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.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.

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 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 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."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.³

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 own movement, and youth was in the vanguard.⁴

 CLARENCE MITCHELL [Photograph not included.]

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 alliance 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 1946,⁵ 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.

These judicial initiatives whittled away at segregation's hold on 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 1954⁶ 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.⁷

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"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,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.

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 1953,¹⁰ 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.

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. 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,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.''¹²

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 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 1960¹³ 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.

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 the Lincoln Memorial on 28 August 1963 to hear King appeal to 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 ears of struggle and aspiration. It symbolized certain new directions: a deeper concern [or 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. ¹⁴

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.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. 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.^l7

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."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 of Defense. "¹⁹

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,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].''²¹

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."²²

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 indicative of extremely poor judgment on your part and reflects unfavorably on your qualifications as a commissioned officer. ²³

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.²⁴

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!²⁵

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.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."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 in interracial marriages to states where such unions were illegal. ²⁸

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.²⁹

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 wars 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 unified 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."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.³¹

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 resolution was particularly obvious in the integration of civilian facilities at Navy shipyards and installations and in schools for dependent children on military posts.

 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."³²

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 9980.³³ 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.³⁴ Shortly thereafter the Acting Secretary of the Navy expressed his agreement with Hague's statement, ³⁵ thus elevating it to an official expression of Navy policy.

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 being reestablished on federal properties.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.³⁷

CONGRESSMAN POWELL [Photograph not included.]

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.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.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. ⁴⁰

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."⁴¹
 
But what seemed practical and reasonable in the Navy was not 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."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."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.

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.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."⁴⁵

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."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.⁴⁷
 
SECRETARY ANDERSON talks to a member of the fleet.[Photograph not included.]

 Anderson then proceeded to reverse his position. He began by 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 Double. 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.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.⁴⁹ But he made it clear to the press that he did not intend "to put up with inaction."

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."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 dropped severely.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.⁵²

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),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.

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, 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.⁵⁴ The firmness of this admonition, an indication of congressional opinion on this important issue, later played a decisive part in the integration story.

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.⁵⁵ Trying to justify the situation to Clarence Mitchell, Assistant Secretary of the Army Fred North cited Public Law 874, whose intent, he claimed, was that educating children residing on federal property was the responsibility of "the local educational agency." ⁵⁶

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.⁵⁷
 

After conferring with both Humphrey and Mitchell, Rosenberg took 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."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.⁵⁹

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.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."⁶¹ Hannah then broke off negotiations with the Office of Education.

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.⁶²

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.⁶³ 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.

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 whiteonly 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.⁶⁴

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 stateoperated institutions. As of April 1953, twenty-one of these sixty-three schools in the United States were operating on a segregated basis. (Table 12)

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.⁶⁵ Admitting that there were complicating factors, the President ignored the secretary's warnings and noted that

 

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

  ¹(C) indicates segregation required by state constitution.
  ²(S) indicates segregation required by state statute.

if integrated schools could not be provided by state authorities "other arrangements will be considered."⁶⁶

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."⁶⁷

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. 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.⁶⁸

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."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."⁷⁰

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."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.

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."⁷² Walter White added the NAACP's approval in a similar vein, and many individual citizens offered congratulations.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 violation of certain state laws. " ⁷⁴

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.⁷⁵

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.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."⁷⁷

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.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 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.⁷⁹

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.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.^8l 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.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." ⁸³

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.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 board.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.⁸⁶

READING CLASS IN THE MILITARY DEPENDENTS SCHOOL, Yokohama, Japan, 1955. [Photograph not included.]

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 voluntarily attended by servicemen in off-duty hours.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.

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 38.7 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. "⁸⁸

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.⁸⁹ The telegram was only the first in a series of protests from congressmen, civil 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.⁹⁰

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.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.⁹²

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, "⁹³ a statement that amounted to a new federal policy.

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. 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 action to accomplish the school take-over.⁹⁵

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.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 seeing 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.⁹⁷

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."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.⁹⁹

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.^l00 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.¹⁰¹

The controversy over schools for dependents demonstrated the 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.^l02The 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.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."¹⁰⁴

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.^l05 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. ¹⁰⁶

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

Certainly racial incidents in the armed forces practically 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. ¹⁰⁸

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. 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.

¹New York Times, October 31, 1954; ibid., Editorial, November 1, 1954
 
²C. 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.

³Interv, Nichols with Mitchell.

⁴Woodward, Strange Career ofJim Crow, p. 170.

⁵328 U.S. 373 (1946).

⁶347 U.S.483 (1954); see also 349 U.S.294 (1955).

⁷Woodward, Strange Career of Jim Crow, p.147.

⁸349 U.S.294 (1955).

⁹For 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.

¹⁰346 U.S.100 (1953).

