began, the Lockbourne board had recommended only 181 officers and 700 airmen for new assignment. Soon after, Lockbourne went on inactive status and its remaining personnel, except a small caretaker detachment, were quickly reassigned throughout the Air Force.
Chapter 75
Did integration follow the geographical pattern staff predicted?
No. The staff predicted southern bases would integrate last, but no special pattern prevailed. Many Negroes assigned to all-black base squadrons for administration but serving daily in integrated units simply stayed where they worked; some base service squadrons literally disappeared. Most commanders also quickly reassigned troops from other all-black units, though a few cautious commanders moved more slowly.
Chapter 75
What did the Air staff say caused the slight surge in black recruits?
The Air staff attributed the early surge less to the new policy than to abnormal recruiting conditions. There was a backlog of Negroes who had long tried to enlist but found the Air Force quota filled, plus black volunteers who turned to the quota-free Air Force when the Army, its quota of Negroes filled, stopped recruiting them. Black strength stayed roughly 6 to 7 percent.
Chapter 75
Why did the Air Force's limited integration plan become universal?
The author argues the Air Force became captive of its own publicity: Symington had carefully limited the plan before the Personnel Policy Board, but went beyond those limits addressing Truman at the Fahy Committee. Once begun, integration spread; by end of 1950 only nine black units remained with 95 percent of black airmen integrated, and about eighteen months later just one segregated unit was left.
Chapter 75

Section 764 cards

How did the Air Force typically handle incidents involving black airmen after integration?
The Air Force adopted a standard formula: incidents involving black airmen were treated as individual incidents and handled on a personal basis like ordinary disciplinary cases. Only when no alternative existed was an incident labeled "racial," and then the commander was expected to deal speedily and firmly with the troublemakers. This procedure freed the Air Force for a decade from charges of on-base discrimination.
Chapter 76
What inefficiency did the 3202d Installation Group's segregation cause at Eglin Air Force Base?
The 3202d had an all-black heavy maintenance and construction squadron, a black maintenance repair and utilities squadron, and an all-white headquarters squadron. A white truck driver (MOS 345) could not be assigned to the squadron where his specialty was authorized and instead went to the white headquarters squadron where it was not. The Air Inspector charged the unit with misassignment of personnel; it was integrated in July 1950.
Chapter 76
What two rules did the Air staff impose on interracial social activities?
The Air staff imposed only two rules: with due regard for sex and rank, all Air Force facilities were available for the unrestricted use of all members, and troublemakers would get into trouble. Under these rules the Fahy Committee later reported a steady movement toward shared facilities, with mutual respect from work or school translating into friendly association.
Chapter 76
What did the commander of the 1701st Air Transport Wing report about off-base conditions in Great Falls?
The commander reported that the unit's eighty-three Negroes, serving in ten organizations, lived and worked with white airmen on an apparently equal and friendly basis. But he could not persuade local community leaders to promote equality of treatment outside the base, and beyond its movie theaters Great Falls had very few places allowing black airmen. He noted airmen eventually want to go to town, sit at a table, and order what they want.
Chapter 76

Section 774 cards

What did the Navy do about segregated testing sites for NROTC exams?
When local law or custom required segregated facilities for reserve officer training qualifying tests, the Navy used its own facilities instead. This ruling was applied when 1949 examinations were given in Atlanta and New Orleans, and the Navy transferred the test sites to nearby naval facilities, which the black press welcomed.
Chapter 77
How did the Navy explain its small number of black enlistees?
Naval spokesmen cited reduced manpower ceilings and volunteer-only enlistment requiring a general classification test score of ninety or higher. Only 16 percent of blacks scored above ninety versus 67 percent of whites, they claimed, and keen competition for few openings meant accepted Negroes had to be extraordinarily well qualified. The author notes this explanation omitted the group IV distribution program's role.
Chapter 77
What did the author conclude caused increases in black Navy strength between 1952 and 1959?
The author argues the increases came not from the Navy's publicized effort to attract qualified black volunteers promised to the Fahy Committee, but from men forced on the service by the Defense Department's qualitative distribution program, which required each service to accept set percentages of group IV recruits. The correlation between group IV enlistments and black strength supports this.
Chapter 77
Why did so few black candidates complete the 1949 NROTC officer program?
Of 2,700 blacks expressing interest, only 250 took the aptitude tests, and only two passed; one was later rejected for poor eyesight. An Urban League spokesman attributed this partly to fear of failure and partly to suspicion the program was not truly open. Reinforcing that suspicion, as of 1965 no Negro had been appointed to any 150-man state selection committee.
Chapter 77

Section 784 cards

How did Secretary Kimball defend the Steward's Branch's racial exclusivity to Lester Granger?
Kimball argued in November 1952 that radical or wholesale changes in ratings would reduce Navy efficiency and often harm the individuals concerned, especially senior stewards. He claimed the branch's exclusiveness actually worked to the Negro's advantage. Vice Admiral Holloway added that over 80 percent reenlistment during the Korean War proved the branch the most popular in the Navy.
Chapter 78
What three recommendations did the reactivated officers' 1953 study make for the Steward's Branch?
The group recommended abolishing segregation of the Steward's Branch from general service and its separate recruitment; considering consolidation of the branch with the predominantly white Commissary Branch; and changing the steward's insignia. They acknowledged the branch was a sore spot with Negroes and the Navy's weakest public relations position.
Chapter 78
What did Secretary Anderson actually approve in February 1954 regarding steward recruitment?
Anderson approved ending separate recruitment of stewards, except for contract enlistment of Filipino citizens. He assured Congressman Powell that only after recruit training, and with full knowledge of opportunities in various specialties, could an enlistee volunteer for messman's duty. Holloway rejected the commissary merger and retained the branch insignia.
Chapter 78
What changes in the Steward's Branch had emerged by 1961?
The end of separate recruitment cut Negro entries, and transfers of eligible chief stewards reduced those already in the branch—about 600 of 1,800 tested transferred between 1956 and 1961. Rising contract messmen from the western Pacific reduced Negroes to a minority in the branch for the first time in some thirty years. Separate berthing was discontinued and sea duty increased.
Chapter 78

Section 793 cards

According to the chapter, why did Army leaders finally accept integration?
The chapter states integration came not from executive fiat, electoral demand, or a civil rights victory over racists, but because Army leaders finally accepted the definition of military efficiency spelled out by the Fahy Committee and demonstrated by troops in battle. The Army justified its policy changes in the name of efficiency, as it always had, but this time efficiency led it unmistakably toward integration.
Chapter 79
How did the Korean War affect the Army's racial balance and segregation policy?
The Korean War doubled the Army in five months, to 1.6 million by June 1951. With the quota lifted in April 1950, black strength rose from 10.2 percent of enlisted strength to 13.2 percent by December 1952, driven by high black enlistment and draft rates. Black units reported overstrengths up to 60 percent, severely testing segregation and acting as the catalyst for change.
Chapter 79
What did General Collins conclude from his World War II experience about segregation?
Collins drew on World War II experience, declaring that major black ground units and, to a lesser degree, the 99th Pursuit Squadron 'did not work out,' nor did smaller independent black units. Integrated infantry platoons in Europe, with which he had personal experience, worked well. He concluded it was pointless to support segregated units and proposed assigning two Negroes to each squad, assuming the quota was preserved.
Chapter 79

Section 804 cards

Why did Taylor's staff reject McAuliffe's proposal for additional black units?
Taylor's staff objected on practical grounds: budget limitations precluded creating additional units, and policy restrictions forbade creating new units merely to accommodate black recruits. Instead, the operations staff recommended shipping black soldiers in excess of unit strength directly from training centers to overseas commands as replacements, without regard for specific assignment. McAuliffe warned of the resulting racial proportions in Far East shipments but could not break the Washington impasse.
Chapter 80
How did the Eighth Army begin integrating black soldiers in Korea in 1950?
Confronted with battle losses in white units and surplus black replacements arriving in Japan, the Eighth Army assigned individual black soldiers to understrength units, just as it assigned individual Korean soldiers. In August 1950 the 9th Infantry assigned two black officers and eighty-nine black enlisted men to its undermanned all-white battalions; by December black soldiers made up about 11 percent of the regiment.
Chapter 80
Why did commanders of stateside training divisions begin mixing black and white inductees?
The number of black and white inductees in any monthly draft call, and their designated training centers, depended on Selective Service and was unpredictable. Commanders could not arrange proper numbers of separate white and black units and instructors, so white units sat undermanned while black units were overcrowded. This inefficiency led commanders, first at Fort Ord, to mix inductees for messing, housing, and training.
Chapter 80
What happened to the 24th Infantry Regiment in Korea, and what did its commander conclude?
Despite acts of heroism by some individuals, the 24th Infantry Regiment performed poorly overall, its instability evident at Battle Mountain in August 1950; by September it was a weak link in the 25th Division line. On 9 September Maj. Gen. William B. Kean recommended removing it from combat, calling it untrustworthy and incapable of carrying out infantry missions.
Chapter 80

