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U S Armed Forces Integration Chronology |
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The following information has been condensed and quoted from Morris J. MacGregor, Jr.s book, Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965. A historian with the U.S. Army Center of Military History (CMH), MacGregor received his bachelors and masters degrees in history from the Catholic University of America. He also studied at John Hopkins University and the University of Paris on a Fulbright grant. MacGregor served for ten years in the Historical Division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before joining the CMH staff in 1968.
Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 is one of the volumes in the Defense Historical Studies Program, which includes several "interservice histories, covering matters of mutual interest to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The preparation of each volume is entrusted to one of the service historical sections, in this case the Armys Center of Military History." In his preface, MacGregor states,
This book describes the fall of the legal, administrative, and social barriers to the black Americans full participation in the military service of his country. It follows the changing status of the black serviceman from the eve of World War II, when he was excluded from many military activities and rigidly segregated in the rest, to that period a quarter of a century later when the Department of Defense extended its protection of his rights and privileges even to the civilian community. To round out the story of open housing for members of the military, I briefly overstep the closing date given in the title.
The work is essentially an administrative history that attempts to measure the influence of several forces, most notably the civil rights movement, the tradition of segregated service, and the changing concept of military efficiency, on the development of racial policies in the armed forces. It is not a history of all minorities in the services. Nor is it an account of how the black American responded to discrimination.
At times I do generalize on the attitudes of both black and white servicemen and the black and white communities at large as well. But I have permitted myself to do so only when these attitudes were clearly pertinent to changes in the services racial policies and only when the written record supported, or at least did not contradict, the memory of those participants who had been interviewed. In any case this study is largely written from the top down and is based primarily on the written records left by the administrations of five presidents and by civil rights leaders, service officials, and the press.
The first section of the Integration Chronology covers the immediate post-WWII period through 1954, when the Secretary of Defense announced the abolition of the last racially segregated unit in the U.S. Armed Forces. Additional material may be added as time permits.
Post 1945 The all-black 24th Infantry was the only black regiment left intact after WWII. The 25th Infantry Regiment was also still on active duty, but its battalions were split and attached to various divisions to replace inactive or unfilled organic elements. The all-black 9th and 10th Calvary Regiments, which had been inactivated in 1944 with the 2nd Cavalry Division, were reactivated in 1950 as separate tank battalions.
1 October 1945 Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson ordered the U.S. Army to review its racial policies. Consequently, General George C. Marshall established a board headed by Lieutenant General Alvan C. Gillem, Jr., to study the situation and prepare a directive on the use of African Americans in the postwar Army.
17 November 1945 The Gillem Board finished its study of the Armys racial policies and sent its report to the Chief of Staff. Although it came close to recommending that the Army integrate its forces, the Gillem Board members ultimately decided not to do so because integration "would have been a radical step, out of keeping with the climate of opinion in the country and in the Army itself." Instead the board provided 18 specific recommendations based on the principles that African Americans had "a constitutional right to fight" and the Army had "to make the most effective use of every soldier." Although the Gillem Board advised Army leaders to provide more opportunities for qualified blacks based on individual merit, it sidestepped the fundamental problem of segregation and only committed the Army to limited reforms.
1945-46 During the immediate postwar period, the U.S. Armed Forces began developing new racial policies. The need to make the most effective use of all available manpower, demands by civil rights groups, and higher black reenlistment rates were major factors affecting the new policies.
1945-50 The Marine Corps postwar attempt to adhere to a policy of rigid racial segregation remained in effect until the Korean War. It ultimately established a numerical quota of 1500 blacks, most of whom the Corps tried to assign to the nonwhite Stewards Branch. Few recruits signed up for such duty, while those men already in that branch constantly sought transfers to general duty. Not only did this continual pressure cause problems for the USMC, but the unwillingness of most U.S. communities to accept "a large segregated group of black marineswas infinitely more difficult."
27 February 1946 The U.S. Navy published Circular Letter 48-46, making black sailors "eligible for all types of assignments in all ratings in all activities and all ships of Naval service." It also directed that "housing, messing, and other facilities" no longer be segregated. Although this new policy was a step forward, there were still no high-ranking black officers, no whites in the Stewards Branch, and no African Americans in any specialized assignments.
28 February 1946 Secretary of War Patterson approved the Armys new racial policy. The ambiguous recommendations of the Gillem Board had been "blessed" by Army Chief of Staff Dwight D. Eisenhower before they were submitted to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).
