Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 Part 74

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

[Tablenote 1: (C) indicates segregation required by state const.i.tution.]

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

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

[Footnote 19-65: Ibid.]

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

Others in the administration took these complications more seriously.

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 19-69: DOD OPI Release, 1 Feb 54; UPI News Release, 31 Jan 54; Telg, Powell to President, ca.

1 Jun 53; Ltr, President to Powell, 6 Jun 53; Press Release, Congressman Powell, 10 Jun 53; NAACP Press Release, 16 Nov 53; White, Address Delivered at 44th NAACP Annual Convention, 28 Jun 53. Copies of all in Nichols Collection, CMH. See also New York _Times_, February 1, 1954.]

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

293.]

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

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

The order prompted considerable public response. The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith telegraphed "hearty approval of your directive ... action is consonant with democratic ideals and in particular with the military establishment's successful program of integration in the armed forces."[19-72] Walter White added the NAACP's approval in a similar vein, and many individual citizens offered congratulations.[19-73]

But not all the response was favorable. Congressman Arthur A. Winstead of Mississippi asked the secretary to outline for him "wherein you believe that procedure will add anything whatsoever to the defense of this country. Certainly it appears to me that you have every reason anyone could desire to refuse to take action which is in total (p. 493) violation of certain state laws."[19-74]

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

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

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

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

to the operation of existing schools and school facilities hereafter constructed on Navy and Marine Corps installations within the United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, the area in which Public Law 874 and ... 815 ...

are operative.... In the case of PL 874 this area will be extended, effective 1 July 1954, to include Wake Island ... the same policy of non-segregation will apply in all Navy-operated schools for dependent children of military and civilian personnel of the Department of Defense.[19-75]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Strictly speaking there were more than twenty-one segregated schools operating on federal installations. A small group of inst.i.tutions built and operated by local authorities stood on land leased from the services. At the time of Secretary Wilson's order this category of schools included three with 75-year leases, those at Fort Meade, Maryland, and Fort Bliss and Biggs Air Force Base, Texas, and one with a 25-year lease at Pine Bluff a.r.s.enal, Arkansas.[19-80] The Air Force's general counsel believed the lease could be broken in light of the Wilson order, but the possibility developed that some extensions might be granted to these schools because of the lease complication.[19-81] The Secretary of the Army went right to the point, asking the a.s.sistant Secretary of Defense, Carter L. Burgess, for an extension in the case of Fort Meade pending Maryland's integration of its schools under the Supreme Court's decision.[19-82]

In response Burgess ordered, as of 1 June 1955, the exemption of four schools. "No attempt shall be made," he informed the services, "to break the lease or take over operation of the schools pending further instruction from the Secretary of Defense."[19-83]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: READING CLa.s.s IN THE MILITARY DEPENDENTS SCHOOL, _Yokohama, j.a.pan, 1955_.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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