¹¹For 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.

¹²Ltr, Eisenhower to Powell, 6 Jun 53, G 124-A-I, 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.

¹³For 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.

¹⁴Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil/Disorders, p. 109.

¹⁵Memo, Lt Col Leon Bell, Asst Exec, Off, Asst SecAF, for Col Barnes, Office, SecAF, 9 Jan 51, SecAF files.

¹⁶Ltr, 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).

¹⁷Memo, 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.

¹⁸Ltr, ASD (MP&R) Charles C. Finucane to James Roosevelt, 3 Jun 59, ASD (MP&R) files.

¹⁹Evans and Lane, "Integration in the Armed Services," p. 83.

²⁰Wilson, former president of General Motors Corporation, became President Eisenhower's first Secretary of Defense on 28 January 1953.

²¹Memo, 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-l 291.2 (10 Dec 53).

²²SecAF 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.  

²³Memo, 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.

²⁴Memo, 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.

²⁵Ltr, Maxwell M. Rabb, President's Assistant for Minority Affairs, to Dr. W. Montague Cobb, as reproduced in Cobb, "The Strait Gate," Journal of the Nation Monica Association 47 (September 1955):349.

²⁶Memo, ACofS, Gel, 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.

²⁷Memo, 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.
 
²⁸Career Management Div. TAGO, "Policy Paper," Jul 54, AGAM 291.2 For other pronouncements of this policy, see ibid.; DF, ACS/G-I to TAG, 4 Jan 54, sub: Assignment of Personnel; and in G-1291.2 the following: Memo, Chief, Classification and Standards Br, Gel, for Planning Office, G-1, 28 Feb 50, sub: Assignment of Personnel; Did, G-1 to TAG, 8 Mar 50, same sub.

²⁹Ltr, TAG to Powell, 9 Aug 56, OF 124-A-1, Eisenhower Library.

³⁰Ltrs, C. B. Nichols to President, 28 Mar 55, and Rabb to Nichols, 20 Apr 55; both in G-124-1, Eisenhower Library.

³¹Ltr, E. Frederic Morrow to Pfc John Washington, 9 Apt 57, in reply to Ltr, Washington to President, 5 Mar 57; both in G-124-A-1, Eisenhower Library.

³²UPI News Release, 20 Aug 53, copy in CMH files.

³³Executive 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.

³⁴OIR 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.

³⁵Ltr, Actg SecNav Francis Whitehair to Jerry O. Gilliam, Norfolk Branch, NAACP, 19 Mar 52, P 8(4), SecNav files, GenRecsNav.

³⁶Draft 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

³⁷Memo, Nelson for Aide to Asst SecNav, 20 May 53, P 8(4), GenRecsNav.

³⁸Kimball succeeded Sullivan as Secretary Of the Navy on 31 July 1951

³⁹Ltrs, 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

⁴⁰Memo, Actg SecNav for ASo (M&P), 22 Jan 53; Memo, ASD (M&P) for Under SecNav, 23 Dec 52; both in P 8(4), GenRecsNav.

⁴¹Ltr, SecNav to Mitchell (ca., Apt 53), OIR 161, GenRecsNav.

⁴²Ltr, Powell to Eisenhower, 17 Apr 53, copy in SecNav files, GenRecsNav.

⁴³Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change 1953-1956 (New York New American Library, 1963), p. 293.

⁴⁴Interv, Nichols with Anderson, 18 Sep 53, and Nichols UPI Release, 21 Sep 53; both in Nichols Collection, CMH.

⁴⁵Ltrs, SecNav to W.. Persons, 28 May 53; SecNav to Granger, 28 May and 29 Jul 53; Granger to Anderson, 24 Air and 2 Jul 53. See also Memo, Chief, NavPers for SecNav, 1 1 May 5 3. All in SecNav files, GenRecsNav.

⁴⁶White Address Delivered at 44th NAACP Annual convention, 28 Jun 53, copy in CMH.

⁴⁷Memo 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.

⁴⁸ALL 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.

⁴⁹Interv, Nichols with Anderson; Nichols News Release, 23 Sep 53, in Nichols Collection, CMH.

⁵⁰Evans, 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.

⁵¹Memo, 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.

⁵²Memo, Chief, Industrial Relations, for SecNav, 5 Nov 53, sub Segregation Of Facilities for Civil Service Employees, P 8(4), GenRecsNav.

⁵³PL815, 23 Sep 50, 64 U.S. 967; PL874, 30 Sep 50, 64 U.S. 1100.  

⁵⁴Sec. 7a, PL 874, 64 U.S.. 1100.

⁵⁵DA 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.

⁵⁶Draft 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

⁵⁷Ltr, Humphrey to ASD (M&P), 16 Oct 52, OASD (M&P) 291.2.