4 March 1946 The Army released the Gillem Board Report to the press, many of whose black members took a cautious approach to accepting the new policy as a significant change in traditional Army attitudes and procedures.
10 April 1946 War Department Circular 105, which provided for the assignment of men to critically needed specialties, "explicitly excluded Negroes." It was later revised to include all enlisted men, regardless of race.
27 April 1946 The Secretary of War directed the rapid distribution of War Department Circular 124, as the Armys new racial policy and the full Gillem Board Report were now known. However, the lack of specific guidance on how to implement the Gillem Boards "recommendations on how best to employ blacks within the traditional segregated framework" made the new policy almost useless. Despite its shortcomings, the Gillem Boards comments were a step forward, because the board rejected the racist attitudes limiting the military role of African Americans and made integration the Armys ultimate goal.
1 July 1946 The U.S. Army Air Force (AAF) argued for the exclusion of African Americans in its branch as well as a halt to the enlistment of blacks in the Regular Army. Although the AAF later backed off these demands, it continued to press for a significantly lower quota of black soldiers, along with restrictions on the areas where they could be used.
17 July 1946 The Secretary of War suspended black enlistments in the Regular Army.
10 August 1946 The Army began using Army Regulation (AR) 615-369 to eliminate the least qualified men (most of whom were black) after a reasonable attempt was made to use them.
19 September 1946 After meeting with a delegation from the National Emergency Committee Against Mob Violence, President Harry S Truman established the Presidents Committee on Civil Rights to investigate racial violence. The committee would also study ways to strengthen and improve the federal, state, and local governments ability to protect the civil rights of all Americans.
26 September 1946 Unaffected by Circular Letter 48-46, the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) Commandant approved the corps postwar racial policy of continued segregation and racial tokenism. Unable to entirely eliminate African Americans, the Marine Corps adhered as closely as possible to its white-only tradition by limiting blacks to "small, self-contained units performing traditional laboring tasks."
October 1946 The Army again began accepting qualified African-American recruits. The Adjutant General announced on 2 October that the Army would accept without limitation all former officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) who volunteered for service. On 31 Oct, however, the Army established a score of 100 on the Army General Classification Test (AGCT) for all African-American enlistees (as opposed to 70 for whites), while at the same time rescinding the choice-of-assignment provision for them. The Army argued that its policies "regulating the quality of [its black] recruits" were justified because they "followed the spirit if not the letter" of the Gillem Board Report. These obviously discriminatory guidelines generated a lot of opposition and criticism, particularly in regard to the quota. Considered a temporary provision by the Gillem Board members, Army traditionalists used the quota as a way to restrict the number of African-American soldiers.
1946-48 The U.S. Navy was unable to attract many African Americans in the postwar period. "The Navy was beginning to welcome the Negro, but the Negro no longer seemed interested in joining," primarily because of the nonwhite Stewards Branch. By 1948, the Navys main racial problem was a serious lack of black sailors.
1946-49 The Army practice of attaching rather than assigning black combat units to white "parent units" weakened the morale of African American troops and hampered their training because of the mens sense of impermanence and alienation. By 1950, however, the Army changed this policy by assigning "black units as organic parts of combat divisions." It also started assigning African American personnel "to fill the spaces of white units," although Army leaders still "opposedthe combination of small black with small white units" into a single battalion. Such practices continued to elicit harsh criticism from black leaders throughout the United States.
1947 Army leaders in the United States began accelerating efforts to discharge soldiers who had scored less than 70 on the AGCT, supposedly in an attempt to close the education/training gap between black and white servicemen. At the same time, however, Lieutenant General Clarence R. Huebner initiated a major project to educate and train thousands of African American soldiers in Europe. By 1950, this program was not only "producing some of the finest trained black troops in the Army," but provoking charges of discrimination from white soldiers excluded from the project. The programs success could also be seen in the improved morale and conduct of black troops in Europe, along with a corresponding decline in racial incidents, crime, and venereal disease rates. Despite the clear connection between education and better performance, the Army never implemented this program in all of its commands.
1947 The Marine Corps modified its segregated racial policy because of the inefficiency of assigning surplus combat-trained African Americans to service and supply units when the Fleet Marine Force (FMF) units were seriously understrength. During this year, the Corps began attaching black units to the undermanned FMF, creating composite units similar to those in the postwar Army.
1947 During the summer of this year, the AAF closed the flight training program at Tuskegee Airfield, Alabama, ending the last segregated officer training in the armed forces. Integrated aviation classes were established at Randolph Field, Texas.
