Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 Part 75

[Footnote 19-92: Memo, ASD (MP&R) for SA et al., 10 Oct 58, OASD (MP&R) 291.2; Memo for Rcd, Spec a.s.st to a.s.st SecAF, 17 Oct 58, sub: Meeting With Mr.

Finucane and Mr. Jackson re Little Rock Air Force Base, SecAF files.]

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

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

Jackson failed to convince the board, and in late October 1958 it rejected the government's offer to run an integrated school on land purchased from them.[19-94] Jackson thereupon met with justice officials and together they decided that sometime before 1 January 1959 the Justice Department would acquire t.i.tle to the school land for one year by taking a leasehold through the right of eminent domain.

They did not at that time, however, formulate any definite plan of (p. 498) action to accomplish the school take-over.[19-95]

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

[Footnote 19-95: Ibid.; 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.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yet even as the principle of noninterference with racial patterns of the local community emerged intact from the lengthy controversy, exceptions to its practical application continued to multiply. In the fall of 1959, less than a year after the administration suspended its campaign to integrate off-base schools in Arkansas, black Air Force dependents quietly entered the Little Rock school. At the same time, schools catering predominantly to military dependents near bases in Florida and Tennessee integrated with little public attention.[19-100]

Under pressure from the courts, and after President Eisenhower had discussed the case in a national press conference in terms of the proper use of impact aid in segregated districts, the city of Norfolk, Virginia, agreed to integrate its 15,000 students, roughly one-third of whom were military dependents.[19-101]

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

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

The controversy over schools for dependents demonstrated the (p. 499) limits of federal intervention in the local community on behalf of the civil rights of servicemen. Before these limits could be breached a new administration would have to redefine the scope of the Defense Department's power. Nevertheless, the armed forces had scored some dramatic successes in the field of race relations by 1960. Some five million servicemen, civilians, and their dependents were proving the practicality of integration on the job, in schools, and in everyday living. Several writers even suggested that the services' experience had itself become a dynamic force for social change in the United States.[19-102] The New York _Times's_ Anthony Lewis went so far as to say that the successful integration of military society led to the black crusade against discrimination in civilian society.[19-103]

Others took the services' influence for granted, as Morton Puner did when he observed in 1959 that "the armed services are more advanced in their race relations than the rest of the United States. Perhaps it is uniquely fitting that this should be so, that in one of the greatest peacetime battles of our history, the armed forces should be leading the way to victory."[19-104]

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

III.]

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

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

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

Combat effectiveness is increased as individual capabilities rather than racial designations determine a.s.signments and promotions. Economics in manpower and funds are achieved by the elimination of racially duplicated facilities and operations.

Above all, our national security is improved by the more effective utilization of military personnel, regardless of race.[19-106]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

90.]

CHAPTER 20 (p. 501)

Limited Response to Discrimination

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

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

[Footnote 20-1: For discussion of charges of discrimination within the services, see Ltrs, ASD (M) to Congressman Charles C. Diggs, Jr., 15 Mar and 5 Sep 61; and the following Memos: Under SecNav for ASD (M), 16 Mar 62, sub: Discrimination in U.S.

Military Services; Dep SecAF for Manpower, Personnel, and Organization for ASD (M), 29 Mar 62, sub: Alleged Racial Discrimination With the Air Force; Dep Under SA (M) For ASD (M), 30 Mar 62, sub: Servicemen's Complaints of Discrimination in the U.S. Military. All in ASD (M) 291.2.]

It would be a mistake to equate the notice given the persistent (p. 502) but subtle problem of on-base discrimination with the sometimes brutal injustice visited on black servicemen off-base in the early 1960's.

Black servicemen often found the short bus ride from post to town a trip into the past, where once again they were forced to endure the old patterns of segregation. Defense Department officials were aware, for example, that decent housing open to black servicemen was scarce.

With limited income, under military orders, and often forced by circ.u.mstances to reside in the civilian community, black servicemen were, in the words of Robert S. McNamara, President Kennedy's Secretary of Defense, "singularly defenseless against this bigotry."[20-2] While the services had always denied responsibility for combating this particular form of discrimination, many in the black community were anxious to remind them of John F. Kennedy's claim in the presidential campaign of 1960 that discrimination in housing could be alleviated with a stroke of the Chief Executive's pen.

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

But housing was only part of a larger pattern of segregation that included restrictions on black servicemen's use of many places of public accommodation such as restaurants, theaters, and saloons, some literally on the doorstep of military reservations. James Evans listed some twenty-seven military installations in the United States where in 1961 segregation in transportation and places of public accommodation was established in adjacent communities by law or custom.[20-3]

Moreover, instances of blatant Jim Crow tactics were rapidly multiplying near bases in j.a.pan, Germany, the Philippines, and elsewhere as host communities began to adopt the prejudices of their visitors.[20-4] The United States Commission on Civil Rights charged that black servicemen were often reluctant to complain to their superiors or the Inspector General because of the repeated failure of local commands to show concern for the problem and suspicion that complainers would be subjected to reprisals.[20-5]

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 20-6: Memo, ASD (M) for a.s.st Legal Counsel to President, 7 Nov 61, sub: Racial Discrimination in the Armed Services, ASD (M) 291.2.]