Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 — John Shaqi
Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965MacGregor, Morris J.
History
Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965
MacGregor, Morris J.
African American soldiers; United States -- Race relations
The President's meeting with the march leaders won the administration
a reprieve from the threat of a mass civil rights demonstration in the
nation's capital, but at the price of promising substantial reform in
minority hiring for defense industries and the creation of a federal
body, the Fair Employment Practices Committee, to coordinate the
reform. While it prompted no similar reform in the racial policies of
the armed forces, the March on Washington Movement was nevertheless a
significant milestone in the services' racial history.[1-39] It signaled
the beginning of a popularly based campaign against segregation in the
armed forces in which all the major civil rights organizations, their
allies in Congress and the press, and many in the black community
would hammer away on a single theme: segregation is unacceptable in a
democratic society and hypocritical during a war fought in defense of
the four freedoms.
[Footnote 1-39: Herbert Garfinkle, _When Negroes
March: The March on Washington Movement in the
Organizational Politics of FEPC_ (Glencoe: The Free
Press, 1959), provides a comprehensive account of
the aims and achievements of the movement.]
CHAPTER 2 (p. 017)
World War II: The Army
Civil rights leaders adopted the "Double V" slogan as their rallying
cry during World War II. Demanding victory against fascism abroad and
discrimination at home, they exhorted black citizens to support the
war effort and to fight for equal treatment and opportunity for
Negroes everywhere. Although segregation was their main target, their
campaign was directed against all forms of discrimination, especially
in the armed forces. They flooded the services with appeals for a
redress of black grievances and levied similar demands on the White
House, Congress, and the courts.
Black leaders concentrated on the services because they were public
institutions, their officials sworn to uphold the Constitution. The
leaders understood, too, that disciplinary powers peculiar to the
services enabled them to make changes that might not be possible for
other organizations; the armed forces could command where others could
only persuade. The Army bore the brunt of this attention, but not
because its policies were so benighted. In 1941 the Army was a fairly
progressive organization, and few institutions in America could match
its record. Rather, the civil rights leaders concentrated on the Army
because the draft law had made it the nation's largest employer of
minority groups.
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