A New Era Begins
On 30 October 1954 the Secretary of Defense announced that the last
racially segregated unit in the armed forces of the United States had
been abolished.[19-1] Considering the department's very conservative
definition of a segregated unit--one at least 50 percent black--the
announcement celebrated a momentous change in policy. In the little
more than six years since President Truman's order, all black
servicemen, some quarter of a million in 1954, had been intermingled
with whites in the nation's military units throughout the world. For
the services the turbulent era of integration had begun.
[Footnote 19-1: New York _Times_, October 31, 1954;
ibid., Editorial, November 1, 1954.]
The new era's turbulence was caused in part by the decade-long debate
that immediately ensued over the scope of President Truman's guarantee
of equal treatment and opportunity for servicemen. On one side were
ranged most service officials, who argued that integration, now a
source of pride to the services and satisfaction to the civil rights
movement, had ceased to be a public issue. Abolishing segregated
units, they claimed, fulfilled the essential elements of the executive
order, leaving the armed forces only rare vestiges of discrimination
to correct. Others, at first principally the civil rights bloc in
Congress and civil rights organizations, but later black servicemen
themselves, contended that the Truman order committed the Department
of Defense to far more than integration of military units. They
believed that off-base discrimination, so much more apparent with the
improvement of on-base conditions, seriously affected morale and
efficiency. They wanted the department to challenge local laws and
customs when they discriminated against black servicemen.
This interpretation made little headway in the Department of Defense
during the first decade of integration. Both the Eisenhower and
Kennedy administrations made commitments to the principle of equal
treatment within the services, and both admitted the connection
between military efficiency and discrimination, but both presumed, at
least until 1963, severe limitations on their power to change local
laws and customs. For their part, the services constantly referred to
the same limitations, arguing that their writ in regard to racial
reform ran only to the gates of the military reservation.
Yet while there was no substantive change in the services' view of
their racial responsibilities, the Department of Defense was able to
make significant racial reforms between 1954 and 1962. More than
expressing the will of the Chief Executive, these changes reflected
the fact that military society was influenced by some of the same
forces that were operating on the larger American society. Possessed
of a discipline that enabled it to reform rapidly, military society
still shared the prejudices as well as the reform impulses of the (p. 474)
body politic. Racial changes in the services during the first decade
of integration were primarily parochial responses to special internal
needs; nevertheless, they took place at a time when civil rights
demands were stirring the whole country. Their effectiveness must be
measured against the expectations such demands were kindling in the
black community.
_The Civil Rights Revolution_
The post-World War II civil rights movement was unique in the nation's
history. Contrasting this era of black awakening with the post-Civil
War campaign for black civil rights, historian C. Vann Woodward found
the twentieth century phenomenon "more profound and impressive ...
deeper, surer, less contrived, more spontaneous."[19-2] Again in
contrast to the original, the so-called second reconstruction period
found black Americans uniting in a demand for social justice so long
withheld. In 1953, the year before the Supreme Court decision to
desegregate the schools, Clarence Mitchell of the NAACP gave voice to
the revolutionary rise in black expectations:
Twenty years ago the Negro was satisfied if he could have even a
half-decent school to go to (and took it for granted that it
would be a segregated school) or if he could go to the hotel in
town or the restaurant maybe once a year for some special
interracial dinner and meeting. Twenty years ago much of the
segregation pattern was taken for granted by the Negro. Now it is
different.[19-3]
[Footnote 19-2: C. Vann Woodward, _Strange Career of
Jim Crow_, p. 170. This account of the civil rights
movement largely follows Woodward's famous study,
but the following works have also been consulted:
Benjamin Muse, _Ten Years of Prelude: The Story of
Integration Since the Supreme Court's 1954
Decision_ (New York: Viking Press, 1964); Constance
M. Green, _The Secret City: A History of Race
Relations in the Nation's Capital_ (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1967); Anthony Lewis
and the New York _Times_, _Portrait of a Decade_
(New York: New York _Times_, 1964); Franklin, _From
Slavery to Freedom; Freedom to the Free: A Report
to the President by the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights_ (Washington: Government Printing Office,
1963); _Report of the National Advisory Commission
on Civil Disorders_; Interv, Nichols with Clarence
Mitchell, 1953, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]
[Footnote 19-3: Interv, Nichols with Mitchell.]
The difference was understandable. The rapid urbanization of many
black Americans, coupled with their experience in World War II,
especially in the armed forces and in defense industries, had enhanced
their economic and political power and raised their educational
opportunities. And what was true for the war generation was even truer
for its children. Possessed of a new self-respect, young Negroes began
to demonstrate confidence in the future and a determination to reject
the humiliation of second-class citizenship. Out of this attitude grew
a widespread demand among the young for full equality, and when this
demand met with opposition, massive participation in civil rights
demonstrations became both practical and inevitable. Again historian
Woodward's observations are pertinent:
More than a black revolt against whites, it was in part a
generational rebellion, an uprising of youth against the older
generation, against the parental "uncle Toms" and their
inhibitions. It even took the N.A.A.C.P. and CORE (Congress of
Racial Equality) by surprise. Negroes were in charge of their (p. 475)
own movement, and youth was in the vanguard.[19-4]
[Footnote 19-4: Woodward, _Strange Career of Jim
Crow_, p. 170.]
[Illustration: CLARENCE MITCHELL.]
To a remarkable extent, this youthful vanguard was strongly religious
and nonviolent. The influence of the church on the militant phase of
the civil rights movement is one of the movement's salient
characteristics.
This black awakening paralleled a growing realization among an
increasing number of white Americans that the demands of the civil
rights leaders were just and that the government should act. World War
II had made many thoughtful Americans aware of the contradiction
inherent in fighting fascism with segregated troops. In the postwar
years, the cold war rivalry for the friendship and allegiance of the
world's colored peoples, who were creating a multitude of new states,
added a pragmatic reason for ensuring equal treatment and opportunity
for black Americans. A further inducement, and a particularly forceful
one, was the size of the northern black vote, which had become the key
to victory in several electorally important states and had made the
civil rights cause a practical political necessity for both major
parties.
The U.S. Supreme Court was the real pacesetter. Significantly
broadening its interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court
reversed a century-old trend and called for federal intervention to
protect the civil rights of the black minority in transportation,
housing, voting, and the administration of justice. In the _Morgan_ v.
_Virginia_ decision of 1946,[19-5] for example, the Court launched an
attack on segregation in interstate travel. In another series of cases
it proclaimed the right of Negroes to be tried only in those courts
where Negroes could serve on juries and outlawed the all-white primary
system, which in some one-party states had effectively barred Negroes
from the elective process. The latter decision partly explains the
rise in the number of qualified black voters in twelve southern states
from 645,000 in 1947 to some 1.2 million by 1952. However, many
difficulties remained in the way of full enfranchisement. The poll
tax, literacy tests, and outright intimidation frustrated the
registration of Negroes in many areas, and in some rural counties
black voter registration actually declined in the early 1960's. But
the Court's intervention was crucial because its decisions established
the precedent for federal action that would culminate in the Voting
Rights Act of 1965.
[Footnote 19-5: 328 U.S. 373 (1946).]
These judicial initiatives whittled away at segregation's hold on (p. 476)
the Constitution, but it was the Supreme Court's rulings in the field
of public education that dealt segregation a mortal blow. Its
unanimous decision in the case of _Oliver Brown et al._ v. _Board of
Education of Topeka, Kansas_, on 17 May 1954[19-6] not only undermined
segregation in the nation's schools, but by an irresistible extension
of the logic employed in the case also committed the nation at its
highest levels to the principle of racial equality. The Court's
conclusion that "separate educational facilities are inherently
unequal" exposed segregation in all public areas to renewed judicial
scrutiny. It was, as Professor Woodward described it, the most
far-reaching Court decision in a century, and it marked the beginning
of the end of Jim Crow's reign in America.[19-7]
[Footnote 19-6: 347 U.S. 483 (1954); see also 349 U.S.
294 (1955).]
[Footnote 19-7: Woodward, _Strange Career of Jim
Crow_, p. 147.]
But it was only the beginning, for the Court's order that the
transition to racially nondiscriminatory school systems be
accomplished "with all deliberate speed"[19-8] encountered massive
resistance in many places. Despite ceaseless litigation and further
affirmations by the Court, and despite enforcement by federal troops
in the celebrated cases of Little Rock, Arkansas, and Oxford,
Mississippi, and by federal marshals in New Orleans, Louisiana,[19-9]
elimination of segregated public schools was painfully slow. As late
as 1962, for example, only 7.6 percent of the more than three million
Negroes of school age in the southern and border states attended
integrated schools.