1947 A. Philip Randolph and other black leaders formed a Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service. The group planned another march on Washington, D.C. to reinforce African American demands that the federal government draft a nondiscrimination measure for the military. Randolph and his committee later focused on defeating any selective service bill containing provisions for segregated troops.
February 1947 Less than a year after the publication of the Gillem Board Report, Army leaders still considered segregation to be a policy worth retaining indefinitely. From their viewpoint, integration would only become feasible once the Army "completed the long, complex task of raising the quality and lowering the quantity of black soldiers."
May 1947 The Secretary of War adopted a National Guard Policy Committee resolution allowing individual states to determine the issue of "integration above the company level," although the Army continued to prohibit "integration at the company level." That same year, New Jersey became the first state to specifically end segregation in its militia. This action created new problems for Army leaders, who now had to deal with "an incompatible situation between the segregated active forces and the incompletely integrated reserve organization."
30 June 1947 By this time, African American soldiers represented 7.91 percent of the Armys total manpower. Instead of being based on their demographic presence in the U.S. population, however, black enlistments were "geared to a percentage of the total Army strength." By adjusting the enlistment quota, the Army could easily increase or decrease the percentage of blacks within its ranks.
25 July 1947 Congress passed the National Security Act, reorganizing the U.S. military establishment. The new legislation created the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), a separate Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. It also reorganized the War Department as the Department of the Army and made the Joint Chiefs of Staff a permanent agency.
October 1947 To avoid the political backlash if he failed to act on discrimination in the federal government, President Trumans political advisors decided that his best move was to issue an executive order "securing the civil rights of both civilian government employees and members of the armed forces."
29 October 1947 The Presidents Committee on Civil Rights presented President Truman with a comprehensive survey on civil rights conditions in the United States, and made several sweeping recommendations to correct the situation. In addition to such remedies as permanent civil rights and fair employment practices commissions and legislation to eliminate discrimination in the nations legal and electoral systems, the committee called for laws and policies to end discrimination and segregation in the armed forces. The committee even went so far as to urge the President to use the military "as an instrument of social change."
December 1947 Although the Army had been reporting that it provided its African American troops equal access to all Army schools, in reality over half were closed to black soldiers, "regardless of qualifications." During this month, however, the Army began a special effort "to broaden the employment of Negroes under the terms of the Gillem Board policy." It converted 19 general reserve units to black, recruited 6000 African Americans, increased the quotas for specialist schools, raised the number of courses with black quotas, and opened new courses to African Americans. By March 1949, though, the number of training spaces for black soldiers had declined again.
1948 Lieutenant General Idwal H. Edwards, Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel; Lieutenant Colonel Jack F. Marr, a member of General Edwards staff; and Major General Richard E. Nugent, then Director of Civilian Personnel, were the principal developers of the now separate U.S. Air Forces racial policy. After abandoning the Armys racial policy as too inefficient, the group altered its first impulse toward full integration to pursue a plan of limited integration based on "the Navys postwar integration of its general service." Although a relatively mild reform program, the groups proposals provoked widespread opposition from many Air Force officers. "But if integration, even in a small dose, was unpalatable, widespread inefficiency was intolerable." For that practical reason, therefore, the Air Force was poised to take further action.
1948 Black leaders and the press became increasingly disillusioned with the disparity between the Armys supposed goal of complete integration and the reality of continued segregation in the service.
2 February 1948 Because of his concern about the passage of a new draft law containing a provision for universal military training, President Truman removed the parts relating to the military when he transmitted to Congress on this date the recommendations of the Presidents Committee on Civil Rights.
April 1948 By this month, there were still only 41 black officers in the Regular Army, up from 8 in June 1945. At this time, the Army began a major effort to recruit more African American officers. In compliance with Circular 124, the Army was able to significantly improve these figures by 30 June 1948, when it reported a total "of 1000 black commissioned officers, 5 warrant officers, and 67 nurses serving with 65,000 black enlisted men and women."
26 April 1948 African American leaders met with Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal at a National Defense Conference held at the Pentagon on this date. Instead of uniting behind Forrestals gradual plan to integrate the armed forces, the group supported A. Philip Randolphs argument that "segregation itself was discrimination." Although the Secretary of Defense agreed with the groups goals, he remained convinced that his gradual approach was best. A few months later, however, President Truman rejected this method by issuing his own directive on the matter.