Section 813 cards

What did Thurgood Marshall conclude about the 24th Infantry courts-martial?
Marshall, sent by the NAACP to investigate after 36 convicted men appealed, traveled in Korea and Japan with carte blanche from MacArthur. He concluded the men were tried in an atmosphere making justice impossible and that the NAACP had evidence to clear most of them. He blamed the Army's segregation policy and MacArthur's failure to carry out Truman's order in the Far East.
Chapter 81
Why does the chapter reject Walter White's conspiracy theory about the 24th Infantry reports?
White claimed reports of poor performance were meant to discredit black combat ability and return black soldiers to labor duties. The chapter calls this understandable given his World War II experiences but inaccurate: by 1951 many Eighth Army combat leaders advocated integration, and most commanders recommended assigning black troops to integrated combat units, not converting them to service units.
Chapter 81
What limits did Ridgway place on integration of black soldiers in Korea?
Ridgway, who called segregation wholly inefficient and both un-American and un-Christian, concurred in his inspector general's recommendation. He specified that integration in white combat units was a practical solution provided the overall theater level of Negroes did not exceed 15 percent of troop level and did not exceed 12 percent in any combat unit.
Chapter 81

Section 823 cards

What three options for integrating black soldiers were under discussion in the Department of the Army in 1951?
Ridgway called for complete integration in Korea, then Japan, with a 10 percent limit on black replacements. Mark Clark proposed shipping black combat battalions to Korea for use at division commanders' discretion, with integration limited to combat-tested individuals in support units. The Army staff favored continuing to send replacements for the Far East Command to use as it saw fit.
Chapter 82
What did the 1 July 1951 message to Ridgway approve, and with what exception?
It approved deactivation of the 24th Infantry and Ridgway's general plan for integrating Negroes into all units, with the temporary exception of the 40th and 45th Divisions. The staff wanted the move gradual, progressive, and secret to avoid friction in the Eighth Army, but the Army publicly announced integration of the Far East Command on 26 July 1951.
Chapter 82
How did white enlisted men wounded in Korea describe integration, according to the chapter?
Their conclusions contrasted sharply with Army traditionalists' predictions. They said integration worked well, that race made no difference when it came to life or death, and that an integrated unit was like one big family. One praised a black machine gun crew member and a black platoon leader, saying an American is an American in combat.
Chapter 82

Section 834 cards

What did General McAuliffe warn would be lost if racial statistics were dropped?
McAuliffe agreed to drop racial statistics but warned that investigation of discrimination charges depended on such statistics. He also accepted mixing blacks into white units at 10 to 20 percent of strength, but said assigning whites in similar percentages to black units would present difficulties and burden white personnel. He stressed commanders would have flexibility in nonoperational aspects so long as methods were consistent with Army policy.
Chapter 83
What did General Collins order on 29 December 1951?
Collins ordered all major commanders to prepare integration programs for their commands. Integration was the Army's immediate goal and was to be progressive, in orderly stages, and without publicity. This followed McAuliffe's conclusion that integration was working in enough varied circumstances to justify extending it to the entire Army, despite staff reservations about social integration and racial quotas.
Chapter 83
Why did senior Army officials in Europe oppose full integration?
Most European commanders were unaware of integration's success in the Far East and at home, and when informed declared it impractical for Europe. They warned of social problems with the all-white civilian population and predicted the Army would abandon the program midstream. Exceptions included Lt. Gen. Manton S. Eddy, who found segregation caused serious operational problems and concluded integration was desirable.
Chapter 83
How did the European Command's black strength ratios change and why?
Handy first directed a 1 to 10 ratio, tolerating higher ratios in service units early on. Ratios were later raised to 12 percent for armor and infantry, 15 percent for combat engineers and artillery, and 17.5 percent for other units, with 25 percent authorized during integration, because black strength kept exceeding the ratio and rising. Gruenther later treated ratios as guidelines.
Chapter 83

Section 844 cards

How did the Army's official view of integration change after Korea?
The author argues the Army made a complete about-face: it had once defended segregation on efficiency grounds, but after Korea commanders from company level to general officers reported that integration worked better and was a success. Assistant Secretary of Defense Hannah cited official analyses showing increased combat effectiveness overseas and more economical results from removing duplicate race-based facilities.
Chapter 84
What fear about social integration did the 1953 Army survey address?
Officials had feared social mingling would cause racial incidents and breakdown in discipline. A 1953 Army-sponsored survey found this fear groundless: except for racially separate dances at post service clubs on southern bases, segregation stopped at the reservation gates, and headquarters found social integration without incident. Some clubs self-segregated, but no official notice was taken and none generated complaints in 1953.
Chapter 84
What did Senator Russell tell Evans about congressional opposition to integration?
At the manpower secretary's request, Evans informed Senator Richard B. Russell, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, that the Army would integrate for military efficiency. Russell said he had been unable to do things he wanted because black voters weren't strong enough politically to support him, and told Evans to tell the secretary he wouldn't help integration but wouldn't hinder it either, nor would anyone else. News passed through Congress without protest.
Chapter 84
How did integration affect the fear that low-scoring black soldiers would weaken units?
Opponents feared low-scoring black soldiers, handicapped by schooling and training deficiencies, would weaken integrated units as they had all-black ones. The author argues integration proved the best solution: one combat commander said mixing gives a strong line while segregating creates a weak point the enemy exploits. Korea taught that an integrated unit is as strong as its leadership and training, and integration diluted the less qualified while improving many black soldiers' performance.
Chapter 84

Section 854 cards

What distinction did Commandant Cates draw in 1949 about race and the services?
Cates supported allocating men to the services without regard to race, but opposed ordering integration of the services themselves. He declared that changing national policy through the Armed Forces was a dangerous path that affected the National Military Establishment's ability to fulfill its mission. In his view, integration of the services had to follow, not precede, integration of American society.
Chapter 85
What racial policy did the Marine Corps announce on 18 November 1949?
The Acting Chief of Staff announced that individual black marines would be assigned by specialty to vacancies in any unit where their services could be effectively utilized, but segregated black units would be retained and new ones created in regular and reserve components. Unit commanders decided on reserve applicants. Cates added that black officers would be assigned to black units only.
Chapter 85
What two factors from the Korean War changed Marine race policy?
First, a great influx of black marines: the April 1950 qualitative distribution of manpower forced the corps to accept men in lower test categories, and Selective Service and the draft added thousands more, jumping black marines 100 percent in the first year and nearly sixfold by 1953. Second, wartime manpower demands led commanders to assign black replacements individually to combat units.
Chapter 85
How did integration in Korea perform, and what did the Marine Corps do in December 1951?
Integration in Korea proved uneventful. The 7th Marines commander reported no color problem, noting a black sergeant commanded an all-white squad. Black marines won decorations and commanders' respect, and Lt. Gen. Oliver P. Smith praised their integrated performance. In December 1951 the Commandant announced a general policy of racial integration, abolishing the 1942 system of designated black units.
Chapter 85

Section 863 cards

What did the Marine Corps do about the all-black Steward's Branch in 1956 and 1961?
In 1956 the corps quietly began accepting white volunteers for the Steward's Branch, breaking tradition. By March 1961 the branch had eighty white men, about 10 percent of its total. Later that year the commandant set a racial quota requiring half of volunteers accepted for stewards duty to be white. Within less than two months the branch was 20 percent white, and the corps reported no difficulty attracting white volunteers, mostly from southeastern states.
Chapter 86
What restrictions on black marines remained by June 1962?
By June 1962 all restrictions on assignment of black marines had been dropped except at several installations in the United States where off-base housing was unavailable, and at some overseas posts where the use of black marines was limited because of foreign governments' attitudes. Before this, as of 1960 the Inspector General still kept a list of stations where Negroes would not be assigned, and the corps staff never considered the matter officially.
Chapter 86
Why did black stewards' morale improve after whites entered the branch?
A senior black warrant officer explained that simply opening stewards duty to whites made the duty acceptable to many Negroes who had asked, 'if it was so good, why don't you have some of the whites in it.' When transfer to general service became easy in the 1960s, the corps found only a small percentage of black stewards wished to make the change. The chapter also notes persistent shortages and low morale in the branch through the 1950s.
Chapter 86

