[Footnote 1-12: The development of post-World War I policy is discussed in considerable detail in Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, Chapters I and II. See also U.S. Army War College Miscellaneous File 127-1 through 127-23 and 127-27, U.S. Army Military History Research Collection, Carlisle Barracks (hereafter AMHRC).] [Footnote 1-13: The 1940 strength figure is extrapolated from Misc Div, AGO, Returns Sec, 9 Oct 39-30 Nov 41. The figures do not include some 3,000 Negroes in National Guard units under state control.] _Civil Rights and the Law in 1940_ (p. 008) The same constants in American society that helped decide the status of black servicemen in the nineteenth century remained influential between the world wars, but with a significant change.[1-14] Where once the advancing fortunes of Negroes in the services depended almost exclusively on the good will of white progressives, their welfare now became the concern of a new generation of black leaders and emerging civil rights organizations. Skilled journalists in the black press and counselors and lobbyists presenting such groups as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Urban League, and the National Negro Congress took the lead in the fight for racial justice in the United States. They represented a black community that for the most part lacked the cohesion, political awareness, and economic strength which would characterize it in the decades to come. Nevertheless, Negroes had already become a recognizable political force in some parts of the country. Both the New Deal politicians and their opponents openly courted the black vote in the 1940 presidential election.