28 May 1948 The first real breakthrough in the USMCs policy of rigid racial segregation came with the commissioning of Lieutenant John E. Rudder, the first black to receive a regular commission in the Marine Corps. Rudders brief active career, which ended for personal reasons in 1949, was nonetheless important "because it affirmed the practice of integrated officers training and established the right of Negroes to command." However, the Marine Corps was still committed to segregated units.
19 June 1948 Georgia Senator Richard B. Russell introduced an amendment to the Selective Service Bill being debated by Congress. Russells amendment "would guarantee segregated units for those draftees who wished to serve only with members of their own race." Senator William Langer of North Dakota countered with an amendment to prohibit all segregation. The draft bill passed by Congress on this date contained no special provisions on race.
24 June 1948 The reinstitution of the draft after President Truman signed the Selective Service Act on this date sparked an interservice squabble over how the increased numbers of African American inductees would be distributed among the different services.
15 July 1948 The Democratic National Convention renominated Harry Truman for president, despite growing southern opposition to the strong civil rights platform accepted by Truman. The Presidents political advisors viewed black votes as "an essential ingredient in a Truman victory."
17 July 1948 The "Dixiecrats," who bolted the Democratic Party after it passed a campaign platform with a strong civil rights plank, met as the State Rights Democrats to nominate South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond for president.
26 July 1948 President Truman signed Executive Order 9981, providing for equal treatment and opportunity for African American servicemen. Because of Cold War concerns in Europe and the mostly nonwhite "Third World" as well as growing black demands, integration had become a major defense issue. Political considerations in a presidential election year and the appointment of James V. Forrestal as Secretary of Defense were two other significant factors influencing Trumans decision to issue his order.
July- December 1948 Executive Order 9981 actually had little immediate affect on the armed forces. Neither the Army nor the Navy planned to alter their existing racial policies. Their decisions were partly based on the mistaken assumption that Circular 124 and Circular Letter 48-46 were already in compliance with the Presidents order on equal treatment and opportunity. Despite evidence to the contrary, the U.S. Armed Forces in this period did not consider segregation to be discriminatory. The fact that Truman was not favored for reelection also influenced the initially low-key reaction to Executive Order 9981. Even Congress responded with a "wait-and-see" attitude.
September 1948 Although the Army staff objected, Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall began developing a plan to experiment with integrated units in order to prove that integration on a large scale would not work. The Army presented its formal proposal on 2 December 1948, but nothing came of the plan because the Navy and Air Force strenuously objected to being included in it. As a result, Secretary of Defense Forrestal decided "that interservice integration was unworkable."
16-18 September 1948 The White House released the names of the men selected to serve on the presidential committee established "to oversee the manpower policies of all the services. The success of the new policy [Executive Order 9981] would depend to a great extent, as friends and foes of integration alike recognized, on the ability and inclination of this committee." President Truman selected Charles Fahy, an attorney and former Solicitor General, to chair the new group. Officially known as the Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, it was more commonly referred to as the Fahy Committee.
December 1948 Despite the availability of statistics supporting the Navys claim for having a progressive racial policy, 62 percent of all African American sailors still served in the nonwhite Stewards Branch. In addition, the Navys statistics showed a significant increase in the percentage of blacks assigned to the integrated general service branch (up from 6 percent in 1945 to 38 percent in 1947). However, the number of black sailors in the Navy overall dropped from 9900 in 1946 to 6000 by 1948. Almost all of these men were also in the enlisted ranks; there were only four African American naval officers by this month and only six black WAVES. The Navy rationalized its inability to attract African American recruits by claiming that "Negroes favored the Army because they were not a seafaring people." This claim not only blatantly ignored the Navys own history, but greatly minimized the adverse impact on black perceptions arising from the Navys unwillingness to provide greater opportunities for African Americans or to integrate the Stewards Branch.
1948-50 The service that complied most easily and quickly with Executive Order 9981 was the Air Force, which had already begun to review and revise its racial policy before the President took action. Air Force manpower experts, however, based their criticism of segregation on issues of efficiency rather than compliance with Trumans new policy. Influenced by political interests, manpower concerns, and black aspirations, Air Force Secretary W. Stuart Symington used the suggestions of his manpower experts to substantially change his services racial policy.
1949 By this time, the War Department was experiencing growing problems with its racial policies, most of which were under increasing attack by black leaders and civil rights groups. The Armys continued insistence on racial quotas was particularly troublesome. Despite the Armys argument supporting quotas "as a guarantee of black participation," it actually limited the number of African Americans admitted into the service as well as the variety of training and jobs available to them. Traditionalists seeking to maintain a segregated Army could not prevent all racial progress, but the use of quotas and the remaining restrictions on how black soldiers were employed made reform efforts very slow.