Section 874 cards

Why did the Defense Department resist broad racial reform in the 1950s?
Both the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations committed to equal treatment and admitted a link between military efficiency and discrimination, but presumed severe limits on their power to change local laws and customs. The services echoed this, arguing their authority over racial reform ran only to the gates of the military reservation.
Chapter 87
How did the services still achieve racial reforms between 1954 and 1962?
Though their view of racial responsibility did not substantively change, the Department of Defense made significant reforms. These reflected the same forces acting on the larger society: military society shared the prejudices and reform impulses of the body politic. The changes were primarily parochial responses to special internal needs, occurring amid rising national civil rights demands.
Chapter 87
What did Brown v. Board of Education decide, and how effective was it?
On 17 May 1954 the Supreme Court unanimously held in Brown v. Board of Education that 'separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,' undermining school segregation and committing the nation to racial equality. But the order to desegregate 'with all deliberate speed' met massive resistance; by 1962 only 7.6 percent of over three million school-age Negroes in southern and border states attended integrated schools.
Chapter 87
What did the Supreme Court's voting rights decisions accomplish, and what limits remained?
The Court outlawed the all-white primary and required Negroes be tried only where they could serve on juries, helping raise qualified black voters in twelve southern states from 645,000 in 1947 to about 1.2 million by 1952. Yet poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation still blocked registration, and in some rural counties registration declined in the early 1960s.
Chapter 87

Section 884 cards

How did the services justify not addressing off-base discrimination in the early 1950s?
Officials claimed Executive Order 9981 did not reach local custom. Assistant Secretary Zuckert told Clarence Mitchell the Air Force could not intervene in local social change, the Army Chief of Staff said commanders could only urge local civic cooperation, and the Deputy Chief of Naval Personnel said Key West housing was controlled by the Federal Housing Authority, not the Navy.
Chapter 88
What happened to the black pilot who refused to move to the rear of a bus at Craig Air Force Base?
In 1953 the pilot refused until military police ordered him to comply with Alabama law. The Air Force officially reprimanded and eventually discharged him, stating that as a member of the Armed Forces he was obliged to abide by all municipal and state laws regardless of his personal feelings or Armed Forces policy.
Chapter 88
What did Secretary of the Air Force Talbott say about servicemen and local law in 1956?
Talbott explained that commanders were expected to foster good relations with local authorities and in many areas were obliged to require servicemen to conform to local law regardless of their own convictions or personal beliefs. The author argues this attitude belied the services' claimed benign neutrality, since they sometimes reinforced local segregation laws.
Chapter 88
What exception did the services make to their refusal to alter assignments for racial reasons?
Both the Air Force and the Army had an established, frequently reiterated policy of not assigning troops involved in interracial marriages to states where such unions were illegal. Otherwise they refused mass reassignment or geographic restriction of black servicemen, arguing such limits would contradict equality of treatment.
Chapter 88

Section 892 cards

What did Evans charge was the 'insidious intent' of Hague's notice?
Evans, in the Department of Defense, charged that the Navy was again segregating people by race and that this was the 'insidious intent' of Hague's notice. He told Assistant Secretary Rosenberg that segregation signs were reappearing over drinking fountains and toilets at naval installations that had abandoned such practices, that uniformed men were subjected to segregation there, and that local press claimed local law was being reestablished on federal property.
Chapter 89
What did Anderson's August 1953 directive require of commanders of segregated facilities?
On 20 August Anderson directed commanders of segregated facilities to proceed steadily toward complete elimination of racial barriers. Each commander was to submit a progress report on 1 November and at sixty-day intervals thereafter. Anderson was concerned about civil rights groups' reaction if integration were not achieved in the first sixty days, but he was determined to give local commanders leeway. He told the press he did not intend 'to put up with inaction.'
Chapter 89

Section 904 cards

What did Commissioner McGrath tell Rosenberg about segregated post schools in January 1953?
On 15 January 1953 Earl J. McGrath, U.S. Commissioner of Education, informed Rosenberg that if the Department of Defense outlawed segregated dependent schooling and local educational agencies could not comply, his office would have to make "other arrangements" for the children. This followed the department going on record, with Secretary of Defense Lovett's approval, as opposed to segregated post schools as violative of departmental and presidential policy.
Chapter 90
How did the Army and Secretary Hannah respond to McGrath's integration proposal?
The change in administrations interrupted negotiations, and Rosenberg's successor John A. Hannah made clear there would be no speedy change. The Army's principal personnel officer called integration a departmental goal to be approached by steps consistent with favorable local conditions as determined by the installation commander, citing teacher procurement and financial burdens. The Secretary of the Army called it a desirable goal but wanted careful analysis of each installation's impact first; Hannah then broke off negotiations.
Chapter 90
What did President Eisenhower say at his 19 March 1953 press conference about federal funds and discrimination?
Eisenhower promised to investigate the school situation and declared that whenever federal funds are expended for anything, he did not see how any American can justify—legally, logically, or morally—discrimination in the expenditure of those funds among citizens. All are taxed to provide the funds, so all should share the benefits regardless of such inconsequential factors as race and religion. The chapter notes the sweeping changes implied soon became apparent.
Chapter 90
What did Secretary of Defense Wilson order on 12 January 1954 regarding segregated schools?
Wilson announced that effective that date no new school shall be opened 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. He promised to negotiate with local authorities, and if they could not comply the Commissioner of Education would be asked to provide integrated facilities under Public Law 874. The order predated the Supreme Court decision by about four months.
Chapter 90

Section 914 cards

Why were four leased schools exempted from the June 1955 integration order?
Burgess exempted four schools as of 1 June 1955 because they were built and operated by local authorities on leased federal land, some with 75-year leases. He ordered that no attempt be made to break the leases or take over operation pending further instruction from the Secretary of Defense. The Army sought an extension for Fort Meade pending Maryland's integration.
Chapter 91
How were the Biggs and Fort Bliss leased schools integrated before the deadline?
Biggs Air Force Base and Fort Bliss were integrated before the September deadline as a result of a change in state law in Texas following the Supreme Court's decision, not through federal lease-breaking. Fort Meade's phased integration began later, reported 16 July 1956, while Pine Bluff Arsenal remained unresolved.
Chapter 91
What limit did Wilson's order have on dependent schools?
Wilson's order applied only to schools on federal property. It ignored the largest category of dependent schools: local community schools supported in whole or part by federal funds because of heavy federal enrollment. About 28,000 federal dependents were educated in segregated classes there, and their integration awaited the court battles after Brown.
Chapter 91
Why did the Defense Department say it could not act on the Little Rock school?
The school was built by the local board with federal funds on state land, not owned or operated by the Air Force. The impact aid laws barred federal construction if local districts could provide schooling for dependents. Jackson's solution was federal purchase of the land, making the school on-base and subject to integration.
Chapter 91

Section 922 cards

What did Anthony Lewis and Morton Puner claim about the military's influence?
The chapter reports that several writers suggested the services' experience had become a dynamic force for social change. Anthony Lewis of the New York Times went so far as to say successful integration of military society led to the black crusade against discrimination in civilian society. Morton Puner observed in 1959 that the armed services were more advanced in race relations than the rest of the United States.
Chapter 92
What did a black serviceman entering the 1960 military still face?
He entered an integrated military community, unlike his 1950 counterpart, and was more often than not close to being judged by ability rather than race. But he would quickly find traces of discrimination, especially unequal treatment in assignments, promotions, and military justice. In the civilian community, his uniform commanded little more respect than in 1950.
Chapter 92

Section 934 cards

How did the author characterize Kennedy's commitment to civil rights reform?
The author argues Kennedy's commitment did not emerge full-blown on inauguration day; only in his administration's last months, pressed by civil rights demands and sharing his brother Robert's interests, did he throw himself wholeheartedly into the fray. As senator and President he was sympathetic but regarded civil rights as one, not the most pressing, problem.
Chapter 93
Why did Kennedy avoid pushing civil rights legislation in 1961?
Kennedy was convinced only strong laws could answer Negroes' injustices but certain such legislation was impossible in 1961. Urging it on an unwilling Congress would jeopardize his legislative program, increase black frustration, and divide the nation in a crisis. He cited West Berlin and needing reserve units, telling Hesburgh it wasn't the time to monkey with the Army.
Chapter 93
What executive orders on civil rights did Kennedy issue, and when?
On 6 March 1961 Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925, combining the government contracts and employment policy committees into a single Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity chaired by the Vice President; he believed its sanctions were sweeping enough to ensure compliance. In November 1962, after pointed reminders from advocates, he issued Executive Order 11063 against discrimination in federal housing.
Chapter 93
What was the Civil Rights Subcabinet Group and what did it do?
Created in March 1961 on Frederick Dutton's recommendation, it coordinated the administration's civil rights actions, chaired by Dutton and including assistant secretaries responsible for racial matters, with Harris Wofford as executive secretary. It scrutinized departmental racial programs, demanded reports and investigations, and disseminated administration interests at the operations level, cross-fertilizing programs among departments.
Chapter 93

