Integration in the Armed Services
| Author | David A. Lane,James C. Evans |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271625630400111 |
| Published date | 01 March 1956 |
| Date | 01 March 1956 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
78
Integration
in
the
Armed
Services
THE
feature
article,
&dquo;The
U.
S.
Ne-
gro,
1953:
A
decade
of
progress
...
,&dquo; in
the
May
11,
1953,
issue
of
Time
asserted,
&dquo;The
biggest
single
blow
against
segregation
in
the
U.
S.
has
been
struck
by
the
armed
forces.&dquo;
Similarly,
the
New
York
Times
of
February
14,
1954,
called
the
Armed
Forces
racial
integration
&dquo;one
of
the
biggest
stories
of
the
twentieth
century.
Per
se
it
war-
rants
no
lesser
description.&dquo;
Elsewhere
the
observation
has
been
made
that
one
of
the
most
significant
aspects
of
the
achievements
of
our
forces
in
the
Ko-
rean
conflict
was
the
validation,
in
the
field
and
under
fire,
of
the
racial
ine-
gration
program
through
which
co-op-
eration
and
cohesion
were
at
last
sub-
stituted
for
conflict
and
confusion.
As
late
as
1941
a
War
Department
spokesman,
addressing
Negro
newspaper
representatives
at
a
conference
on
the
problem
of
racial
segregation,
held
in
the
Munitions
Building
in
Washington
on
December
8,
stated
the
position
that
had
governed
policy
since
1914
and
that
was
to
continue
at
least
through
1944
and
probably
longer:
The
Army
did
not
create
the
problem....
Military
order,
fiat
or
dicta
will
not
change
these
viewpoints
[in
support
of
racial
seg-
regation].
The
Army ...
cannot
be
made
the
means
of
engendering
conflict
among
the
mass
of
the
people
because
of
a
stand
with
respect
to
Negroes
which
is
not
com-
patible
with
the
position
attained
by
the
Negro
in
civilian
life.
This
principle
must
necessarily
govern
the
Army
not
only
with
[respect
to]
this
subject
of
contention
but
with
respect
to
[any]
other
dogma,
be
it
religious,
political
or
economic.
The
Army
is
not
a
sociological
laboratory;
to
be
ef-
fective
it
must
be
organized
and
trained
according
to
principles
which
will
insure
success ....
1
Nevertheless,
the
years
between
1941
and
1953
saw
a
change
in
the
racial
policies
and
practices
of
the
armed
services
that
was
so
nearly
a
transfor-
mation
that
it
evoked
statements
of
genuine
surprise
and
sometimes
enthusi-
asm
from
those
concerned
with
advances
in
human
relations.
Increasingly,
as
the
press
carried
summaries
of
such
ad-
vances,
it
gave
priority
to
the
continu-
ing
success
of
the
integration
program
in
the
Army,
Navy,
Air
Force,
and
Marine
Corps.
One
recent
summary
said:
Historians
agreed
that
the
three
most
mo-
mentous
events
of
the
Golden
Decade
[1945-sus]
were:
(1)
The
Supreme
Court
decision
banning
segregation
in
the
schools;
(2)
the
abolition
of
segregation
in
the
Armed
Forces;
and
(3)
the
decisions
in-
validating
subterfuges
that
kept
Negroes
from
voting
in
the
South.2
Earlier
a
United
States
Senator
char-
acterized
Armed
Forces
integration
as
&dquo;the
first
truly
effective
step
that
has
been
made
in
implementing
the
Emanci-
pation
Proclamation.&dquo;
3
The
military
establishment,
in
effect,
executed
an
&dquo;about
face,&dquo;
discarded
the
markers
so
long
and
supposedly
so
firmly
established,
and
set
out
in
a
new
direction.
In
so
doing,
with
the
pri-
mary
objective
of
improving
military
1
Official
release
to
the
press.
2
Ebony,
November
1955,
p.
135.
3
Senator
Hubert H.
Humphrey,
Jacket
of
Lee
Nichols,
Breakthrough
on
the
Color
Front,
New
York:
Random
House,
1954.
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