[Footnote 19-8: 349 U.S. 294 (1955).]
[Footnote 19-9: For an outline of the federal and
National Guard intervention in these areas, see
Robert W. Coakley, Paul J. Scheips, Vincent H.
Demma, and M. Warner Stark, "Use of Troops in Civil
Disturbances Since World War II" (1945 to 1965 with
two supplements through 1967), Center of Military
History Study 75.]
The executive branch also took up the cause of civil rights, albeit in
a more limited way than the courts. The Eisenhower administration, for
instance, continued President Truman's efforts to achieve equal
treatment and opportunity for black servicemen. Just before the
_Brown_ decision the administration quickly desegregated most
dependent schools on military bases. It also desegregated the school
system of Washington, D.C., and, with a powerful push from the Supreme
Court in the case of the _District of Columbia_ v. _John R. Thompson
Co._ in 1953,[19-10] abolished segregation in places of public
accommodation in the nation's capital. Eisenhower also continued
Truman's fight against discrimination in federal employment, including
jobs covered by government contracts, by establishing watchdog
committees on government employment policy and government contracts.
[Footnote 19-10: 346 U.S. 100 (1953).]
Independent federal agencies also began to attack racial
discrimination. The Interstate Commerce Commission, with strong
assistance from the courts, made a series of rulings that by 1961 had
outlawed segregation in much interstate travel. The Federal Housing
Authority, following the Supreme Court's abrogation of the state's
power to enforce restrictive covenants in the sale of housing, began
in the early 1950's to push toward a federal open-occupancy policy in
public housing and all housing with federally guaranteed loans. (p. 477)
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, an investigatory agency appointed
by the President under the Civil Rights Act of 1957, examined
complaints of voting discrimination and denials of equal protection
under the law. Both Eisenhower and Kennedy dispatched federal
officials to investigate and prosecute violations of voting rights in
several states.
But civil rights progress was still painfully slow in the 1950's. The
fight for civil rights in that decade graphically demonstrated a
political fact of life: any profound change in the nation's social
system requires the concerted efforts of all three branches of the
national government. In this case the Supreme Court had done its part,
repeatedly attacking segregation in many spheres of national life. The
executive branch, on the other hand, did not press the Court's
decisions as thoroughly as some had hoped, although Eisenhower
certainly did so forcibly and spectacularly with federal troops at
Little Rock in 1957. The dispatch of paratroopers to Little
Rock,[19-11] a memorable example of federal intervention and one
popularly associated with civil rights, had, in fact, little to do
with civil rights, but was rather a vivid example of the exercise of
executive powers in the face of a threat to federal judicial
authority. Where the _Brown_ decision was concerned, Eisenhower's view
of judicial powers was narrow and his leadership antithetical to the
Court's call for "all deliberate speed." He even withheld his support
in school desegregation cases. Eisenhower was quite frank about the
limitations he perceived in his power and, by inference, his duty to
effect civil rights reforms. Such reforms, he believed, were a matter
of the heart and, as he explained to Congressman Powell in 1953, could
not be achieved by means of laws or directives or the action of any
one person, "no matter with how much authority and forthrightness he
acts."[19-12]
[Footnote 19-11: For an authoritative account of
Little Rock, see Robert W. Coakley's "Operation
Arkansas," Center of Military History Study 158M,
1967. See also Paul J. Scheips, "Enforcement of the
Federal Judicial Process by Federal Marshals," in
_Bayonets in the Streets; The Use of Troops in
Civil Disturbances_, ed. Robin Higham (Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 1969), pp. 39-42.]
[Footnote 19-12: Ltr, Eisenhower to Powell, 6 Jun 53,
G 124-A-1, Eisenhower Library. For a later and more
comprehensive expression of these sentiments, see
"Extemporaneous Remarks by the President at the
National Conference on Civil Rights, 9 June 1959,"
_Public Papers of the Presidents: Dwight D.
Eisenhower, 1959_, pp. 447-50.]
Despite the President's reluctance to lead in civil rights matters,
major blame for the lack of substantial progress must be assigned to
the third branch of government. The 1957 and 1960 civil rights laws,
pallid harbingers of later powerful legislation in this field,
demonstrated Congress's lukewarm commitment to civil rights reform
that severely limited federal action. The reluctance of Congress to
enact the reforms augured in the _Brown_ decision convinced many
Negroes that they would have to take further measures to gain their
full constitutional rights. They had seen presidents and federal
judges embrace principles long argued by civil rights organizations,
but to little avail. Seven years after the _Brown_ decision, Negroes
were still disfranchised in large areas of the south, still (p. 478)
endured segregated public transportation and places of public
accommodation, and still encountered discrimination in employment and
housing throughout the nation. Nor had favorable court decisions and
federal attempts at enforcement reversed the ominous trend in black
unemployment rates, which had been rising for a decade. Above all,
court decisions could not spare Negroes the sense of humiliation that
segregation produced. Segregation implied racial inferiority, a
"constant corroding experience," as Clarence Mitchell once called it.
It was segregation's seeming imperviousness to governmental action in
the 1950's that caused the new generation of civil rights leaders to
develop new civil rights techniques.
Their new methods forced the older leaders, temporarily at least, into
eclipse. No longer could they convince their juniors of the efficacy
of legal action, and the 1950's ended with the younger generation
taking to the streets in the first spontaneous battles of their civil
rights revolution. Under the direction of the Southern Christian
Leadership Council and its charismatic founder, Martin Luther King,
Jr., the strategy of massive civil disobedience, broached in 1948 by
A. Philip Randolph, became a reality. Other organizations quickly
joined the battle, including the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC), also organized by Dr. King but soon destined to
break away into more radical paths, and the Congress of Racial
Equality (CORE), an older organization, now expanded and under its new
director, James Farmer, rededicated to activism.
Rosa Parks's refusal to move to the rear of the Montgomery bus in 1955
and the ensuing successful black boycott that ended the city's
segregated transportation pointed the way to a wave of nonviolent
direct action that swept the country in the 1960's. Thousands of young
Americans, most notably in the student-led sit-ins enveloping the
south in 1960[19-13] and the scores of freedom riders bringing chaos
to the transportation system in 1961, carried the civil rights
struggle into all corners of the south. "We will wear you down by our
capacity to suffer," Dr. King warned the nation's majority, and suffer
Negroes did in the brutal resistance that met their demands. But it
was not in vain, for police brutality, mob violence, and
assassinations set off hundreds of demonstrations throughout the
country and made civil rights a national political issue.
[Footnote 19-13: For an account of the first major
sit-in demonstrations, which occurred at
Greensboro, North Carolina, and their influence on
civil rights organizations, including the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, see Miles Wolff,
_Lunch at the Five and Ten; The Greensboro Sit-in_
(New York: Stein and Day, 1970). See also Clark,
"The Civil Rights Movement," pp. 255-60.]
The stage was set for a climatic scene, and onto that stage walked the
familiar figure of A. Philip Randolph, calling for a massive march on
Washington to demand a redress of black grievances. This time, unlike
the response to his 1940 appeal, the answer was a promise of support
from both races. The churches joined in, many labor leaders, including
Walter Reuther, enlisted in the demonstration, and even the President,
at first opposed, gave his blessing to the national event. A quarter
of a million people, about 20 percent of them white, marched to
Lincoln Memorial on 28 August 1963 to hear King appeal to the (p. 479)
the nation's conscience by reciting his dream of a just society. In
the words of the Kerner Commission:
It [the march] was more than a summation of the past years of
struggle and aspiration. It symbolized certain new directions: a
deeper concern for the economic problems of the masses, more
involvement of white moderates and new demands from the most
militant, who implied that only a revolutionary change in
American institutions would permit Negroes to achieve the dignity
of citizens.[19-14]
[Footnote 19-14: _Report of the National Advisory
Commission on Civil Disorders_, p. 109.]
_Limitations on Executive Order 9981_
The decade of national civil rights activity that culminated
symbolically at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 was closely mirrored in
the Department of Defense, where the services' definition of equal
treatment and opportunity underwent a marked evolution. Here, a decade
that had begun with the department's placing severe limitations on its
defense of black servicemen's civil rights ended with the department's
joining the vanguard of the civil rights movement.