Section 944 cards

What did the 28 April 1961 McNamara directive on recreational organizations actually cover?
It barred departmental facilities from being used by employee recreational organizations that practiced racial or religious discrimination, including facilities financed from nonappropriated funds and organizations open to civilian as well as military personnel. Later clarification limited it to employee organizations, and Runge confirmed the department did not inquire into the racial rules of private organizations using its facilities.
Chapter 94
How did the department respond to the Brookley Air Force Base ticket controversy?
The base commander canceled subsidized ticket sales to Mobile Bears games because of segregated seating. Legal advisers warned this was not the inevitable interpretation, since the ball club, not the Air Force organization, discriminated. Yarmolinsky nonetheless approved the action on 4 August 1961, saying departmental sponsorship of segregated events was not consonant with the President's intent, and suggested seeking a block of unsegregated seats.
Chapter 94
What did the 19 June 1961 Gilpatric statement address, and why was it delayed?
It ostensibly concerned integrated community facilities for servicemen but was wider in scope, touching community race relations. Drafting took long because of political sensitivity: service representatives contributed wording, the President's civil rights advisers wanted the President to see it, and McNamara had Vance consult the service under secretaries and Justice officials Katzenbach and Marshall before issuance.
Chapter 94
What limits did the chapter identify in McNamara's equal opportunity actions?
Despite numerous directives, surveys, and 1,717 racial complaints investigated before September 1963, the department did not substantively reinterpret policy. It limited action to matters obviously and directly within its purview, the same self-imposed restriction observed by McNamara's predecessors, especially regarding discrimination against servicemen and dependents outside the reservation gates.
Chapter 94

Section 954 cards

How did the Army commander at Fort Hood respond to Killeen sit-ins, and how did the secretary's office react?
The commander used military police to break up two demonstrations, as reported in the national press and investigated by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The secretary's office reacted quickly, adding a prohibition against using military police to quell civil rights demonstrations to the policy statement The Availability of Facilities to Military Personnel, then being formulated. Assistant Secretary Runge assured McNamara the memorandum should preclude further such incidents.
Chapter 95
Why did the 1960 prohibition on servicemen joining civil rights demonstrations persist for over three years?
Many in the Defense Department believed military service limited basic liberties: servicemen were assigned to duty stations, subject to immediate transfers, and on duty twenty-four hours a day, leaving no opportunity to demonstrate. The general counsel held a picketing ban would not conflict with anti-discrimination policies and could be lawfully imposed, arguing the military's role in society required limiting off-duty activities. Justice officials also resisted specific guidance on such incidents.
Chapter 95
What conditions did McNamara's 16 July 1963 memorandum place on servicemen participating in demonstrations?
McNamara still declared such participation inappropriate and unnecessary given servicemen's special obligations of citizenship, but lifted the ban provided the uniform was not worn, the activity occurred during off-duty hours and off the military reservation, it did not breach law and order, and no violence was reasonably likely. The relaxation applied only to the continental United States; overseas commanders were told servicemen as guests of Allied nations had no right to picket.
Chapter 95
What did McNamara's 8 March 1963 housing directive require, and what was its main limitation?
Effective immediately, all military leases for family housing, meaning contracts for private housing rented by the services for servicemen, would contain a nondiscrimination clause per Executive Order 11063. Bases were ordered to list only nonsegregated private housing. But only a small percentage of black servicemen lived in leased housing; most service families lived off base in private housing, which the order ignored except for banning listings of segregated properties.
Chapter 95

Section 963 cards

How did the November 1962 defense manpower team explain the all-white reserve units?
The team cautioned that discrimination was not necessarily involved, since Negroes were a small share of reserve strength: 4.8 percent of the Army, 4.4 percent of the Air Force, and an estimated 3.2 percent of the Navy. It added that the data neither proved nor disproved discrimination, since volunteering, skills and aptitudes, and service needs all factored into assignment.
Chapter 96
What did Congressman Diggs conclude about discrimination in the regular forces?
Diggs concluded that regulations developed with the Fahy Committee had not been fully implemented and that discriminatory practices existed "in varying degrees" at installations worldwide. He argued some black servicemen were subtly but deliberately restricted to inferior positions by superiors' racial judgments, inconsistent with the Truman order's spirit. He conceded a man might blame discrimination to mask failure, but rejected that as a universal explanation.
Chapter 96
What did the 1963 Civil Rights Commission find about bases versus the wider picture?
The commission found installations "generally free from the taint of racial discrimination," with black and white servicemen working and mingling off duty, and noted black representation near population averages. But it also found vestiges of discrimination on some bases and criticized the Navy and Marine Corps for employing fewer Negroes and using them less in technical and clerical fields.
Chapter 96

Section 973 cards

How did Navy service-occupation assignments for high-aptitude Negroes change by 1962?
Among General Qualification Test Groups I and II, the percentage of Negroes in service occupations—mainly stewards and commissarymen—fell from 22 percent of those with over twelve years' service to 2 percent of those with less than twelve. Sharp increases occurred in the 'other technical' group, mainly medical and dental specialists. The group admitted these differences required further analysis.
Chapter 97
What did civil rights activists argue against the services' defense of higher enlistment standards?
To the argument that higher enlistment standards were military economy during partial mobilizations, activists responded that since marginal manpower was necessary for full mobilization, the services should learn in peacetime to deal with what would be a wartime problem. Against pleas of helplessness on off-base discrimination, they argued such practices hurt morale of over 9 percent of the armed forces and threatened the military mission.
Chapter 97
What did the author say about evidence of white advantage over blacks in enlisted promotions?
The author states that with the exception of senior black servicemen concentrated in overmanned specialties like food service where promotional opportunities were limited, little evidence exists that whites enjoyed an advantage over blacks in promotions in the enlisted ranks. Divergences among senior men were probably due at least in part to that concentration.
Chapter 97

Section 984 cards

Why did equal opportunity officials want to forbid activists from disobeying local segregation laws?
The department's equal opportunity bureaucracy argued that protecting the physical well-being of the individual black soldier was paramount. In a decade when civil rights beatings and murders were common, officials believed a young man could be injured or dead before Washington could intervene. Operating on the principle that individual safety transcended the group's civil rights, they wanted to forbid both black and white activists from disobeying local segregation laws and customs.
Chapter 98
What did opponents of military intervention in community race relations argue the services should do first?
Opponents argued the services should not push for changes outside the military reservation until Truman-era reforms were fully realized inside it. They contended that giving local commanders responsibility for correcting community discrimination might dilute efforts to fix conditions within the services, that using servicemen to spearhead civil rights reform was a misuse of executive power, and that social reform was not a military function.
Chapter 98
How did the Gesell Committee differ from the Fahy Committee in origin and purpose?
The Fahy Committee was created by executive order to carry out Truman's equal treatment and opportunity policy and sought an acceptable integration program from each service. The Gesell Committee, announced by Kennedy in June 1962, was less concerned with carrying out existing policy than with developing new policy for the Defense Department. It was created by the Secretary of Defense, with presidential appointment lending prestige to a group that lacked its predecessor's power to make and review policy.
Chapter 98
Who conceived the Gesell Committee, and what did McNamara say about its creation?
Yarmolinsky conceived the project, named it, nominated its members, and drew up its directives; only later was it passed to the White House for review. McNamara said the committee was the creature of the Secretary of Defense and that calling it a President's committee was just windowdressing. He added that the civil rights people had nothing to do with it and that the department wanted information.
Chapter 98