1949 Despite a lot of "foot-dragging," the Army confronted and overcame to some extent such obstacles to reform as entrenched racial prejudice, institutional inertia, and the poor education and undermotivation of many black enlistees. Consequently, "the Armys postwar racial policy must be judged successful, and considered in the context of the times, progressive." Yet, the continuation of racial disturbances and "disproportionate black crime and [venereal] disease rates" were significant indicators that the Armys policy of segregation remained a serious problem in the postwar period.
1949 The postwar practice of excluding African American servicemen from some allied nations became a problem once some of the services began to integrate. Although it became Department of Defense (DOD) policy to freely assign black troops any place U.S. forces were sent, the individual services continued to limit foreign assignments for African Americans, although not always at the allied nations request.
1949 The Marine Corps Commandant defended the USMCs segregated racial policy by arguing that the armed forces should follow societys lead in this area, not vice versa.
January 1949 Congress began to debate more frequently the integration of the armed forces. Renewal of the Selective Service Act in 1950 focused the racial debate on an amendment resubmitted by Georgia Senator Richard B. Russell. This modification allowed servicemen to serve in segregated units if they so desired. Considered to be "the high point of the congressional fight against armed forces integration," the Russell amendment was eventually defeated, as was a similar House amendment submitted in 1951.
6 January 1949 The Air Force proposed on this date to open "all jobs in all fields" to African Americans, limited only by individual qualifications and "the needs of the service." The new plan retained some black service units, but eliminated all of the Air Forces other all-black organizations. However, some serious problems arose during the 4-month delay between the proposals submission and its approval on 11 May 1949. Black morale problems surfaced and congressional debate was sparked after part of the plan was leaked to the press. Despite African Americans fears that they would not fare well under the proposed policy, "the Air Forces senior officials were determined to enforce the new program both fairly and expeditiously."
28 February 1949 DODs newly-created Personnel Policy Board drafted a common racial policy that abolished all racial quotas and established uniform draft standards with provisions to divide enlistees qualitatively and quantitatively in times of national emergency. The proposed directive also provided African Americans the opportunity to serve as individuals in integrated units. All of the services were to be fully integrated by 1 July 1950. During the interim, however, the number of blacks in integrated units would still be limited, while enlisted men could choose to serve under officers of their own race. Secretary of Defense Forrestals resignation, opposition from the various service secretaries, and serious defects in the proposed policy eventually killed this first attempt to establish a DOD-wide racial policy.
March 1949 The Fahy Committee initiated its efforts "not to impose integration on the services, but to convince them of the merits of the Presidents order and to agree with them on a plan to make it effective." The committees first goal was to overcome the Armys determination to retain segregation because of senior leaders twin beliefs that blacks were unreliable and ineffective in combat and that white soldiers would not serve with African Americans. The committees investigations established that "an indivisible link existed between military efficiency and equal opportunity." It used the "efficiency argument" to undermine the Armys rationale for determining military occupational specialties (MOSs), limiting the number of black specialists, and maintaining its racial quota.
28 March 1949 Louis Johnson became Secretary of Defense.
5-6 April 1949 DODs Personnel Policy Board approved and Secretary of Defense Johnson signed a general racial policy statement that "reiterated the Presidents executive order." Not meant to be an endorsement of current service policies, the DOD directive sought to made individual merit and ability the basis for the militarys personnel decisions. "All persons would be accorded equal opportunity for appointment, advancement, professional improvement, and retention." However, the policy stopped short of full integration, its authors satisfied that "although some segregated units would be retained, qualified Negroes would be assigned without regard to race."
May 1949 The Army and Navy failed to significantly change their racial policies in keeping with the Secretary of Defenses new racial policy statement. Unsatisfied with their initial response, Secretary of Defense Johnson ordered both services to revise their policies by 25 May. However, the Personnel Policy Board and the Secretary of Defense approved "the Air Forces proposal for integration of a large group of its black personnel."
11 May 1949 Air Force Letter 35-3, published the same day that the Secretary of Defense approved it, "spelled out a new bill of rights for Negroes in the Air Force." Living quarters as well as work places were no longer separated for most units.
