Integration of the Armed Forces | Page 9

had never been barred, a
few black gunner's mates, torpedomen, machinist mates, and the like
continued to serve in the 1930's.
[Footnote 1-5: Memo, H. A. Badt, Bureau of Navigation, for Officer in
Charge, Public Relations, 24 Jul 40, sub: Negroes in U.S. Navy,
Nav-641, Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel (hereafter

BuPersRecs).]
Although the Army's racial policy differed from the Navy's, the
resulting limited, separate service for Negroes proved similar. The laws
of 1866 and 1869 that guaranteed the existence of four black Regular
Army regiments also institutionalized segregation, granting federal
recognition to a system racially separate and theoretically equal in
treatment and opportunity a generation before the Supreme Court
sanctioned such a distinction in Plessy v. Ferguson.[1-6] So important
to many in the black community was this guaranteed existence of the
four regiments that had served with distinction against the frontier
Indians that few complained about segregation. In fact, as historian
Jack Foner has pointed out, black leaders sometimes interpreted
demands for integration as attempts to eliminate black soldiers
altogether.[1-7]
[Footnote 1-6: 163 U.S. 537 (1896). In this 1896 case concerning
segregated seating on a Louisiana railroad, the Supreme Court ruled
that so long as equality of accommodation existed, segregation could
not in itself be considered discriminatory and therefore did not violate
the equal rights provision of the Fourteenth Amendment. This "separate
but equal" doctrine would prevail in American law for more than half a
century.]
[Footnote 1-7: Foner, Blacks and the Military in American History, p.
66.]
The Spanish-American War marked a break with the post-Civil War
tradition of limited recruitment. Besides the 3,339 black regulars,
approximately 10,000 black volunteers served in the Army during
(p. 007) the conflict. World War I was another exception, for Negroes
made up nearly 11 percent of the Army's total strength, some 404,000
officers and men.[1-8] The acceptance of Negroes during wartime
stemmed from the Army's pressing need for additional manpower. Yet
it was no means certain in the early months of World War I that this
need for men would prevail over the reluctance of many leaders to arm
large groups of Negroes. Still remembered were the 1906 Brownsville
affair, in which men of the 25th Infantry had fired on Texan civilians,

and the August 1917 riot involving members of the 24th Infantry at
Houston, Texas.[1-9] Ironically, those idealistic impulses that had
operated in earlier wars were operating again in this most Jim Crow of
administrations.[1-10] Woodrow Wilson's promise to make the world
safe for democracy was forcing his administration to admit Negroes to
the Army. Although it carefully maintained racially separate draft calls,
the National Army conscripted some 368,000 Negroes, 13.08 percent
of all those drafted in World War I.[1-11]
[Footnote 1-8: Ulysses Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops, United
States Army in World War II (Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1966), p. 5. See also Army War College Historical Section,
"The Colored Soldier in the U.S. Army," May 1942, p. 22, copy in
CMH.]
[Footnote 1-9: For a modern analysis of the two incidents and the effect
of Jim Crow on black units before World War I, see John D. Weaver,
The Brownsville Raid (New York: W. W. Norton Co., 1970); Robert V.
Haynes, A Night of Violence: The Houston Riot of 1917 (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1976).]
[Footnote 1-10: On the racial attitudes of the Wilson administration,
see Nancy J. Weiss, "The Negro and the New Freedom: Fighting
Wilsonian Segregation," Political Science Quarterly 84 (March
1969):61-79.]
[Footnote 1-11: Special Report of the Provost Marshal General on
Operations of the Selective Service System to December 1918
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1919), p. 193.]
Black assignments reflected the opinion, expressed repeatedly in Army
staff studies throughout the war, that when properly led by whites,
blacks could perform reasonably well in segregated units. Once again
Negroes were called on to perform a number of vital though unskilled
jobs, such as construction work, most notably in sixteen specially
formed pioneer infantry regiments. But they also served as frontline
combat troops in the all-black 92d and 93d Infantry Divisions, the latter
serving with distinction among the French forces.

Established by law and tradition and reinforced by the Army staff's
conviction that black troops had not performed well in combat,
segregation survived to flourish in the postwar era.[1-12] The familiar
practice of maintaining a few black units was resumed in the Regular
Army, with the added restriction that Negroes were totally excluded
from the Air Corps. The postwar manpower retrenchments common to
all Regular Army units further reduced the size of the remaining black
units. By June 1940 the number of Negroes on active duty stood at
approximately 4,000 men, 1.5 percent of the Army's total, about the
same proportion as Negroes in the Navy.[1-13]
[Footnote 1-12: The development of post-World War I policy