Section 994 cards

Why did some black members initially oppose the committee's requests for racial statistics?
Some black members feared that statistical requests would reinforce the tendency to identify servicemen by race, encouraging racial assignments and ultimately racial quotas. The majority, however, was convinced of the need for statistical material, and in the end the requests enjoyed the committee's unanimous support.
Chapter 99
What did the committee conclude about discrimination against black servicemen?
The committee concluded that serious discrimination existed at home and abroad, within the services and in the civilian community, and that it affected black morale and military efficiency. It found problems both service-wide and at particular bases, and was unconvinced by official reasons for the disproportionately small number of Negroes in some services, especially among NCOs and officers.
Chapter 99
What did the committee consider its major contribution?
The committee's reputation rested less on its catalog of discrimination, which others like the Civil Rights Commission had also documented, than on establishing a new concept of command responsibility. This concept made equal opportunity policy part of the mission of the chain of command from the Secretaries of the Services down to the local base commander, attacking the services' traditional parochialism.
Chapter 99
How did the committee view the Navy and Marine Corps compared to other services?
The committee was particularly critical of the Navy and Marine Corps, citing overrepresentation of black enlisted men in certain supply and food services. The Chief of Naval Personnel admitted the committee considered them far behind the Army and Air Force in community relations, a criticism he conceded was 'to some extent' justified. The Navy and Marine Corps fell statistically short in every category measured.
Chapter 99

Section 1004 cards

What controversial economic sanctions did the Gesell Committee recommend for recalcitrant communities?
The committee recommended that commanders put public accommodations off limits for all servicemen in the name of troop morale and military efficiency. As a last resort, it wanted the Secretary of Defense to close military installations in communities that persisted in denying black servicemen their civil rights. The committee stressed the objective should always be preservation of morale, not punishment of communities with a tradition of segregation.
Chapter 100
What graduated approach did the committee intend for addressing off-base discrimination?
The committee meant to provide a graduated solution: reform would begin with the local commander improving conditions on his base and pressing for voluntary changes in the local community. Only when voluntary action failed—which the committee predicted would be rare—should the services employ economic sanctions against offending businesses, and only then consider closing installations.
Chapter 100
How did senior service officials respond to the committee's sanctions and commander-rating proposals?
Some senior subordinates were not won over. The Secretary of the Navy said bluntly of base closings: "Do not concur. Base siting is based upon military requirements." Officials preferred waiting for federal civil rights legislation to place responsibility elsewhere. The Secretary of the Air Force suggested continuing to plan but deferring action until Congress acted on the civil rights bill.
Chapter 100
What philosophical assumption underlay the committee's recommendations about the military's role?
The committee believed the armed forces, a worldwide symbol of American society, had to lead the quest for racial justice. Social reform within the services and where it affected servicemen in the community was therefore a legitimate military function. Success would protect black servicemen's civil rights and provide a standard for civilian society and other nations to judge the country's adherence to its principles.
Chapter 100

Section 1022 cards

What did Whitney Young criticize about the draft committee report?
Young suggested only minor revisions but thought space spent complimenting the services could better emphasize recommendations for further reform. He did not press the point, noting wryly that if people were as sensitive about the feelings of discrimination victims as of the perpetrators, most of these problems wouldn't exist. Gen. Wilson, Chief of the National Guard Bureau, found the draft entirely fair, temperate, and well-founded.
Chapter 102
Why did the Defense Department avoid dramatic civil rights moves while Congress debated the civil rights bill?
The author argues political wisdom dictated that the department refrain from dramatic civil rights action while Congress debated the civil rights bill, a primary legislative goal of both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. The White House told executive departments to 'avoid civil rights spectaculars' while the act hung fire. Civil rights groups, preoccupied with national unrest, also paid scant attention to the directive.
Chapter 102

Section 1034 cards

Who did McNamara appoint as the first civil rights deputy in July 1963, and on whose suggestion?
On Yarmolinsky's suggestion, Secretary McNamara appointed Alfred B. Fitt as the first civil rights deputy in July 1963. Fitt had been the Army's Deputy Under Secretary for Manpower since 1961 and had recently been on loan to the Office of the Secretary of Defense to coordinate responses to the Gesell Committee. He authored the equal opportunity directive McNamara signed, and his views were often expressed in more advanced terms than those of Yarmolinsky and McNamara.
Chapter 103
How did the Army, Navy, and Air Force differ on making equal opportunity part of a commander's performance rating?
Only the Army's outline plan explicitly adopted the Gesell Committee's recommendation that a commander's effectiveness in equal opportunity be considered along with other responsibilities in rating overall duty performance. The Navy equivocated, saying commanders would monitor racial matters toward improvement and that inspectors general would appraise command procedures. The Air Force left commanders wide latitude, declaring the military mission predominant and each community a different situation requiring local solutions.
Chapter 103
What did Under Secretary of the Navy Fay propose in response to Secretary Korth's order, and how was it characterized?
Ordered by Secretary Korth to develop a realistic equal opportunity approach in consultation with the Gesell Committee, Fay proposed revising Navy instructions for increased liaison between local commanders and community leaders and monitoring civil rights cases involving naval personnel. His response neither discussed new ways to increase job opportunities for Negroes nor mentioned making equal opportunity performance part of the efficiency rating system. Despite elaborate monitoring provisions, his efforts appeared primarily cosmetic.
Chapter 103
Why did the Defense Department not insist the services adopt the committee's command responsibility recommendations?
Alfred Fitt explained that although most Negroes were reluctant to complain, the services knew this and had devised means to overcome it; communication problems were leadership problems, and commanders must be free to find their own methods. On making community equal opportunity initiatives a promotion factor, the department temporized: such initiatives might be part of total performance but should never govern advancement. Paul approved all three plans without distinction on 13 September.
Chapter 103

Section 1044 cards

Why did the services fail to develop uniform equal opportunity programs, according to the chapter?
The chapter states that without firm, comprehensive direction from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the services would never develop effective or uniform programs. Service officials argued commanders had always executed racial policy without specific instructions, feared popular reaction, and faced congressional criticism. The manpower office temporized: Paul requested only outline plans and approved them even when they skipped real accountability for vague principles, producing bureaucratic confusion.
Chapter 104
What was the Army's STEP program and why did it fail?
In August 1964 the Army began the Special Training and Enlistment Program, an experiment in military training, education, and physical rehabilitation for men who could not meet current mental or medical standards for regular enlistment. It provided for enlistment of 8,000 substandard men, including many Negroes. Congress killed it before enlistment began, citing cost and duplication of Job Corps efforts. McNamara revived the idea in 1967 as Project 100,000.
Chapter 104
How did black representation among enlisted personnel and officers change between 1962 and 1968?
The chapter reports that, except for the Marine Corps, where black enlisted men rose 4 percent, the percentage of Negroes in the services stayed relatively stationary between 1962 and 1968. In 1968, when Negroes were 11 percent of the American population, they were 8.2 percent of the enlisted service population. The low percentage of black officers remained relatively unchanged during the 1960s.
Chapter 104
What did Fitt do in 1964 to increase black cadets at the service academies, and what happened afterward?
Fitt got the academies to accept all qualified Negroes he could find and persuaded some senators and congressmen to relinquish appointments. He wrote every major school district seeking black applicants and assuring them the academies were open to all qualified candidates. His "micro-personnel operation" yielded ten Negro appointments even though begun halfway through the academic year. The chapter notes his successor did not continue the effort.
Chapter 104

Section 1054 cards

What did critics mean by saying the services denied black officers 'horizontal mobility'?
Critics argued that without varied assignments and command experience—horizontal mobility—black officers could not justify later advancement, or vertical mobility. The civil rights office reported only 5 Negroes at senior service schools in 1965, 4 black naval officers with command experience on active duty, and 26 black Air Force officers given tactical command since 1950. This contradicted Shulman's 1965 assurances of attention to such assignments.
Chapter 105
Why did aptitude testing limit black servicemen's access to technical occupations?
Assignment to technical occupations depended heavily on Armed Forces Qualifying Test scores, and critics charged the tests were culturally biased, measuring familiarity with majority cultural norms rather than aptitude. A Defense task force warned these tests largely determined placement, promotion, and whether skills learned were saleable afterward. The services paid little attention to these questions in the 1960s.
Chapter 105
What training program did President Kennedy request for black servicemen in 1963?
Before leaving for Europe in summer 1963, Kennedy asked the Secretary of Defense to consider training programs for black servicemen ineligible for technical training, using new techniques to bridge the gap between their educational and cultural backgrounds and those of the average white serviceman. Postponed for study, it was developed by Under Secretary of the Army Stephen Ailes as a trial off-duty program starting October 1963, later folded into Project 100,000.
Chapter 105
Why did the services defend keeping racial designations on personnel records?
The services argued that measuring equal opportunity programs and detecting discrimination patterns depended on accurate racial data. Critics questioned race entries on records used in assignment and promotion, and Evans called the five-race, twelve-subcategory definition scientifically inaccurate and racially offensive, wanting a simple white/nonwhite listing. In August 1969 the Bureau of the Budget announced uniform federal race definitions.
Chapter 105