In the early 1950's the services were constantly referring to the
limitations of Executive Order 9981. The Air Force could not intervene
in local custom, Assistant Secretary Zuckert told Clarence Mitchell in
1951. Social change in local communities must be evolutionary, he
continued, either ignoring or contrasting the Air Force's own social
experience.[19-15] Defending the practice of maintaining large
training camps in localities discriminating against black soldiers,
the Army Chief of Staff explained to Senator Homer Ferguson of
Michigan that while its facilities were open to all soldiers
regardless of race, the Army had no control over nearby civilian
communities. There was little its commanders could do beyond urging
local civic organizations to cooperate.[19-16] The Deputy Chief of
Naval Personnel was even more blunt. "The housing situation at Key
West is not within the control of the Navy," he told the Assistant
Secretary of Defense in 1953. Housing was segregated, he admitted, but
it was the Federal Housing Authority, not the Navy, that controlled
the location of off-base housing for black sailors.[19-17]
[Footnote 19-15: Memo, Lt Col Leon Bell, Asst Exec,
Off, Asst SecAF, for Col Barnes, Office, SecAF, 9
Jan 51, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 19-16: Ltr, CofSA to Ferguson, 7 May 51; see
also Ltr, Under SA Earl D. Johnson to Sen. Robert
Taft, 19 Jul 51; both in CS 291.2 (27 Apr 51).]
[Footnote 19-17: Memo, Dep Chief, NavPers for ASD
(M&P), 19 Feb 53, sub: Alleged Race Segregation at
U.S. Naval Base, Key West, Florida, P 8 (4)/NB Key
West, GenRecs Nav.]
These excuses for not dealing with off-base discrimination continued
throughout the decade. As late as 1959, discussing a case of racial
discrimination near an Army base in Germany, a Defense Department
spokesman explained to Congressman James Roosevelt that "since the
incident did not take place on one of our military bases, we are not
in a position to offer direct relief in the situation...."[19-18] Even
James Evans, the racial counselor, came to use this explanation.
"Community mores with respect to race vary," Evans wrote in 1956, and
"such matters are largely beyond direct purview of the Department (p. 480)
of Defense."[19-19]
[Footnote 19-18: Ltr, ASD (MP&R) Charles C. Finucane
to James Roosevelt, 3 Jun 59, ASD (MP&R) files.]
[Footnote 19-19: Evans and Lane, "Integration in the
Armed Services," p. 83.]
Understandably, in view of the difficulties they perceived, the
services tried to avoid the whole problem. In 1954, for example, a
group of forty-eight black soldiers traveling on a bus in Columbia,
South Carolina, were arrested and fined when they protested the
attempted arrest of one of them for failing to comply with the state's
segregated seating law. In the ensuing furor, Secretary of Defense
Charles E. Wilson explained to President Eisenhower that soldiers were
subject to community law and his department contemplated no
investigation or disciplinary action in the case. In view of the civil
rights issues involved, Wilson continued,[19-20] the Judge Advocate
General of the Army discussed the matter with the Justice Department
and referred related correspondence to that department "for whatever
disposition it considered appropriate." "This reply," an assistant
noted on Wilson's file copy of the memo for the President, "gets them
off our neck, but I don't know about Brownell's [the Attorney
General]."[19-21]
[Footnote 19-20: Wilson, former president of General
Motors Corporation, became President Eisenhower's
first Secretary of Defense on 28 January 1953.]
[Footnote 19-21: Memo, CofS, G-1, for ASA, 6 Jan 54,
sub: Mass Jailing and Fining of Negro Soldiers in
Columbia, S.C.; Memo, ASA for ASD (M&P), same date
and sub; Memo, SecDef for President, 7 Jan 54. All
in G-1 291.2 (10 Dec 53).]
But the services never did get "them" off their neck, and to a large
extent defense officials could only blame themselves for their
troubles. Their attitude toward extending their standards of equal
treatment and opportunity to local communities implied a benign
neutrality on their part in racial disputes involving servicemen. This
attitude was belied by the fact that on numerous and sometimes
celebrated occasions the services helped reinforce local segregation
laws. In 1956, for example, Secretary of the Air Force Harold E.
Talbott explained that military commanders were expected to foster
good relations with local authorities and in many areas were obliged
to "require" servicemen to conform to the dictates of local law
"regardless of their own convictions or personal beliefs."[19-22]
[Footnote 19-22: SecAF statement, 1 May 56, quoted in
Address by James P. Goode, Employment Policy
Officer for the Air Force, at a meeting called by
the President's Committee on Government Employment
Policy, 24 May 56, AF File 202-56, Fair Employment
Program.]
This requirement could be rather brutal in practice and placed the
services, the nation's leading equal opportunity employer, in
questionable company. In 1953 a black pilot stationed at Craig Air
Force Base, Alabama, refused to move to the rear of a public bus until
the military police ordered him to comply with the state law. The Air
Force officially reprimanded and eventually discharged the pilot. The
position of the Air Force was made clear in the reprimand:
Your actions in this instance are prejudicial to good order and
military discipline and do not conform to the standards of
conduct expected of a commissioned officer of the United States
Air Force. As a member of the Armed Forces, you are obliged to
abide by all municipal and state laws, regardless of your
personal feelings or Armed Forces policy relative to the issue at
hand. Your open violation of the segregation policy established
by this Railroad Company and the State of Alabama is (p. 481)
indicative of extremely poor judgment on your part and reflects
unfavorably on your qualifications as a commissioned
officer.[19-23]
[Footnote 19-23: Memo, CG, 3380th Tactical Training
Wing, Keesler AFB, Miss., for (name withheld), Jul
53, sub: Administrative Reprimand; NAACP News
Release, 23 Nov 53; copies of both in SecAF files.]
As the young pilot's commanding officer put it, the lieutenant had
refused to accept the fact that military personnel must use tact and
diplomacy to avoid discrediting the United States Air Force.[19-24]
[Footnote 19-24: Memo, Cmdr, 3615th Pilot Tng Wing,
Craig AFB, Ala., for Cmdr, Flying Dir, Air Tng Cmd,
Waco, Tex., 4 Aug 53, sub: Disciplinary Punishment,
copy in SecAF files.]
Tact and diplomacy were also the keynote when the services helped
enforce the local segregation practices of the nation's allies. This
became increasingly true even in Europe in the 1950's, although never
with as much publicity as the events connected with the carrier
_Midway's_ visit to Capetown, South Africa, in 1955. Its captain, on
the advice of the U.S. consul, agreed to conform with a local law that
segregated sailors when they were ashore. This agreement became public
knowledge while the ship was en route, but despite a rash of protests
and congressional demands that the visit be canceled, the _Midway_
arrived at Capetown. Later a White House spokesman tried to put a good
face on the incident:
We believe that a far greater blow was struck for the cause of
equal justice when 23,000 South Africans came aboard the Midway
on a non-segregated basis--when the whole community saw American
democracy in action--than could have been made if we had decided
to by-pass Capetown. Certainly no friends for our cause would
have been gained in that way![19-25]
[Footnote 19-25: Ltr, Maxwell M. Rabb, President's
Assistant for Minority Affairs, to Dr. W. Montague
Cobb, as reproduced in Cobb, "The Strait Gate,"
_Journal of the National Medical Association_ 47
(September 1955):349.]
The black serviceman lacked the civilian's option to escape community
discrimination. For example, one black soldier requested transfer
because of discrimination he was forced to endure in the vicinity of
Camp Hanford, Washington. His request was denied, and in commenting on
the case the Army's G-1 gave a typical service excuse when he said
that the Army could not practically arrange for the mass reassignment
of black soldiers or the restriction of their assignments to certain
geographical areas to avoid discrimination.[19-26] The Air Force added
a further twist. Replying to a similar request, a spokesman wrote that
limiting the number of bases to which black airmen could be assigned
would be "contrary to the policy of equality of treatment."[19-27]
There was, however, one exception to the refusal to alter assignments
for racial reasons. Both the Air Force and the Army had an established
and frequently reiterated policy of not assigning troops involved (p. 482)
in interracial marriages to states where such unions were
illegal.[19-28]
[Footnote 19-26: Memo, ACofS, G-1, for TIG, 30 Nov 53,
sub: Complaint of Cpl Israel Joshua, G-1 291.2 (3
Nov 53). For an earlier expression of the same
sentiments, see ACofS, G-1, Summary Sheet for CofS,
27 Nov 50, sub: Request for Policy Determination,
G-1 291.2 (9 Nov 50). Camp Hanford was originally
the Hanford Engineer Works, which played a part in
the MANHATTAN project that produced the atom bomb.]