⁵⁸Ltr, ASD (M&P) to U.S. Commissioner of Educ, 10 Jan 5 3, SecDef 291.2

⁵⁹Ltr, 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.

⁶⁰G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 13 Feb 53, sub: Segregation of School Children on Military Installations, G-1291.2 (15 Jan 53).

⁶¹Memo, 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)

⁶²President's News Conference, 19 Mar 53, Public Papers of the Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953, p. 103,
 
⁶³Memo for Red, 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.

⁶⁴Memo, SA for Tarries Hagerty, White House Press Secretary, 20 Mar 53, sub: Segregation in Army Schools, copy in CMH.

⁶⁵Ibid.

⁶⁶Memo, 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.

⁶⁷Ltr, Secy of HEW, to SecDef, 13 Apt 53, copy in CMH.

⁶⁸Ltr, 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.

⁶⁹DoD OPI Release, 1 Feb 54; UPI News Release, 31 Jan 54; Telg, Powell to President, cat 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.

⁷⁰Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, p. 293.

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

⁷²Telg, Anti-Defamatidn League of B'nai B'rith to Wilson, 1 Feb 54, SecDef 291.2.

⁷³Telg, Walter White to SecDef, 1 Feb 54; and as an example of a letter from an indivdual citizen, see Ltr, Mrs. Louis Shearer to SecDef, 1 Feb 54; both in SecDef 291.2.

⁷⁴Ltr, Winstead to SecDef, 18 Feb 54, SecDef 291.2.

⁷⁵SecNav 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 Zl 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).

⁷⁶Ltr, 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).

⁷⁷Ltr, SecAF to Superintendent of Montgomery Public Schools, 12 Jan 55, SecAF files.

⁷⁸Memo 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.

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

⁸⁰Ltr, Col Staunton Brown, USA, District Engineer, Little Rock Disuict, 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.

⁸¹Memo, 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.

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

⁸³Memo, 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).

⁸⁴Memo, 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.

⁸⁵Memo, 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.

⁸⁶See 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 Apt 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.

⁸⁷Ltr, Sen. Herbert Lehman to SecDef, 10 Oct 56; Ltr, SecDef to Lehman, 15 Oct 56, both in SD 291.2.

⁸⁸Memo, 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).

⁸⁹Memo, 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 act 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.

⁹⁰See, 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.

⁹¹Memo, Lt Col Winston P. Anderson, Exec Off, Asst SecAF (M&P), for Asst SecAF (M&P), 24 Nov 58, SecAF files.

⁹²Memo, 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.

⁹³Memo 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.

⁹⁴Memo for Rcd, Dep Asst SecAF, 24 Nov 58, SecAF files.

⁹⁵Ibid.; Memo, Lt Col Winston P. Anderson, Exec Off, Asst SecAF (M&P) for Asst SecAF (M&P), 24 Nov 58, SecAF files.

⁹⁶Memo, Asst SecAF (M&P) for Under SecAF, 26 Nov 58, SecAF files.

⁹⁷Memo, Dep Asst SecAF (MP&R) for Asst SecAF (MP&R), 26 Nov 58, sub Little Rock Air Force Base Elementary School, SecAF files.

⁹⁸Memo, ASD (M) for Chmn, Subcommittee on Education, Cmte on Labor and Pub Welfare, of the U.S.. Senate, 25 Apr61, OASD (M) 291.2.

⁹⁹Ltr, Rear Adm c. K. Duncan, Asst Chief for Plans, supers, to Mrs. Rosetta McCullough, 16 May 63, P 8, GenRecsNav.

¹⁰⁰Morton Puner, ``What the Armed Forces Taught us About Integration," Coronet (June 1960), reprinted n the Congressional Record, vol. 106,pp. 11564-65.

¹⁰¹Press Conference, 21 Jan 59, Public Papers of the Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1959, p. 122, see also Washington Post January 28, 1959.

¹⁰²See Fred Richard Bahr, "The Expanding Role of the Department of Defense as an Instrument Of Social Change'' (Ph.D. dissertation, George Washington University, Febnuary 1970), ch. III.

¹⁰³As quoted, ibid., p. 87.

¹⁰⁴Morton Puner, "Integration in the Army,'' The NewLeader 42(January 12, 1959).

¹⁰⁵Extracted 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, woes Eye on New York, 17 Apt 64, CMH Misc 291.2 Negroes.

¹⁰⁶Semi-annual Report of the Secretary of Defense, January l -June 30, 1954 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1955), up. 21-22.

¹⁰⁷Office 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 Willows report, 10 Dec 53.

¹⁰⁸Bahr, "The Expanding Role of the Department of Defense, " pp. 86-87.

¹⁰⁹Ginzberg, The Negro Potential, p. 90.
 

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