Section 1064 cards

Why did demands for racial statistics grow in the mid-1960s despite earlier efforts to remove racial designations?
The author explains that civil rights experts inside and outside the department demanded detailed racial statistics to protect and enlarge equal opportunity gains of the sixties. Smaller racial minorities, joining the civil rights revolution, developed self-awareness that made detailed racial and ethnic statistics mandatory. A change in public opinion also led black servicemen to reconsider the belief that detrimental treatment necessarily followed racial identification.
Chapter 106
What did the Gesell Committee conclude about discrimination near overseas bases?
The committee repeatedly asserted that discrimination existed only in areas near American bases and that its most serious manifestations were largely inspired by the attitude of a minority of white servicemen who pressured local businessmen. It was therefore a problem for American forces, not primarily for the allies. The civil rights office, however, preferred to view continuing discrimination as an anti-American phenomenon rather than a racial problem.
Chapter 106
How did the services limit the reach of commander sanctions against off-base discrimination overseas?
When the Department of Defense outlined commanders' responsibility regarding off-base discrimination overseas, it expressly authorized commanders to impose sanctions in foreign communities. Just five weeks later, however, the services clarified the order for the press, explaining that sanctions would be limited to the United States. A U.S. Army Germany spokesman admitted discrimination continued in restaurants and bars there.
Chapter 106
What did McNamara later say about the failure of his equal opportunity directive?
McNamara later reflected with some heat that he was naive to think showing his people a problem existed and telling them to work on it would lead them to attack it. He concluded that "not a goddamn thing happened." The author notes McNamara made no attempt to shift responsibility to subordinates, though he was critical of his department's performance.
Chapter 106

Section 1074 cards

What did Fitt's off-base equal opportunity inventories reveal about discrimination patterns?
The first inventory covered 305 bases in 48 states and D.C., nearly 80 percent of the military population stationed in the U.S. It confirmed widespread complaints: discrimination in transportation, schools, and public facilities was confined almost exclusively to the South, but segregated public accommodations existed in all parts of the country, including Iowa, Alaska, Arizona, and Illinois. Housing discrimination was pervasive, with only thirty installations located in states with equal housing opportunity statutes.
Chapter 107
What did the first follow-up inventory find about progress against off-base discrimination?
Progress was slight everywhere and in some areas nonexistent. Discrimination in off-base schooling for dependents remained a major difficulty, tied to national school desegregation. Public accommodations were more susceptible to command efforts, but some communities resisted change; a Marine commander near Albany, Georgia, formed a command-community relations committee but reported its achievements as 'absolutely none.' Open housing remained the exception rather than the rule.
Chapter 107
Why did housing discrimination persist despite departmental policy?
The Defense Department denied itself its most potent weapon: sanctions. Well into 1964, Fitt reported no service had contemplated sanctions in an equal opportunity case, and housing discrimination never figured prominently in base-closing decisions. Paul proposed listing community discrimination as a reason for closings, but Morris said economics and operational suitability were the major factors. Fitt called segregated housing 'the most pervasive and most intractable injustice of all.'
Chapter 107
How did Fitt assess his year as civil rights deputy upon departure?
Reviewing the year for Gesell, Fitt concluded 'we have done everything we could think of' in formulating civil rights policy and establishing a monitoring system. He was confident the campaign had gained enough momentum to insure continued progress. Though he doubted the off-base lot of the Negro serviceman would match his white comrade's in his time, he was satisfied the department was committed to equal opportunity and that commitment was 'bound to be beneficial.'
Chapter 107

Section 1084 cards

How did Johnson interpret his 1964 election victory regarding civil rights?
Johnson's landslide over a Republican candidate who vehemently opposed the Civil Rights Act was widely seen as a national plebiscite for the law. Johnson himself preferred a broader reading, believing great social change comes rapidly in periods of intense activity, and treated the win as a mandate for further reform. On Justice Department and Civil Rights Commission advice, he asked Congress to remove barriers to the right to vote.
Chapter 108
What did the Voting Rights Act of 1965 provide and what were its early results?
Introduced with bipartisan support, the act targeted states that discriminated against black voters. It abolished literacy tests, provided for federal examiners to register voters for all elections, and assigned federal supervisors. Signed 6 August 1965, it put examiners in three states two days later; within a year they certified 124,000 new voters in four states, and almost half of eligible Negroes were registered in covered areas.
Chapter 108
Why did the 1966 civil rights bill, including open housing, fail?
Johnson pressed for a comprehensive bill outlawing discrimination in the sale of all housing, plus jury selection and protection of civil rights workers. Opposition to open housing proved too strong and the bill died in the Senate, postponing an effective open housing law until after King's 1968 assassination. Demonstrations, riots, and the 'black power' slogan were blamed, but the author notes a likelier cause: the bill exceeded national consensus.
Chapter 108
How did the 1964 Civil Rights Act involve the Defense Department?
McNamara told subordinates Johnson wanted every federal department to give meaning to the new law, calling it a 'new opportunity' for full equality and tying discrimination to military efficiency. Paul issued a July 1964 instruction on processing servicemen's requests for suits under Titles II, III, and IV, encouraging but not compelling command assistance. In December McNamara issued a Title VI directive denying federal assistance where discrimination was found.
Chapter 108

Section 1094 cards

What did the National Guard Bureau argue against federally enforced integration in the 1960s?
The bureau disputed the 1949 opinion of its own legal counsel and a more recent Defense Department opinion, stressing political implications. A spokesman said a governor told he must commit political suicide to obtain federal support would reject it. The bureau also warned that insisting on integration would deteriorate guard units to the detriment of national security.
Chapter 109
How did Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 affect arguments over National Guard integration?
Title VI undercut all arguments against federal supremacy over the guard, since it no longer mattered who had technical responsibility for units in peacetime. The power to integrate clearly rested with the federal government, which reversed its earlier policy and showed willingness to use it. Deputy Secretary Vance then ordered amended regulations in February 1965.
Chapter 109
What did Secretary Ribicoff announce in March 1962 about segregated schools for military dependents?
Ribicoff announced that racially segregated schools were no longer "suitable" institutions under Public Laws 815 and 879, and that beginning September 1963 his department would take appropriate steps to provide integrated education for military dependents. He warned that if children were withdrawn from local school systems to achieve this, so too would the federal aid.
Chapter 109
Why did Alfred Fitt argue segregated off-base schools especially galled black servicemen?
Fitt said the imposition of unconstitutionally segregated schooling on their children was particularly galling. As transients and military men avoiding controversy with civilian authorities, they could not effectively sue for their children's rights. Yet they saw children from integrated on-base environments condemned to schools often two or three grades behind those they had attended before.
Chapter 109

Section 1104 cards

What did Paul announce regarding Defense Department funds for segregated schooling?
With the close of the 1964 spring semester, Paul announced that no Defense Department funds would be spent to pay tuition at segregated educational institutions. This economic pressure, already applied to education of civilian department employees, allowed many base commanders to negotiate an end to segregation in off-base schools.
Chapter 110
What did the 1967 Defense housing survey of thirteen communities conclude?
The survey documented minimal progress toward open off-base housing for servicemen as of early 1967. Despite active off-base programs sponsored by local commanders, discrimination remained widespread. Based on four years' experience, the Department of Defense concluded that appeals for voluntary community compliance would not produce integrated housing for military families on a large scale.
Chapter 110
Why did Deputy Secretary Vance oppose nationwide off-limits sanctions in 1967?
Vance argued that nationwide application of off-limits sanctions would raise significant legal issues, create chaotic conditions in the residential status of all military personnel, downgrade rather than enhance local commanders' responsibility for equal opportunity goals, and above all fail to produce more integrated housing. He wrote that open housing would come only through full commitment at every level of command.
Chapter 110
What finally pushed McNamara to revise the department's housing policy?
Members of ACCESS climaxed their campaign against segregated apartment complexes in Washington suburbs with a sit-down demonstration in McNamara's Pentagon reception room on 1 February 1967. This brought the problem to the personal attention of a secretary burdened with Vietnam. McNamara later castigated himself for allowing the housing problem to drift for four years.
Chapter 110