23 May 1949 The Navy committed itself "to a program that incorporated to a great extent the recommendations of the Fahy Committee." Among the reforms suggested were a "vigorous recruiting program" to dispel black suspicions about the Navy and its nonwhite Stewards Branch; making chief stewards similar in rank to chief petty officers; and establishing "the same entry standards as the Army."
26 May 1949 Despite pressure from the Secretary of Defense and the Fahy Committee, the Army continued to defend Circular 124. Although the Army was ordered to prepare another response, OSD and the Fahy Committee drew further apart on what this response should be. The two fundamental points on which the Army and the committee disagreed dealt with the free assignment of school-trained blacks and abolition of the Armys racial quota.
June 1949-May 1950 The Air Forces 106 black units and 167 integrated units dropped 1 month later to 89 black units (with 14,609 men) and 350 integrated units (which included 7369 African Americans). Less than a year later there were only 24 black units (with 4675 men) and 1506 integrated units (with 21,033 blacks). Although the program was initially conceived as limited integration, it quickly achieved universal application, which "progressed rapidly, smoothly, and virtually without incident."
7 June 1949 The military branch least affected by Executive Order 9981 (theoretically, at least) was the U.S. Navy. Although it had an established racial policy of equal treatment and opportunity, it was applied poorly. The Navys new racial plan, submitted on this date, provided specific actions to bring its policy and practices "into line." Despite this effort, the Navy still did not attract many African American recruits. Between 1952 and 1959, the increased numbers of blacks in the Navy came "from the men forced upon it by the Defense Departments distribution program."
1 July 1949 The postwar downsizing of the USMC greatly affected its ability to maintain its original racial policy. On this date, the Marine Corps Commandant ordered that African American recruits be trained in separate platoons at Parris Island, South Carolina. By 22 September 1949, the corps had eliminated even the segregated training platoons. This led to the integration of black NCO platoon leaders and various on-post NCO clubs and other facilities. The last two segregated groups at Montford Point, the USMCs all-black training facility near Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, had previously been inactivated on 31 July and 9 September 1949. Though these policy changes appeared to be in keeping with Executive Order 9981, they were actually driven by defense budget cuts. The Marine Corps still remained committed to segregation, which it instituted through the use of "colored" jobs designed to keep black and white marines separate from each other.
18 September 1949 A panel of senior Army officers, appointed on this date and chaired by Lieutenant General Stephen J. Chamberlin, produced a report that was "perhaps the most careful and certainly the last apologia for a segregated Army." It reiterated the traditional arguments for resisting integration and called for the retention of the 10-percent quota. "[T]he board called on [Army] Secretary Gray to repudiate the findings of the Fahy Committee and the stipulations of Executive Order 9981 and to maintain a rigidly segregated service with a carefully regulated percentage of black members."
30 September 1949 Secretary of Defense Johnson approved Army Secretary Gordon Grays new racial policy, then announced it to the press, all without consulting the Fahy Committee. The Armys new policy opened all occupational specialties to those qualified, abolished racial quotas for Army schools, and ended its racially separate promotion systems and standards. But it did not address the two main areas of contention: the racial quota and the free assignment of blacks. An unsuccessful effort to break the stalemate between the Army and the committee, Johnson had also hoped this action would dispel continuing public criticism and mitigate the personal political liability of the still unsettled question of race in the armed forces.
1 October 1949 The Adjutant General of the Army dispatched "additional policies" based on the Armys new racial plan, which had been proposed as a revision of Circular 124. Some commanders began integrating African American specialists into white units in what they thought was accordance with these "additional policies." Consequently, officials in the Armys personnel and training divisions sent a second message on 27 October essentially "ordering commanders to interpret the secretarys plan in its narrowest sense, blocking any possibility of broadening the range of black assignments." Secretary of the Army Gray rescinded the latter message after learning about it from unfavorable press reports.
6 October 1949 In a news conference held on this date, President Truman supported the Fahy Committees position on the Armys proposed racial policy by referring to Johnsons earlier announcement as a "progress report." Acknowledging that it would be a gradual process, the President "declared that his aim was the racial integration of the Army."
25 November 1949 The Fahy Committee received the Armys revision of Circular 124. Despite several weeks of review by various Army staff agencies, the proposed plan was basically the same one originally submitted to DOD by Army Secretary Gray on 30 September 1949. It "still contained none of the committees key recommendations. The quota and assignment issues remained the center of controversy between the Army and the committee."