[Footnote 19-27: Memo, Maj Gen Joe Kelly, Dir, Legis
Liaison, USAF, for Lt Col William G. Draper, AF
Aide to President, 1 Sep 54, with attachments, sub:
Segregation in Gulfport, Mississippi; Memo, Col
Draper for Maxwell Rabb, 6 Oct 54; both in GF
124-A-1, Eisenhower Library.]
[Footnote 19-28: Career Management Div, TAGO, "Policy
Paper," Jul 54, AGAM 291.2 For other pronouncements
of this policy, see ibid.; DF, ACS/G-1 to TAG, 4
Jan 54, sub: Assignment of Personnel; and in G-1
291.2 the following: Memo, Chief, Classification
and Standards Br, G-1, for Planning Office, G-1, 28
Feb 50, sub: Assignment of Personnel; DF, G-1 to
TAG, 8 Mar 50, same sub.]
At times the services' respect for local laws and ordinances forced
them to retain some aspects of the segregation policies so recently
abolished. Answering a complaint made by Congressman Powell in 1956,
for example, The Adjutant General of the Army explained that off-duty
entertainment did not fall within the scope of the Truman order. Since
most dances were sponsored by outside groups, they had to take place
"under conditions cited by them." To insist on integration in this
instance, The Adjutant General argued, would mean cancellation of
these dances to the detriment of the soldiers' morale. For that
reason, segregated dances would continue on post.[19-29]
[Footnote 19-29: Ltr, TAG to Powell, 9 Aug 56, GF
124-A-1, Eisenhower Library.]
This response illustrates the services' approach to equal opportunity
and treatment during the Eisenhower administration. The President
showed a strong reluctance to interfere with local laws and customs, a
reluctance that seemed to flow out of a pronounced constitutional
scruple against federal intervention in defiance of local racial laws.
The practical consequence of this scruple was readily apparent in the
armed forces throughout his administration. In 1955, for example, a
black veteran called the President's attention to the plight of black
soldiers, part of an integrated group, who were denied service in an
Alabama airport and left unfed throughout their long journey.
Answering for the President, Maxwell M. Rabb, Secretary to the
Cabinet, reaffirmed Eisenhower's dedication to equal opportunity but
added that it was not in the scope of the President's authority "to
intervene in matters which are of local or state-wide concern and
within the jurisdiction of local legislation and determination."[19-30]
Again to a black soldier complaining of being denied service near Fort
Bragg, North Carolina, a White House assistant, himself a Negro,
replied that "outside of an Army post, there is little that the
Federal Government can do, except to appeal to the decency of the
citizens to treat men in uniform with courtesy and respect." He then
suggested a course of action for black soldiers:
The President's heart bleeds when any Americans are victims of
injustice, and he is doing everything he possibly can to rectify
this situation in our country.
You can hold up his hand by carrying on, despite the unpleasant
things that are happening to you at this moment, realizing that,
on this end, we will work all the harder to make your sacrifices
worthwhile.[19-31]
[Footnote 19-30: Ltrs, C. B. Nichols to President, 28
Mar 55, and Rabb to Nichols, 20 Apr 55; both in
G-124-1, Eisenhower Library.]
[Footnote 19-31: Ltr, E. Frederic Morrow to Pfc John
Washington, 9 Apr 57, in reply to Ltr, Washington
to President, 5 Mar 57; both in G-124-A-1,
Eisenhower Library.]
But as the record suggests, this promise to rectify the situation was
never meant to extend beyond the gates of the military reservation.
Thus, the countless incidents of blatant discrimination encountered by
black GI's would continue largely unchallenged into the 1960's, masking
the progress made by the Eisenhower administration in ordering the
sometimes reluctant services to adopt reforms. This presidential (p. 483)
resolution was particularly obvious in the integration of civilian
facilities at Navy shipyards and installations and in schools for
dependent children on military posts.
_Integration of Navy Shipyards_
The Navy employed many thousands of civilians, including a large
number of Negroes, at some forty-three installations from Virginia to
Texas. At the Norfolk shipyard, for example, approximately 35 percent
of the 15,000 employees were black. To the extent dictated by local
laws and customs, black employees were segregated and otherwise
discriminated against. The degree of segregation depended upon
location, and, according to a 1953 newspaper survey, ranged "from
minor in most instances to substantial in a few cases."[19-32]
[Footnote 19-32: UPI News Release, 20 Aug 53, copy in
CMH files.]
In January 1952 the Chief of the Office of Industrial Relations, Rear
Adm. W. McL. Hague, all but absolved Navy installations from the
provisions of Executive Order 9980.[19-33] He announced that
segregation would continue if "the station is subject to local laws of
the community in which located, and the laws of the community require
segregated facilities," or if segregation were "the norm of the
community and conversion to common facilities would, in the judgment
of the commanding officer, result in definite impediment to productive
effort." Known officially as "OIR Notice CP75," Hague's statement left
little doubt that segregation would remain the norm in most instances.
It specified that a change to integrated facilities would be allowed
only after the commander had decided that it could be accomplished
without "inordinate interference with the Station's ability to carry
out its mission." If other facilities stood nearby, the change would
be allowed only after he had coordinated with the naval district
commander.[19-34] Shortly thereafter the Acting Secretary of the Navy
expressed his agreement with Hague's statement,[19-35] thus elevating
it to an official expression of Navy policy.
[Footnote 19-33: Executive Order 9980, announcing
regulations governing fair employment practices
within the federal government, was signed by
President Truman on 26 July 1948, the same day and
as a companion to his order on equal treatment and
opportunity in the services.]
[Footnote 19-34: OIR Notice CP75, Chief, Office of
Industrial Relations, to Chiefs, Bureaus, et al.,
23 Jan 52, sub: Segregation of Facilities for Civil
Service Employees; Navy Department Policy.]
[Footnote 19-35: Ltr, Actg SecNav Francis Whitehair to
Jerry O. Gilliam, Norfolk Branch, NAACP, 19 Mar 52,
P 8(4), SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]
Official protestations to the contrary, the Navy was again segregating
people by race. Evans, in the Department of Defense, charged that this
was in fact the "insidious intent" of Hague's notice. He pointed out
to Assistant Secretary of Defense Rosenberg that signs and notices of
segregation were reappearing over drinking fountains and toilets at
naval installations which had abandoned such practices, that men in
uniform were now subjected to segregation at such facilities, and that
the local press was making the unrefuted claim that local law was (p. 484)
being reestablished on federal properties.[19-36] Somewhat late to the
battle, Dennis D. Nelson seemingly a permanent fixture in the
Pentagon, spoke out against his department's policy, but from a
different angle. He warned the Secretary of the Navy through his aide
that Notice 75 was embarrassing not only for the Navy but for the
White House as well.[19-37]
[Footnote 19-36: Draft Memo, Evans for Rosenberg,
SecDef 291.2. Evans delivered the draft memo to
Mrs. Rosenberg and discussed the situation with her
at length "in the spring of 1952." See Interv,
author with Evans, 28 Mar 72, CMH files. On Mrs
Rosenberg's request for a survey of the situation,
see Memo, ASD (M&P) for Under SecNav, 23 Dec 52.
See also Memo, CO, Norfolk Naval Shipyard, for
Chief, NavPers, 23 Apr 52, P 8(4), BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 19-37: Memo, Nelson for Aide to Asst SecNav,
20 May 53, P 8(4), GenRecsNav.]
[Illustration: CONGRESSMAN POWELL.]
Nelson was right of course. The notice quickly won the attention of
civil rights leaders. Walter White condemned the policy, but his
protest, along with the sharp complaints of the NAACP's Clarence
Mitchell and Jerry Gilliam and the arguments of the Urban League's
Lester Granger, failed to move Secretary of the Navy Dan A.
Kimball.[19-38] The secretary insisted that integrating these
installations might jeopardize the fulfillment of the Navy's mission,
dependent as it was on the "efficiency and whole-hearted cooperation"
of the employees. "In a very realistic way," he told Walter White, the
Navy must recognize and conform to local labor customs and
usages.[19-39] Answering Rosenberg's inquiry on the subject, the Navy
gave its formula for change:
This Department cannot take the initiative in correcting this
social ill but must content itself with being alert to take
advantage of the gradual dissolution of these racial prejudices
which can be effectively brought about only by a process of
social education and understanding. This Department is ever ready
to dissolve segregation practices of long standing as soon as
that can be done without decreasing the effectiveness of our
activities.[19-40]
[Footnote 19-38: Kimball succeeded Sullivan as
Secretary of the Navy on 31 July 1951.]