Section 1114 cards

What sanctions did McNamara decide to use against housing discrimination, and who made the decision?
McNamara decided to use off-limits sanctions in a discrimination case, and he made the decision himself rather than leaving it to local commanders or service secretaries. The rule: housing not opened to all servicemen would be closed to all servicemen. His legal counsel justified this as an extension of the commander's traditional right to forbid commerce with establishments harming the health or morals of his men.
Chapter 111
What was the first test case for off-limits housing sanctions, and what did it cover?
The first test case was the area around Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, effective 1 July 1967. All military personnel were forbidden to lease or rent in any segregated apartment building or trailer court within a three-and-a-half-mile radius. McNamara cited that less than 3 percent of some 22,000 local apartment units were open to black servicemen, harming morale and base operational effectiveness.
Chapter 111
What alternative economic pressure did McNamara order on 17 July 1967?
McNamara ordered housing referral offices established at all installations with more than 500 men assigned. All married servicemen seeking off-base housing were required to obtain prior clearance from these offices before entering rental agreements with landlords. This was described as a less dramatic but equally effective method of exerting economic pressure on discriminatory landlords.
Chapter 111
What did Clifford order after the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and Jones v. Mayer?
Clifford ordered the services to advise and give legal assistance to servicemen facing housing discrimination, coordinate housing programs with HUD and Justice, help locate nondiscriminatory units, and withhold authorization for leases where discrimination was evident. The manpower assistant secretary also ordered referral offices on all bases with 100 rather than 500 personnel. Jones v. Mayer held the 1968 act bars all racial discrimination, private and public, in sale or rental of property.
Chapter 111

Section 1123 cards

What did civil rights advocates increasingly argue was itself discrimination?
The author argues that running through all the demands of civil rights advocates, and expressed more clearly over time, was the conviction that segregation itself was discrimination. The success of their campaign against segregation in the armed forces can be measured by how far this proposition came to be accepted in the counsels of the White House and the Pentagon.
Chapter 112
What two arguments did military traditionalists use against integration?
Traditionalists held that black servicemen were difficult to train and undependable in battle, citing large black combat units in the world wars. They also argued the armed forces should not be an instrument of social change and could only reflect society's mores, so integration would burden the mission and court social upheaval in military units.
Chapter 112
What did the Fahy Committee use to convince Army officials to integrate?
The Fahy Committee used the failure to train and use eligible Negroes in unfilled jobs to convince senior officials that military efficiency demanded progressive integration of black soldiers, beginning with men eligible for specialist duties. The author notes efficiency had earlier rationalized exclusion but later became the primary consideration in each service's decision to integrate.
Chapter 112

Section 1134 cards

Why did the Air Force achieve total integration before the other services?
The Air staff quietly enlarged its 1949 objectives and broke up all its black units, making the Air Force the first service to achieve total integration. General Edwards and Colonel Marr's plan required each command to examine all black airmen for reassignment, further training, retention in segregated units, or dismissal. Removing increasing numbers of eligible men hastened the end of black units, a tendency ratified by the program's trouble-free acceptance.
Chapter 113
What was the proximate reason the Army began wide-scale racial mixing in Korea?
General Ridgway faced a severe shortage of replacements for depleted white units while accumulating a surplus of black replacements. The need was so pressing that integration had already begun on the battlefield before Washington's permission arrived. This direct threat to operational efficiency overrode the gradual approach the Fahy Committee had negotiated with the Army.
Chapter 113
What did the traditionalists conclude from World War II black combat unit performance, and what did MacGregor argue they missed?
Traditionalists concluded large black units were ineffective, undependable in close combat, and best suited for supply. MacGregor argues they reached the wrong conclusion: poor average performance stemmed from benumbing discrimination in training, humiliating assignments, and inept leaders who were mostly white. He also notes low test scores reflected educational and economic disadvantage, and low scorers were concentrated in few black units.
Chapter 113
How did Marshall's parity of enlistment standards undercut the Army's case for segregation?
The Navy and Air Force set stricter enlistment standards, filling ranks with high-scoring volunteers while low-scoring men, often black, were drafted into the Army. This made the Army determined to keep separate units to absorb those draftees. On Anna Rosenberg's advice, Secretary of Defense Marshall abolished that advantage, making all services share low-scoring recruits and undercutting the Army's most persuasive argument for quotas and segregation.
Chapter 113

Section 1143 cards

What did the author suggest was overlooked in the early 1960s military integration effort?
The author argues that defense officials focused too much on off-base discrimination, which civil rights legislation might have addressed anyway. More attention could have gone to unfinished internal issues: discrimination in promotion, assignment, and military justice for black servicemen. The author contends these were never treated with the urgency they deserved, and addressing them might have averted some racial turmoil during the Vietnam era.
Chapter 114
What did the services demonstrate by integrating on a large scale, according to the author?
The author argues the services were the only segment of American society to integrate the races on so large a scale, however imperfectly. In doing so they showed that equal treatment and opportunity is more than a legal concept—it also ordains a social condition. Between policy and its goals can fall bigotry and traditional ways, but the author says the services surmounted these to a gratifying degree.
Chapter 114
What did the Kerner Commission conclude, and how did it mark a new period?
The Kerner Commission starkly concluded that the nation was moving toward two societies, one black and one white—separate but unequal. The author uses this to mark a shift: unlike the McNamara period, when civil rights advocates and Defense officials shared a goal, later years brought greater militancy among black servicemen and friction between a fragmented civil rights movement and the Department of Defense.
Chapter 114

Section 1154 cards

What caution does the author give about oral history testimony on integration?
The author warns that oral testimony on integration must be treated cautiously. Beyond the usual fallible memory of all interviews, some subjects were separated from events by a civil rights revolution that fundamentally changed attitudes, black and white. Recollections may be colored by changes of the 1950s and 1960s; specific events can be checked against records, but estimates of attitudes and influences should be used cautiously.
Chapter 115
Which oral history program does the author call particularly dependable, and why?
The author calls the U.S. Air Force Oral History Program interviews, on file at the Albert F. Simpson Historical Research Center, particularly dependable because of the care that went into them. Those used in the study were conducted by Lt. Col. Alan Gropman and Maj. Alan Osur, both serious students of the subject. The author especially notes valuable interviews with former Secretary of the Air Force Eugene M. Zuckert and several prominent black generals.
Chapter 115
Which archival collections does the chapter identify as especially useful for studying integration?
The chapter cites the James C. Evans papers and Lt. Gen. Alvan C. Gillem, Jr. papers at the U.S. Army Military History Research Collection, Carlisle Barracks; the NAACP papers and Arthur B. Spingarn Papers at the Library of Congress; and the U.S. Army Center of Military History files, including Lee Nichols's documents and copies of destroyed Bureau of Naval Personnel records and Fahy Committee papers. It calls the Schomburg Collection disappointing.
Chapter 115
Which work does the author call the standard account of desegregation, and what is its emphasis?
The author identifies Richard M. Dalfiume's Desegregation of the United States Armed Forces: Fighting on Two Fronts, 1939-1953 as the standard account. It is carefully documented with a helpful bibliography, but the author notes it tends to emphasize the influence of civil rights advocates and Harry Truman on the integration process.
Chapter 115

Section 1164 cards

What did the Gesell Committee conclude about local commanders' responsibilities?
The Committee on Equality of Opportunity in the Armed Forces (Gesell Committee) held that local commanders bore responsibility for addressing off-base discrimination affecting their personnel. Its conclusions appear at pages 538-42, 566, and 577-78, and its recommendations at 542-45 and 599. The committee also endorsed off-limits sanctions (543-44, 546-47, 555, 581) and prompted DOD Directive 5120.36 (548).
Chapter 116
What was the purpose and assessment of the Fahy Committee?
The Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces (Fahy Committee) was established to secure equal treatment and opportunity in the services, with its purpose described at pages 348-50. It examined Air Force, Army, and Navy practices, including quotas and enlistment standards, and its overall assessment appears at pages 375-78. The Army often opposed its recommendations (359-62).
Chapter 116
What did Executive Order 9981 do to each service?
Executive Order 9981 (1948) is covered at pages 291 and 309-14. The chapter traces its immediate effect separately: on the Air Force (338-42), the Army (318-31), the Marine Corps (334-38), and the Navy (331-34). Public reactions appear at 315-18, and limitations on the order at 479-83. The Fahy Committee was created in connection with the order.
Chapter 116
How does the chapter index the Department of Defense's civil rights role in the 1960s?
The entry for the Department of Defense (pages 297-99) lists its civil rights activities: basic equal opportunity regulations (564, 566), the 1963 equal opportunity directive (547-51, 556-57, 581, 619-21), integration of dependents' schools (489-97, 596-99, 620), off-base housing (515-16, 584-85, 589, 598-606, 621), off-limits sanctions, and organization of a civil rights office (558-66).
Chapter 116