14 & 27 December 1949 In meetings held with President Truman and the Army on 14 December and Secretary of the Army Gray and the Army Chief of Staff on 27 Dec, the Fahy Committee made considerable progress in reconciling the stalemate over assignments and the quota. "Gray began with a limited view of the executive orderthe Army must eliminate racial discrimination, not promote racial integration. In their meeting on 27 December Fahy was able to convince Gray that the former was impossible without the latter."
1949-54 Both the Navy and the Air Force made significant changes in their racial policies, primarily to make more efficient and effective use of available manpower. "In a period of reduced manpower allocations and increased demand for technically trained men, these services came to realize that racial distinctions were imposing unacceptable administrative burdens and reducing fighting efficiency."
16 January 1950 After compromises on both sides, the Army published Special Regulation 600-629-1, Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army, which the Fahy Committee accepted. One significant aspect of the new policy was in accord with the committees stand on "free assignments." On this same day, the Army published the first list of vacancies in critical specialties that were to be filled without regard to race.
27 March 1950 Secretary of the Army Gray ordered the service to open its recruiting without regard to race. He did so after winning President Trumans agreement to a proviso that the Army could reinstitute a racial quota if the new policy resulted in "a disproportionate balance of racial strengths."
April 1950 Despite the Marine Corps determination "to retain its system of racially segregated units indefinitely," several factors forced the service to change its "exclusionist policy." The manpower demands that would arise from the Korean War, the imposition on this date of the Secretary of Defenses "qualitative distribution of manpower," and the draft opened the corps to a large influx of African-American recruits.
April 1950 The Army integrated basic training at the Womens Army Corps (WAC) Training Center at Fort Lee, Virginia.
22 May 1950 The Fahy Committee presented its final report, Freedom to Serve: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, to President Truman. Although the committee recommended that it be retained on standby or that a watchdog group be established, the President decided against this course and publicly dissolved the committee several months later.
25 June 1950 North Korean troops armed with Soviet-made weapons crossed the 38th parallel, invading South Korea and sparking the outbreak of the Korean War. Within 5 months of this action, the U.S. Army had doubled in size. "This vast expansion of manpower and combat commitment severely tested the Armys racial policy and immediately affected the racial balance of the quota-free Army."
6 July 1950 As part of the Army Organization Act of 1950, Congress repealed the statutory requirement for the services four all-black regiments.
August 1950 The Army assumed the former Selective Service "task of deciding the race of all draftees." A lot of effort between 1949 and 1951 was devoted to establishing acceptable racial categories and definitions. Although not used for assignment, "racial statistics had to be kept," hence the need for "racial tags."
August 1950 The 1st Provisional Marine Brigade was assigned several African Americans during the fighting on the Pusan Perimeter, which was "the first time black servicemen were integrated as individuals in significant numbers under combat conditions."
August-December 1950 Eighth Army commanders in Korea began filling losses in their white units with individuals from "a growing surplus of black replacements arriving in Japan." By early 1951, "9.4 percent of all Negroes in the theater were serving in some forty-one newly and unofficially integrated units. Another 9.3 percent were in integrated but predominantly black units. The other 81 percent continued to serve in segregated units." This limited conversion to integrated units became permanent because "it worked. The performance of integrated troops was praiseworthy with no reports of racial friction."
September 1950 Beginning this month, the 1st Marine Division was assigned numerous African American marines, "the clearest instance of a service abandoning a social policy in response to the demands of the battlefield."
20 September 1950 Retired General George C. Marshall became Secretary of Defense.
1951 The Marine Corps segregated racial policy "ended [this year] with the cancellation of the last all-black designation."
February 1951 The Chamberlin Board reconvened "to reexamine the Armys racial policy in light of the Korean experience." Despite the widespread support for further integration in the Far East, continuing support for segregation was still the norm throughout the rest of the Army. "This attitude was clearly reflected again by the Chamberlin Board," which still unsuccessfully called for segregated units and a racial quota.
March 1951 By this date, at least half of the African Americans serving in the Marine Corps under combat conditions were assigned to integrated units. They "perform[ed] in a way that not only won many individuals decorations for valor but also won the respect of commanders for Negroes as fighting men."
March 1951 The Armys nine training divisions were integrated by this time, after a "trouble-free and permanent" conversion period which began late in 1950. Fort Ord was the first training division "to adopt the expedient of mixing black and white inductees in the same units for messing, housing, and training." It was quickly followed by the other Army training divisions and replacement centers, "with Fort Dix, New Jersey, and Fort Knox, Kentucky, the last to complete the process."