[Footnote 19-39: Ltrs, White to SecNav, 26 May 52;
Mitchell to same, 8 Feb 52; Jerry Gilliam to same,
10 Feb 52; Granger to same, 22 May and 27 Jun 52;
SecNav to Granger, 16 Jun 52; same to White, 20 Jun
52; Chief, OIR, to Mitchell, 4 Feb 52; Under SecNav
to Mitchell, 5 Mar 52. All in P 8(4), GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 19-40: Memo, Actg SecNav for ASD (M&P), 22
Jan 53; Memo, ASD (M&P) for Under SecNav, 23 Dec
52; both in P 8(4), GenRecsNav.]
President Eisenhower's newly appointed Secretary of the Navy, Robert
B. Anderson, endorsed Notice 75 along the same lines, informing
Mitchell that the Navy would "measure the pace of non-segregation by
the limits of what is practical and reasonable in each area."[19-41]
[Footnote 19-41: Ltr, SecNav to Mitchell (ca., Apr
53), OIR 161, GenRecsNav.]
But what seemed practical and reasonable in the Navy was not (p. 485)
necessarily so in the White House, where the President had publicly
pledged his administration to the abolition of segregation in the
federal government. Should Eisenhower falter, there was always his
1952 campaign ally, Congressman Powell, to remind him of his
"forthright stand on segregation when federal funds are expended."[19-42]
In colorful prose that pulled no punches, Powell reminded the
President of his many black supporters and pressed him on the Navy's
continuing segregation. Although he denied Powell's charge of
obstructionist tactics in the executive branch, the President had in
fact been told by Maxwell Rabb, now serving as his minority affairs
assistant, that "some government agencies were neglecting their
duty."[19-43] The President responded to this news promptly enough by
ordering Rabb to supervise the executive agencies in their application
of the presidential racial policy. Rabb thereafter discussed the
Navy's policy with Secretary Anderson and his assistants on 11 June
1953.
[Footnote 19-42: Ltr, Powell to Eisenhower, 17 Apr 53,
copy in SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 19-43: Dwight D. Eisenhower, _Mandate for
Change 1953-1956_ (New York: New American Library,
1963), p. 293.]
With his policy openly contradicting the President's, Anderson was in
an awkward position. He had been unaware of the implications of the
problem, he later explained, and had accepted his predecessor's
judgment. His mistake, he pled, was one of timing not intent.[19-44]
Yet Anderson had conducted a wide correspondence on the subject,
discussed the matter with Lester Granger, and as late as 28 May was
still defending Notice 75, telling Special White House Assistant
Wilton B. Persons that it represented a practical answer to a problem
that could not be corrected by edict. Nor could he introduce any
changes, he maintained, adopting his predecessor's argument that the
Navy should "be alert to take advantage of its [segregation's] gradual
dissolution through the process of social education and
understanding."[19-45]
[Footnote 19-44: Interv, Nichols with Anderson, 18 Sep
53, and Nichols UPI Release, 21 Sep 53; both in
Nichols Collection, CMH.]
[Footnote 19-45: Ltrs, SecNav to W. Persons, 28 May
53; SecNav to Granger, 28 May and 29 Jul 53;
Granger to Anderson, 24 Apr and 2 Jul 53. See also
Memo, Chief, NavPers for SecNav, 11 May 53. All in
SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]
But neither the civil rights leaders nor the White House could be put
off with gradualism. Anderson's stand was roundly criticized. In an
address to the NAACP annual convention, Walter White plainly referred
to the secretary's position as a "defiance of President Eisenhower's
order."[19-46] If such barbed criticism left the secretary unmoved,
Rabb carried a stronger weapon, and in their 11 June meeting the two
men discussed the President's order to integrate federally owned or
controlled properties, the possibility of a Supreme Court decision on
the same subject, and, more to the point, Powell's public statements
concerning segregation at the Norfolk and Charleston naval
shipyards.[19-47]
[Footnote 19-46: White, Address Delivered at 44th
NAACP Annual Convention, 28 Jun 53, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 19-47: Memo, Under SecNav for President, 23
Jun 53, sub: Segregation in Naval Activities,
attached to Ltr, Under SecNav to Sherman Adams, 24
Jun 53, P 8(4), GenRecsNav.]
[Illustration: SECRETARY ANDERSON _talks to a member of the fleet_.]
Anderson then proceeded to reverse his position. He began by (p. 486)
ordering a survey of a group of southern installations to estimate
the effect of integration on their civilian programs. He learned
segregation could be virtually eliminated at these shipyards and
stations within six months, although Under Secretary Charles S.
Thomas, who prepared the report, agreed with the local commanders that
an integration directive would be certain to cause trouble. But the
formula chosen by the commanders for eliminating segregation, in which
Thomas concurred, might well have given Anderson pause. They wanted to
remove racial signs from drinking fountains and toilets, certain that
the races would continue using separate facilities, and leave the
problem of segregated cafeterias till later. It was the unanimous
opinion of those involved, Thomas reported, that the situation should
not be forced by "agitators," a category in which they all placed
Powell.
On 20 August Anderson directed commanders of segregated facilities to
proceed steadily toward complete elimination of racial barriers.
Furthermore, each commander was to submit a progress report on 1
November and at sixty-day intervals thereafter.[19-48] Although the
secretary was concerned with the possible reaction of the civil rights
groups were integration not achieved in the first sixty days, he was
determined to give local commanders some leeway in carrying out his
order.[19-49] But he made it clear to the press that he did not intend
"to put up with inaction."
[Footnote 19-48: ALL NAV, 20 Aug 53; Ltr, Chief,
Industrial Relations, to Commandant, 6th Naval
District, 21 Aug 53, OIR 200, GenRecsNav. For an
example of how the new policy was transmitted to
the field, see COMFIVE Instruction 5800, 15 Sep 53,
A. (2), GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 19-49: Interv, Nichols with Anderson;
Nichols News Release, 23 Sep 53, in Nichols
Collection, CMH.]
He need not have worried. Evans reported on 29 October that
integration of the Charleston shipyard was almost complete and had
occurred so far without incident. In fact, he told Assistant Secretary
of Defense John A. Hannah, the reaction of the local press and
community had been "surprisingly tolerant and occasionally
favorable."[19-50] Evans, however, apparently overlooked an attempt by
some white employees to discourage the use of integrated facilities.
Although there was no disorder, the agitators were partly successful;
the Chief of Industrial Relations reported that white usage had (p. 487)
dropped severely.[19-51] Nevertheless by 14 January 1954 this same
officer could tell Secretary Anderson that all racial barriers for
civilian employees had been eliminated without incident.[19-52]
[Footnote 19-50: Evans, Weekly Thursday Report to ASD
(M&P), 29 Oct 53, SD 291.2. Begun by Evans as a
means of informing Rosenberg of activities in his
office, the Weekly Thursday Report was adopted by
the assistant secretary for use in all parts of the
manpower office.]
[Footnote 19-51: Memo, Chief, Industrial Relations,
for SecNav, 5 Nov 53, sub: Segregation of
Facilities for Civil Service Employees; see also
Ltr, SecNav to President, 9 Nov 53; both in P 8(4),
GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 19-52: Memo, Chief, Industrial Relations,
for SecNav, 5 Nov 53, sub: Segregation of
Facilities for Civil Service Employees, P 8(4),
GenRecsNav.]
_Dependent Children and Integrated Schools_
The Department of Defense's effort to integrate schools attended by
servicemen's children proved infinitely more complex than integrating
naval shipyards. In a period when national attention was focused on
the constitutional implications of segregated education, the
Eisenhower administration was thrust into a dispute over the intent of
federal aid to education and eventually into a reappraisal of the
federal role in public education. Confusing to the Department of
Defense, the President's personal attitude remained somewhat ambiguous
throughout the controversy. He had publicly committed himself to
ending segregation in federally financed institutions, yet he had
declared scruples against federal interference with state laws and
customs that would prevent him from acting to keep such a pledge when
all its ramifications were revealed.
In fact not one but four separate categories of educational
institutions came under scrutiny. Only the first category, schools run
by the U.S. Office of Education for the Department of Defense overseas
and on military reservations in the United States, operated
exclusively with federal funds. The next two categories, schools
operated by local school districts on military reservations and
schools on federal land usually adjacent to a military reservation,
were supported by local and state funds with federal subsidies. The
fourth and by far the largest group contained the many community
schools attended by significant numbers of military dependents. These
schools received considerable federal support through the impact aid
program.