Section 1174 cards

What did Frank Knox's early views on integration concern?
The index lists Frank Knox with "early views on integration" at pages 59-61, 63-64, and 101. It also credits him with entries on inducting Negroes into the Navy (66-67, 70-71, 81-82, 86-87) and on the Marine Corps (106-07). The chapter itself is an index, so it points to these topics rather than summarizing Knox's positions.
Chapter 117
Which agencies and topics does the index link to Robert S. McNamara?
McNamara is indexed with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (590-91), the equal opportunity directive of 1963 (547-48, 556, 619-21), equal treatment and opportunity (530, 578-79), the Gesell Committee (536, 546-49), the National Guard (519, 593), off-base housing (517, 600, 602-08), off-limits sanctions (547-48, 556, 581, 604-05), civil rights apparatus organization (558-59, 563, 566), racial reform directives (511, 513, 516-17), and voluntary action programs (582, 586).
Chapter 117
What does the index show about National Guard integration?
The index lists National Guard entries for continued segregation in the Guard (518-20, 553-54), Executive Order 9981 (318-22), and integration of the Guard (593-95). It also lists the 40th and 45th National Guard divisions at pages 443 and 445-46. These are pointers to where the chapter discusses each topic, not summaries of the events themselves.
Chapter 117
What does the index list for the NAACP's involvement with the armed forces?
The NAACP is indexed with the Army (31, 49, 293, 438, 518), enlistment quotas (186), integration in the armed forces (8, 14-16, 126, 304, 500), the Marine Corps (462), the Navy (62, 66), off-limits sanctions (557), racial violence (393), segregated dependents' schools (498), and segregated national cemeteries (225). These are page references, not the chapter's own narrative.
Chapter 117

Section 1183 cards

What does the index show about the Steward's Branch across services?
The Steward's Branch is indexed for the Coast Guard (pages 113, 116-17), the Marine Corps (107-08, 255-57, 259-61, 460, 468-71), and the Navy (58, 145, 151, 236, 238-43, 332-33, 418-25). This indicates the branch existed in all three services and received extensive coverage in the Navy.
Chapter 118
Which agencies and officials are linked to Executive Order 9981 in the index?
The index links Truman, Harry S. to Executive Order 9981 (pages 291, 310-12, 315, 317, 473, 609, 612), and Symington, W. Stuart to the order and the Fahy Committee (338-39, 341, 347, 352). Truman also appears under civil rights and segregation in the services.
Chapter 118
What surveys does the index list, and on what topics?
The index lists surveys on Army segregation (1942-1943, page 40), enlisted opinion on segregation (229-30), Harris on open housing (590), Hodes on overhead spaces (196-98), integration of platoons (54-55), a U.S. Commission on Civil Rights survey (521-22), and a Washington, D.C. housing survey (601).
Chapter 118

Source and licence

Text used: Project Gutenberg eBook #20587 (Public domain in the United States). Generated from the full text; cards paraphrase the source.

Version: Public domain edition. Retrieved 2026-11-01. Cards reviewed 2026-11-01.

These cards paraphrase the text for study. They are not a substitute for reading the book, and they do not reproduce long passages.

Turn your own notes into cards

Upload a PDF, Word, or text file and get question-and-answer cards for closed-notes practice. Five cards are free, no signup.

Try 5 free cards

All questions and answers

What distinction does the preface draw between desegregation and integration?

What three forces does the author say the book measures influence of?

Why does the author caution readers about statements by officials quoted in the book?

Why did the military prefer 'integration' over 'desegregation' in its files?

Whom does MacGregor thank for preparing the manuscript for panel review?

Which three colleagues does MacGregor single out for enduring his doubts and frustrations?

What does the table of contents show about Chapter 2, on the World War II Army?

What does the contents list as the subject of Chapter 24, the Conclusion?

Why did Negroes serve in American forces during the Revolution, according to the chapter?

What did the 1866 and 1869 laws establishing black Regular Army regiments also do?

How did black participation in the Navy change between the Civil War and World War I?

What explains black recruitment in World War I despite resistance from Army leaders?

What was the Double V campaign and what did it call for?

What did the Wagner amendment to the Selective Service Act provide?

What did the Fish amendment add to the Selective Service Act?

How did NAACP goals shift from Houston's 1934 position to White's 1939 demands?

What did the March on Washington Movement achieve, and at what price?

Why did civil rights leaders concentrate their campaign on the armed forces?

What racial policy did the Army announce in October 1940?

What did the Army representative tell black editors about the Army and social change on 8 December 1941?

Why did the Army's mental tests disadvantage black recruits despite measuring education rather than intelligence?

What did McCloy tell Judge Hastie about segregation and the war's basic issues?

Why did the 477th Bombardment Group face a pilot shortage in late 1943?

What did the Chamberlain Plan propose for black recruits, and what happened to it?

Why did the Army reverse its prewar decision against all-black divisions?

How did Stimson and McNutt clash over the racial quota in Selective Service?

How did the War Department justify its handling of Negro troops?

What effects did segregation have on black soldiers' morale?

Why was the Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies created?

What obstacles limited black officers' employment in the Army?

Why did the Army staff refuse to revise its racial policy during the war?

What did the 1942-43 surveys of soldiers show about support for segregation?

How did the Special Services Division qualify the survey support for segregation?

What did General Marshall adopt and reject from the Advisory Committee's recommendations?

What was the purpose of the February 1944 pamphlet Command of Negro Troops?

What did the 8 July 1944 War Department directive require regarding recreational facilities?

Why did the Army integrate officer candidate training, and what problem did early enrollment reveal?

How did Acting Secretary Patterson distinguish Army racial policy on post from off-post customs?

What did the Army's first formal integration experiment involve, and what did it prove?

What prompted General Lee's plan for black infantry volunteers in December 1944?

How did Eisenhower revise Lee's circular, and what did the revision fail to clarify?

What did the May–June 1945 survey of white officers and sergeants find about black rifle platoons?

What did Judge Hastie argue about segregation to War Department officials?

What inefficiency did McCloy and others see in Army segregation?

How did the Bureau of Navigation justify excluding Negroes from general service?

What compromise did Roosevelt suggest at the June 1941 White House conference?

Why did Secretary Knox oppose integrating general service during the war?

What did Rear Adm. Snyder propose to the General Board in January 1942?

What plan did the General Board recommend in February 1942, and how did Roosevelt respond?

What did Knox announce on 7 April 1942, and how did black leaders react?

Why did black volunteers show little interest in the Navy early in the war?

What did Stimson propose about Navy recruitment, and how did Roosevelt respond?

What did Executive Order 9279 of 5 December 1942 direct?

How did the Navy distribute its increased black strength, and what operating rules guided it?

Why were educated Black sailors a major source of racial tension in the Navy?

How did the Navy respond to protests about excluding Black women from the WAVES and Nurse Corps?

What did the Special Programs Unit do about illiterate Black draftees and misassigned specialists?

What did the USS Mason experiment reveal, and how did the bureau and Special Programs Unit interpret it?

What did Adlai Stevenson recommend to Secretary Knox in September 1943?

What did Knox stipulate when he approved commissioning twenty-two black officers in December 1943?

What happened to the first sixteen black officer candidates at Great Lakes in 1944?

What did the 1944 Guide to the Command of Negro Naval Personnel state about segregation?

What limits did Admiral King set for assigning Negroes to fleet auxiliaries in August 1944?

How did Admiral King handle berthing and preparation for integrated auxiliary ships?

Why did traditionalists in the Bureau of Naval Personnel oppose admitting Negroes to the WAVES?

How did the black WAVES program become more racially progressive than Forrestal initially outlined?

Why did the Navy close its black specialist training schools?

Why did Admiral King reject integrating net tender and mine ship crews?

What did Forrestal do instead of creating an advisory council and full-time assistant?

Why did the Bureau of Naval Personnel order integration of recruit training in June 1945?

What forces does the chapter credit for the Navy's wartime racial progress?

How limited was black participation in the Navy on V-J day?

Why did the Marine Corps keep early black reservists on inactive status after 1 June 1942?

What recruiting restrictions did the commandant initially place on black Marine enlistment?

Why did the Marine Corps' strict occupational qualifications slow black enlistment?

What did Commandant Holcomb instruct regarding black noncommissioned officers and white marines?

What role did the 51st Defense Battalion play for other black Marine units?

How were the two black defense battalions deployed compared with white ones?

What opportunities were black Marines denied during the war?