Integration of the Armed Forces | Page 3

as an adjective. Aware
of differing preferences in the black community for usage of these
words, the author was interested in comments from early readers of the
manuscript. Some of the participants in the story strongly objected to
one word or the other. "Do me one favor in return for my help," Lt.
Comdr. Dennis D. Nelson said, "never call me a black." Rear Adm.
Gerald E. Thomas, on the other hand, suggested that the use of the term
Negro might repel readers with much to learn about their recent past.
Still others thought that the historian should respect the usage of the
various periods covered in the story, a solution that would have left the
volume with the term colored for most of the earlier chapters and
Negro for much of the rest. With rare exception, the term black does
not appear in twentieth century military records before the late 1960's.
Fashions in words change, and it is only for the time being perhaps that
black and Negro symbolize different attitudes. The author has used the
words as synonyms and trusts that the reader will accept them as such.
Professor John Hope Franklin, Mrs. Sara Jackson of the National
Archives, and the historians and officials that constituted the review
panel went along with this approach.
The second question of usage concerns the words integration and
desegregation. In recent years many historians have come to
distinguish between these like-sounding words. Desegregation they see

as a direct action against segregation; that is, it signifies the act of
removing legal barriers to the equal treatment of black citizens as
guaranteed by the Constitution. The movement toward desegregation,
breaking down the nation's Jim Crow system, became increasingly
popular in the decade after World War II. Integration, on the other hand,
Professor Oscar Handlin maintains, implies several things not yet
necessarily accepted in all areas of American society. In one sense it
refers to the "leveling of all barriers to association other than those
based on ability, taste, and personal preference";[1] in other words,
providing equal opportunity. But in another sense integration calls for
the random distribution of a minority throughout society. Here,
according to Handlin, the emphasis is on racial balance in areas of
occupation, education, residency, and the like.
[Footnote 1: Oscar Handlin, "The Goals of Integration," Daedalus 95
(Winter 1966): 270.]
From the beginning the military establishment rightly understood that
the breakup of the all-black unit would in a closed society necessarily
mean more than mere desegregation. It constantly used the terms
integration and equal treatment and opportunity to describe its racial
goals. Rarely, if ever, does one find the word desegregation in military
files that include much correspondence from the various (p. xi) civil
rights organizations. That the military made the right choice, this study
seems to demonstrate, for the racial goals of the Defense Department,
as they slowly took form over a quarter of a century, fulfilled both of
Professor Handlin's definitions of integration.
The mid-1960's saw the end of a long and important era in the racial
history of the armed forces. Although the services continued to
encounter racial problems, these problems differed radically in several
essentials from those of the integration period considered in this
volume. Yet there is a continuity to the story of race relations, and one
can hope that the story of how an earlier generation struggled so that
black men and women might serve their country in freedom inspires
those in the services who continue to fight discrimination.
This study benefited greatly from the assistance of a large number of

persons during its long years of preparation. Stetson Conn, chief
historian of the Army, proposed the book as an interservice project. His
successor, Maurice Matloff, forced to deal with the complexities of an
interservice project, successfully guided the manuscript through to
publication. The work was carried out under the general supervision of
Robert R. Smith, chief of the General History Branch. He and Robert
W. Coakley, deputy chief historian of the Army, were the primary
reviewers of the manuscript, and its final form owes much to their
advice and attention. The author also profited greatly from the advice
of the official review panel, which, under the chairmanship of Alfred
Goldberg, historian, Office of the Secretary of Defense, included
Martin Blumenson; General J. Lawton Collins (USA Ret.); Lt. Gen.
Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. (USAF Ret.); Roy K. Davenport, former
Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army; Stanley L. Falk, chief
historian of the Air Force; Vice Adm. E. B. Hooper, Chief of Naval
History; Professor Benjamin Quarles; Paul J. Scheips, historian, Center
of Military History; Henry I. Shaw, chief historian of the U.S. Marine
Corps; Loretto C. Stevens, senior editor of the Center of Military
History; Robert J. Watson, chief historian of the Joint Chiefs of Staff;