The federal support program for schools in "federally impacted" areas
added yet another dimension to the administration's reappraisal. The
impact aid legislation (Public Laws 815 and 874),[19-53] like similar
programs during World War II, was based on the premise that a school
district derived no tax from land occupied by a federal installation
but usually incurred an increase in school enrollment. In many cases
the enrollment of military dependents was far greater than that of the
communities in the school district. Actually, these programs were not
limited to the incursion of military families; the most extreme
federal impact in terms of enrollment percentages was found in remote
mountain districts where in some cases almost all students were
children of U.S. Forest Service or National Park Service employees.
[Footnote 19-53: PL 815, 23 Sep 50, 64 U.S. 967; PL
874, 30 Sep 50, 64 U.S. 1100.]
In recognition of these inequities in the tax system, Congress gave
such school systems special "in-lieu of tax" support. Public Law 815
provided for capital projects, land, buildings, and major equipment;
Public Law 874 gave operating support in the form of salaries, (p. 488)
supplies, and the like. If, for example, a school district could prove
at least 3 percent of its enrollment federally connected, it was
eligible to receive from the U.S. Office of Education a grant equal to
the district's cost of instruction for federally connected students.
If it could show federally connected enrollment necessitated
additional classrooms, the school district was eligible for federally
financed buildings. Such schools were usually concentrated in military
housing areas, but examples existed of federally financed schools,
like federal dependents, scattered throughout the school district.
Students from the community at large attended the federally
constructed schools and the school district continued to receive state
support for all students. Although Public Law 874 was far more
important in terms of general application and fiscal impact, its
companion piece, Public Law 815, was more important to integration
because it involved the construction of schools. From the beginning
Congress sought to prevent these laws from becoming a means by which
federal authorities exercised control over the operation of school
districts. It stipulated that "no department, officer or employee of
the United States shall exercise any direction, supervision or control
over the personnel, curriculum or program of instruction" of any local
school or school system.[19-54] The firmness of this admonition, an
indication of congressional opinion on this important issue, later
played a decisive part in the integration story.
[Footnote 19-54: Sec. 7a, PL 874, 64 U.S. 1100.]
Attacks on segregation in schools attended by military dependents did
not begin until the early fifties when the Army, in answer to
complaints concerning segregated schools in Texas, Oklahoma, and
Virginia, began using a stock answer to the effect that the schools
were operated by state agencies as part of the state school system
subject to state law.[19-55] Trying to justify the situation to
Clarence Mitchell, Assistant Secretary of the Army Fred Korth cited
Public Law 874, whose intent, he claimed, was that educating children
residing on federal property was the responsibility of "the local
educational agency."[19-56]
[Footnote 19-55: DA Office of Legislative Liaison
Summary Sheet for ASA, 27 Sep 51, sub: Alleged
Segregation Practiced at Fort Bliss, Texas, CS
291.2 Negroes (17 Sep 51); Ltr, CG, The Artillery
School, to Parents of School Age Children, 2 Sep
52, sub: School Information, AG 352.9 AKPSIGP. For
examples of complaints on segregated schools, see
Ltrs, Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey to ASD (M&P), 16 Jun
52, and Dir, Washington Bureau, NAACP, to SecDef, 2
Oct 52; both in OASD (M&P) 291.2.]
[Footnote 19-56: Draft Ltr, ASA (M&P) to Mitchell.
Although he never dispatched it, Korth used this
letter as a basis for a discussion of the matter
with Mitchell in an October 1952 meeting.]
Senator Humphrey, for one, was not to be put off by such an
interpretation. He reminded Assistant Secretary Rosenberg that
President Truman had vetoed an education bill in 1951 because of
provisions requiring segregation in schools on federal property. As a
member of the subcommittee that guided Public Law 874 through
Congress, Humphrey could assure Rosenberg that at no time did Congress
include language requiring segregation in post schools. Thanks to the
Army's interpretation, he observed, local community segregation
practices were being extended for the first time to federal property
under the guise of compliance with federal law. He predicted further
incursions by the segregationists if this move was left
unchallenged.[19-57]
[Footnote 19-57: Ltr, Humphrey to ASD (M&P), 16 Oct
52, OASD (M&P) 291.2.]
After conferring with both Humphrey and Mitchell, Rosenberg took (p. 489)
the matter of segregated schools on military posts to the U.S.
Commissioner of Education, Earl J. McGrath. With Secretary of Defense
Lovett's approval she put the department on record as opposed to
segregated schools on posts because they were "violative not only of
the policy of the Department" but also of "the policy set forth by the
President."[19-58] Evidently McGrath saw Public Law 874 in the same
light, for on 15 January 1953 he informed Rosenberg that if the
Department of Defense outlawed segregated dependent schooling and
local educational agencies were unable to comply, his office would
have to make "other arrangements" for the children.[19-59]
[Footnote 19-58: Ltr, ASD (M&P) to U.S. Commissioner
of Educ, 10 Jan 53, SecDef 291.2.]
[Footnote 19-59: Ltr, U.S. Commissioner of Educ to ASD
(M&P), 15 Jan 53; Ltr, ASD (M&P) to Humphrey, 10
Jan 53; both in OASD 291.2.]
Commissioner McGrath proposed that his office discuss the integration
question further with Defense Department representatives but the
change in administrations interrupted these negotiations and
Rosenberg's successor, John A. Hannah, made it clear that there would
be no speedy change in the racial composition of post schools.
Commenting at Hannah's request on the points raised by McGrath, the
Army's principal personnel officer concluded that integration should
be considered a departmental goal, but one that should be approached
by steps "consistent with favorable local conditions as determined by
the installation commander concerned." In his opinion, committing the
department to integration of all on-post schools, as the Assistant
Secretary of Defense had proposed earlier, would create teacher
procurement problems and additional financial burdens.[19-60] This
cautious endorsement of integrated schools was further qualified by
the Secretary of the Army. It was a "desirable goal," he told Hannah,
but "positive steps to eliminate segregation ... should be preceded
by a careful analysis of the impact on each installation
concerned."[19-61] Hannah then broke off negotiations with the Office
of Education.
[Footnote 19-60: G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 13 Feb
53, sub: Segregation of School Children on Military
Installations, G-1 291.2 (15 Jan 53).]
[Footnote 19-61: Memo, Exec Off, SA, for ASD (M&P), 20
Feb 53, sub: Proposed Reply to U.S. Commissioner of
Education Regarding Segregation in Dependent
Schools, copy in G-1 291.2 (15 Jan 53).]
The matter was rescued from bureaucratic limbo when in answer to a
question during his 19 March 1953 press conference President
Eisenhower promised to investigate the school situation, adding:
I will say this--I repeat it, I have said it again and again:
whenever Federal funds are expended for anything, I do not see
how any American can justify--legally, or logically, or
morally--a discrimination in the expenditure of those funds as
among our citizens. All are taxed to provide these funds. If
there is any benefit to be derived from them, I think they must
all share, regardless of such inconsequential factors as race and
religion.[19-62]
[Footnote 19-62: President's News Conference, 19 Mar
53, _Public Papers of the Presidents: Dwight D.
Eisenhower, 1953_, p. 108.]
The sweeping changes implied in this declaration soon became apparent.
Statistics compiled as a result of the White House investigation
revealed that federal dependents attended thousands of schools, a
complex mix of educational institutions having little more in common than
their mutual dependence in whole or part on federal funds.[19-63] (p. 490)
Most were under local government control and the great majority,
including the community public schools, were situated a long distance
from any military base. The President was no doubt unaware of the
ramifications of federal enrollment and impacted aid on the nation's
schools when he made his declaration, and, given his philosophy of
government and the status of civil rights at the time, it is not
surprising that his promise to look into the subject came to nothing.
From the beginning Secretary of Defense Wilson limited the
department's campaign against segregated schools to those on federal
_property_ rather than those using federal _funds_. And even this
limited effort to integrate schools on federal property encountered
determined opposition from many local officials and only the
halfhearted support of some of the federal officials involved.
[Footnote 19-63: Memo for Rcd, Human Relations and
Research Br, G-1 (ca. Mar 53), copy in CMH. See
also Memo, Under SecNav for ASD (M&P), 11 Mar 53,
sub: Schools Operated by the Department of the Navy
Pursuant to Section 6 and 3 of Public Law 874, 81st
Congress, A18, GenRecsNav; "List of States and
Whether or Not Segregation is Practiced in Schools
for Dependents, as Given by Colonel Brody, OPNS
Secn, AGO, In Charge of Dependents Schools, 16 Oct
51," OSA 291.2 Negroes.]