April 1951 By this time, "black units throughout the Army were reporting overstrengths, some as much as 60 percent over their authorized organization tables." Unlike WWII, however, when only about 22 percent of all African Americans in the Army served in combat units, black soldiers during the Korean War were "assigned to the combat branches in approximately the same percentage as white soldiers, 41 percent."
April 1951 The Secretary of Defense alleviated Army fears of becoming "a dumping ground for the ignorant and untrainable" by ordering the qualitative distribution of troops among all the services.
10 April 1951 Secretary of Defense Marshall approved the Qualitative Distribution of Military Manpower Program. It required "the Navy and Air Force to share responsibility with the Army for the training and employment of less gifted inductees." The new program upgraded the Army, placed more African Americans in the other services, and ultimately "destroyed the Armys best argument for the reimposition of the racial quota."
May 1951 By this time, the Army still had not carried out the policy to which it had agreed with the Fahy Committee. "[M]uch of the Army clung to old sentiments and practices for the same old reasons," but the Korean War ultimately changed these outmoded attitudes and practices forever.
14 May 1951 Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgeway, who replaced General Douglas MacArthur in Korea, formally requested authority to abolish segregation in the Eighth Army.
July 1951 By the third anniversary of Executive Order 9981, OSD had dealt with some race issues, but had really done little to push the armed forces closer to full integration. "The integration process that began in those years [1948-51] was initiatedby the services themselves."
26 July 1951 On the third anniversary of President Trumans order, the Army announced the integration of its Far East Command. "The 77th Engineer Combat Company was the last combat unit to lose the asterisk, the Armys way of designating a unit black." About 75 percent of Eighth Army infantry units were integrated before November 1951. "It was not until May 1952 that the last divisional and nondivisional organizations were integrated." The integration of the U.S. Army in Korea led to greater racial harmony and military efficiency.
September 1951 Senior Army leaders moved closer to accepting full integration. Their attitude was affected partly by the percentage of blacks in the Army by this date, and partly by the successful integration of the Eighth Army in Korea and training camps at home.
November 1951 A contract study "on the Armys experiences with black troops in Korea," known as Project CLEAR, confirmed earlier findings that African American soldiers in integrated units fought as well as whites. It also reported that integration improved black morale and did not lower that of whites. "In sum, the Project CLEAR group concluded that segregation hampered the Armys effectiveness while integration increased it."
December 1951 By the end of this year, about 7 percent of black enlisted men, 17 percent of black officers, and all black WACs were serving in integrated units in Europe, even though initially there was little support for full integration in this area.
13 December 1951 The USMC Commandant announced a general policy of racial integration. Six months later, he advised the Chief of Naval Personnel that there were no more segregated units in the Marine Corps and that integration "was believed to be an accomplished fact." However, restrictions on how African Americans were employed continued into the 1960s. Another problem area was the corps continued use of all-black stewards. The corps did not begin signing up white stewards again until 1956.
29 December 1951 The Army Chief of Staff ordered all of the services "major commanders to prepare integration programs for their commands. Integration was the Armys immediate goal, andit was to be progressive, in orderly stages, and without publicity."
1952 Despite some changes, the Navys nonwhite Stewards Branch was still 65 percent black (the rest were Filipino). On 28 February 1954, the Navy ended the separate recruitment of stewards, except for Filipinos under contract. As a result, by 1961, blacks were a minority in the Stewards Branch for the first time in 30 years.
April 1952 The Army European Commands integration program began this month "quietly and routinely," with no publicity and "without incident." The Army completed this program on November 1954, when it inactivated "the last black unit in the command, the 94th Engineer Battalion."
September 1952 The Air Force had "only one segregated unitleft, a 98-man outfit, itself more than 26 percent white (about 25 men). Negroes were then serving in 3466 integrated units."
December 1952 The Army Chief of Staff ordered worldwide integration of this service. All of the earlier fears cited to support the continuation of a segregated Army proved to be groundless. There was no increase in racial incidents, no breakdown of discipline, no uprising against integration by white soldiers or surrounding white communities, no backlash from segregationists in Congress, or major public denouncements of the new policy.
October 1953 Because of the Korean War, the number of African American marines rapidly grew from 1525 (half of whom were stewards) in May 1949 to 17,000 (with only 500 stewards) by this time. "As the need for more units and replacements grew during the war, newly enlisted black marines were more and more often pressed into integrated service in the Far East and at home.The competence of these Negroes and the general absence of racial tension during their integration destroyed long accepted beliefs to the contrary and opened the way for general integration [of the Marine Corps]."
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.
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