The Department of Defense experienced few problems at first as it
integrated its own schools. Its overseas schools, especially in
Germany and Japan, had always been integrated, and its schools in the
United States now quickly followed suit. Eleven in number, they were
paid for and operated by the U.S. Commissioner of Education because
the states in which they were located prohibited the use of state
funds for schools on federal property. With only minimal public
attention, all but one of these schools was operating on an integrated
basis by 1953. The exception was the elementary school at Fort
Benning, Georgia, which at the request of the local school board
remained a white-only school. On 20 March 1953 the new Secretary of
the Army, Robert T. Stevens, informed the White House that this school
had been ordered to commence integrated operations in the fall.[19-64]
[Footnote 19-64: Memo, SA for James Hagerty, White
House Press Secretary, 20 Mar 53, sub: Segregation
in Army Schools, copy in CMH.]
The integration of schools operated by local school authorities on
military posts was not so simple, and before the controversy died down
the Department of Defense found itself assuming responsibility for a
number of formerly state-operated institutions. As of April 1953,
twenty-one of these sixty-three schools in the United States were
operating on a segregated basis. (_Table 12_)
Table 12--Defense Installations With Segregated Public Schools
State Installation
Alabama (C)[1] Maxwell Air Force Base
Craig Air Force Base
Arkansas (S)[2] Pine Bluff Arsenal (Army)
Florida (C) MacDill Air Force Base
Eglin Air Force Base
Tyndall Air Force Base
Naval Air Station, Pensacola
Patrick Air Force Base
Maryland (S) Andrews Air Force Base
Naval Air Station, Patuxent
Naval Powder Factory, Indianhead
Oklahoma (C) Fort Sill (Army)
Texas (C) Fort Bliss (Army)
Fort Hood (Army)
Fort Sam Houston (Army)
Randolph Air Force Base
Reese Air Force Base
Shepherd Air Force Base
Lackland Air Force Base
Virginia (C) Fort Belvoir (Army)
Langley Air Force Base
[Tablenote 1: (C) indicates segregation required by
state constitution.]
[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 assembled 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 attitude 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
buttressing 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 institutions. (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 assistant
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
circumstances 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 Mitchell, 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 Assistant 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 institutions
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 Arsenal, 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 Assistant 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 Arsenal; Memo, Asst 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, Asst 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 Assistant Secretary of the Army reported that the
phased integration of Fort Meade's elementary school had
started.[19-84] The Pine Bluff Arsenal 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
Arsenal, 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 Asst
SecNav (P&RF), 23 Jan 56, sub: Segregation in
Schools at the New Orleans Naval Base, Algiers,
Louisiana; Asst SecNav (P&RF) for ASD (M&P), 7 Apr
56, same sub; ASD (M&P) for Asst 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 Mitchell, 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.]
[Illustration: READING CLASS IN THE MILITARY DEPENDENTS SCHOOL,
_Yokohama, Japan, 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 classrooms, 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 classes 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 institutions some 28,000 federal dependents
were being educated in segregated classes. 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, Assistant
Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Elliot C. Richardson
discussed the legal background of federal aid to schools attended by
military dependents, especially congressional intent and the
definition of "suitable" facilities as expressed in Public Laws 815
and 874. He also took up the question of whether to provide off-base
integrated schooling, balancing the difficult problem of protecting
the civil rights of federal employees against the educational
advantages of a state-sponsored education system. Richardson mentioned
the great variation in school population--some bases having seven high
school aged children one year, none the next--and the fact that the
cost of educating the 28,087 dependents attending segregated schools
in 1957 would amount to more than $49 million for facilities and $8.7
million annually for operations. He was left with one possible
conclusion, that "irrespective of our feelings about the unsuitability
of segregated education as a matter of principle, we are constrained
by the legislative history, the settled administrative construction,
and the other circumstances surrounding the statutes in question to
adhere to the existing interpretation of them."[19-88]
[Footnote 19-88: Memo, Asst Secy of HEW for Secy of
HEW, 4 Oct 58, sub: Payments of Segregated Schools
Under P.L. 815 and P.L. 874, Incl to Ltr, Asst Secy
of HEW to ASD (M&P), 10 Oct 58, OASD (M&P)291.2 (10
Oct 58).]
Richardson might be "constrained" to accept the _status quo_, but some
black parents were not. In the fall of 1958 matters came to a head at
the school near the Little Rock air base. Here was a new facility,
built by the local school board exclusively with federal funds, on
state land, and intended primarily for the education of dependents
living at a newly constructed military base. On the eve of the
school's opening, the Pulaski County school board informed the Air
Force that the school would be for white students only. The decision
was brought to the President's attention by a telegram from a black
sergeant's wife whose child was denied admission.[19-89] The telegram
was only the first in a series of protests from congressmen, civil (p. 497)
rights organizations, and interested citizens. For all the Defense
Department had a stock answer: there was nothing the Air Force could
do. The service neither owned nor operated the school, and the impact
aid laws forbade construction of federal school facilities if the
local school districts could provide public school education for
federal dependents.[19-90]
[Footnote 19-89: Memo, Dir of Pers Policy, OSD, for
Stephen Jackson, 29 Aug 58, sub: Air Force
Segregated School Situation in Pulaski County,
Arkansas (San Francisco _Chronicle_ article of Aug
26, 58); Memo for Rec, Stephen Jackson, OASD (M&P),
8 Oct 58, sub: Integration of Little Rock Air Force
Base School, Jacksonville, Ark., attached to Memo,
ASD (M&P) for SA et al., 10 Oct 58. All in OASD
(M&P) 291.2.]
[Footnote 19-90: See, for example, Ltrs, Dir of Pers
Policy, OSD, to Sen. Richard L. Neuberger, 10 Sep
58, and ASD/M to Congressman Charles C. Diggs, Jr.,
23 Oct 58. See also Memo, Dep Dir of Mil Pers,
USAF, for Asst SecAF (Manpower, Pers, and Res
Forces), 9 Oct 58, sub: Dependent Schools. All in
OASD (M&P) 291.2.]
The department would not get off the hook so easily; the President
wanted something done about the Little Rock school, although he wanted
his interest kept quiet.[19-91] Yet any action would have unpleasant
consequences. If the department transferred the father, it was open to
a court suit on his behalf; if it tried to force integration on the
local authorities, they would close the school. Since neither course
was acceptable, Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles C. Finucane
ordered his troubleshooter, Stephen Jackson, to Little Rock to
investigate.[19-92]
[Footnote 19-91: Memo, Lt Col Winston P. Anderson,
Exec Off, Asst SecAF (M&P), for Asst SecAF (M&P),
24 Nov 58, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 19-92: Memo, ASD (MP&R) for SA et al., 10
Oct 58, OASD (MP&R) 291.2; Memo for Rcd, Spec Asst
to Asst SecAF, 17 Oct 58, sub: Meeting With Mr.
Finucane and Mr. Jackson re Little Rock Air Force
Base, SecAF files.]
Before he went to Little Rock, Jackson met with officials from the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and decided, with the
concurrence of the Department of Justice, that the solution lay in
government purchase of the land. The school would then be on a
military base and subject to integration. Should local authorities
refuse to operate the integrated on-base school, the Air Force would
do so. In that event, Jackson warned local officials on his arrival in
Arkansas, the school district would lose much of its federal
enrollment and hence its very important federal subsidy. Nor could the
board be assured that the federal acquisition would be limited to one
school. Jackson later admitted the local black school had also been
constructed with federal funds, and he could not guarantee that it
would escape federal acquisition. Board members queried Jackson on
this point, introducing the possibility that the federal government
might try to acquire local high schools, also attended in large
numbers by military dependents and also segregated. Jackson assured
the school board that the department "had no desire to change the
community patterns where schools were already in existence merely
because they received federal aid,"[19-93] a statement that amounted
to a new federal policy.
[Footnote 19-93: Memo for Rcd, Dep ASD (MR&P), 8 Oct
58, sub: Integration of Little Rock Air Force Base
School, Jacksonville, Ark.; attached to Memo, ASD
(MP&R) for SA et al., 10 Oct 58, OASD (MP&R)
291.2.]
Jackson failed to convince the board, and in late October 1958 it
rejected the government's offer to run an integrated school on land
purchased from them.[19-94] Jackson thereupon met with justice
officials and together they decided that sometime before 1 January
1959 the Justice Department would acquire title to the school land for
one year by taking a leasehold through the right of eminent domain.
They did not at that time, however, formulate any definite plan of (p. 498)
action to accomplish the school take-over.[19-95]
[Footnote 19-94: Memo for Rcd, Dep Asst SecAF, 24 Nov
58, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 19-95: Ibid.; Memo, Lt Col Winston P.
Anderson, Exec Off, Asst SecAF (M&P) for Asst SecAF
(M&P), 24 Nov 58, SecAF files.]
It was just as well, for soon after this decision was reached the
NAACP brought up the subject of dependent schools near the Air Force
bases at Blytheville, Arkansas, and Stewart, Tennessee.[19-96] Air
Force Deputy Assistant Secretary James P. Goode was quick to point out
that there were at least five other segregated schools constructed
with federal funds, situated near Air Force bases, and attended almost
exclusively by federal dependents. He also predicted that a careful
survey would reveal perhaps another fifteen schools in segregated
districts serving only Air Force dependents. In light of these facts,
and with a frankly confessed aversion to the administration's
acquisition of the properties by right of eminent domain, Goode
preferred to have the schools integrated in an orderly manner through
the supervision of the federal courts.[19-97]
[Footnote 19-96: Memo, Asst SecAF (M&P) for Under
SecAF, 26 Nov 58, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 19-97: Memo, Dep Asst SecAF (MP&R) for Asst
SecAF (MP&R), 26 Nov 58, sub: Little Rock Air Force
Base Elementary School, SecAF files.]
This attitude was to prevail for some time in the Department of
Defense. In April 1961, for example, the Assistant Secretary for
Manpower informed a Senate subcommittee that, while schools under
departmental jurisdiction were integrated "without reservation and
with successful results," many children of black servicemen stationed
in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and elsewhere still attended
segregated off-post schools. Adjacent to military posts and attended
"in whole or in part by federal dependents," these schools "conformed
to state rather than federal laws."[19-98] And as late as May 1963, a
naval official admitted there was no way for the Navy to require
school officials in Key West, Florida, to conform to the Department of
Defense's policy of equal opportunity.[19-99]
[Footnote 19-98: Memo, ASD (M) for Chmn, Subcommittee
on Education, Cmte on Labor and Pub Welfare, of the
U.S. Senate, 25 Apr 61, OASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 19-99: Ltr, Rear Adm C. K. Duncan, Asst
Chief for Plans, BuPers, to Mrs. Rosetta
McCullough, 16 May 63, P 8, GenRecsNav.]
Yet even as the principle of noninterference with racial patterns of
the local community emerged intact from the lengthy controversy,
exceptions to its practical application continued to multiply. In the
fall of 1959, less than a year after the administration suspended its
campaign to integrate off-base schools in Arkansas, black Air Force
dependents quietly entered the Little Rock school. At the same time,
schools catering predominantly to military dependents near bases in
Florida and Tennessee integrated with little public attention.[19-100]
Under pressure from the courts, and after President Eisenhower had
discussed the case in a national press conference in terms of the
proper use of impact aid in segregated districts, the city of Norfolk,
Virginia, agreed to integrate its 15,000 students, roughly one-third
of whom were military dependents.[19-101]
[Footnote 19-100: Morton Puner, "What the Armed Forces
Taught Us About Integration," _Coronet_ (June
1960), reprinted in the _Congressional Record_,
vol. 106, pp. 11564-65.]
[Footnote 19-101: Press Conference, 21 Jan 59, _Public
Papers of the Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower,
1959_, p. 122; see also Washington _Post_ January
28, 1959.]
The controversy over schools for dependents demonstrated the (p. 499)
limits of federal intervention in the local community on behalf of the
civil rights of servicemen. Before these limits could be breached a
new administration would have to redefine the scope of the Defense
Department's power. Nevertheless, the armed forces had scored some
dramatic successes in the field of race relations by 1960. Some five
million servicemen, civilians, and their dependents were proving the
practicality of integration on the job, in schools, and in everyday
living. Several writers even suggested that the services' experience
had itself become a dynamic force for social change in the United
States.[19-102] The New York _Times's_ Anthony Lewis went so far as to
say that the successful integration of military society led to the
black crusade against discrimination in civilian society.[19-103]
Others took the services' influence for granted, as Morton Puner did
when he observed in 1959 that "the armed services are more advanced in
their race relations than the rest of the United States. Perhaps it is
uniquely fitting that this should be so, that in one of the greatest
peacetime battles of our history, the armed forces should be leading
the way to victory."[19-104]
[Footnote 19-102: See Fred Richard Bahr, "The
Expanding Role of the Department of Defense as an
Instrument of Social Change" (Ph.D. dissertation,
George Washington University, February 1970), ch.
III.]
[Footnote 19-103: As quoted, ibid., p. 87.]
[Footnote 19-104: Morton Puner, "Integration in the
Army," _The New Leader_ 42 (January 12, 1959).]
As such encomiums became more frequent, successful integration became
a source of pride to the services. Military commanders with experience
in Korea had, according to Assistant Secretary of Defense Hannah,
universally accepted the new order as desirable, conceding that
integration worked "very well" despite predictions to the
contrary.[19-105] Nor was this attitude limited to military
commanders, for there had been considerable change in sentiment among
senior defense officials. Citing the major economies realized in the
use of manpower and facilities, Secretary Wilson reported to President
Eisenhower in March 1955 that the results of integration were
encouraging:
Combat effectiveness is increased as individual capabilities
rather than racial designations determine assignments and
promotions. Economics in manpower and funds are achieved by the
elimination of racially duplicated facilities and operations.
Above all, our national security is improved by the more
effective utilization of military personnel, regardless of
race.[19-106]
[Footnote 19-105: Extracted from an interview given by
Hannah and published in _U.S. News and World
Report_ 35 (October 16, 1953):99. See also Ltr, Lt
Col L. Hill, Chief, Public Info Div, CINFO, to Joan
Rosen, WCBS Eye on New York, 17 Apr 64, CMH Misc
291.2 Negroes.]
[Footnote 19-106: _Semiannual Report of the Secretary
of Defense, January 1-June 30, 1954_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1955), pp. 21-22.]
In other reports he expatiated on this theme, explaining how
integration cut down racial incidents in the services and improved
"national solidarity and strength."[19-107] After years of claiming
the contrary, defense officials were justifying integration in the
name of military efficiency.
[Footnote 19-107: Office of the Assistant Secretary of
Defense, Manpower, "Advances in the Utilization of
Negro Manpower: Extracts From Official Reports of
the Secretary of Defense, 1947-1961." The quotation
is from Secretary Wilson's report, 10 Dec 53.]
Certainly racial incidents in the armed forces practically (p. 500)
disappeared in the immediate post-integration period, and the number
of complaints about on-base discrimination that reached the Pentagon
from individual black servicemen dropped dramatically. Moreover,
supporting Secretary Wilson's claim of national solidarity, major
civil rights organizations began to cite the racial experiences of the
armed forces to strengthen their case against segregated American
society. Civil rights leaders continued to press for action against
discrimination outside the military reservation, but in the years
after Korea their sense of satisfaction with the department's progress
was quite obvious. At its national conventions in 1953 and 1954, for
example, the NAACP officially praised the services for their race
policy. As one writer observed, integration not only increased black
support for the armed forces and black commitment to national defense
during the cold war, but it also boosted the department's prestige in
the black and white community alike, creating indirect political
support for those politicians who sponsored the racial reforms.[19-108]
[Footnote 19-108: Bahr, "The Expanding Role of the
Department of Defense," pp. 86-87.]
But what about the black serviceman himself? A Negro enlisting in the
armed forces in 1960, unlike his counterpart in 1950, entered an
integrated military community. He would quickly discover traces of
discrimination, especially in the form of unequal treatment in
assignments, promotions, and the application of military justice, but
for a while at least these would seem minor irritants to a man who was
more often than not for the first time close to being judged by
ability rather than race.[19-109] It was a different story in the
civilian community, where the black serviceman's uniform commanded
little more respect than it did in 1950. Eventually this contrast
would become so intolerable that he and his sympathizers would
beleaguer the Department of Defense with demands for action against
discrimination in off-base housing, schools, and places of public
accommodation.
[Footnote 19-109: Ginzberg, _The Negro Potential_, p.
90.]