Ahead of the Country

"It's all O.K. after the whites find out that the color doesn't rub off," said a Negro sergeant at the Air Force's big Lackland base at San Antonio. There, under the Air Force's 13-month-old policy of nondiscrimination, Negroes and whites had been sleeping in the same barracks, eating at the same mess tables, dancing at the same service clubs, using the same swimming pools. Last week, in broader terms and in careful officialese, President Truman's committee on discrimination reported a surprising amount of quiet progress in all the armed forces.

The Defense. In July 1948, when Harry Truman ordered "equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons" in the services, few believed it any more than a pious declaration which would be just as piously sabotaged. But after 22 months, what the President's committee had to report amounted to the greatest change in service custom since the abandonment of the cat-o'-nine-tails.

Headed by Circuit Court Judge Charles Fahy, who is a former U.S. Solicitor General, and including two Negro members,*the committee probed, criticized, prodded and argued. All three services offered the same reasons for resisting change: Negroes were neither as well educated nor as skilled as their white counterparts, therefore they must be kept in unskilled jobs. Furthermore, they must be segregated, because mixed units could cause friction; the services could not "get ahead of the country."

The committee did not argue the moral or sociological aspects of the case. It based its arguments on efficiency. There were bright Negroes and there were dumb ones, just like white men. To refuse a job to an intelligent or skilled Negro was simply a waste of manpower. Concentration of unskilled Negroes in segregated units just multiplied their inefficiency.

On the Sea. The committee's prize exhibit was the Navy. After World War I, the Navy had banned all Negroes, later consented to recruit them only as mess-men. But under the pressure of war manpower shortages, the Navy began cautiously utilizing them in general service ashore, then putting them on ships. Now, the committee reported with satisfaction, nearly half the Navy's Negroes are in general service. There are Negroes in every job classification, both ashore and afloat. The committee found five Negroes among the trainees at the difficult electronics technicians' school.

There were two points of dissatisfaction: few Negroes were serving as officers (17 in January 1950, of whom only eight were regulars) and the Marine Corps still maintained separate Negro units.

In the Air. In its three short years of separate existence, the Air Force had done well. Prodded by the committee, and with some misgivings, it broke up the all-Negro 332nd Fighter Wing, set about distributing personnel of other Negro units throughout the service. By January of this year, three-quarters of the Air Force's 25,000 Negroes had been integrated in mixed units. All training schools and all jobs were open to them, all "racial strength" quotas were abolished. "Commanders testified that racial incidents had diminished rather than increased," reported the committee.

Negro airmen were fiercely proud of the success of the program; white boys reacted geographically. Grumbled a Florida boy: "It ain't working out at all, I'll clue you. You can't tell them to do anything but what they go running to the C.O. yelling, 'Those white boys are picking on me.' " An airman from Michigan dissented: "I think the thing is working out pretty good," he said. "After all, there are some lousy white guys too."

On the Ground. The Army, with the most Negroes, offered the most resistance. During World War II, it had kept most Negroes in transport, quartermaster, and housekeeping duties. Its experience with two Negro combat divisions had been unsatisfactory. It stubbornly clung to segregation, and argued that it had to; most of its bases are in the South.

Not until a few months ago did the Army yield to the committee's arguments, begin mixing its Negroes into white units. Army jobs and schools were opened without restrictions. Finally, just two months ago, it lifted the 10% quota on Negro enlistments.

At Atlanta's Fort McPherson, Negro and white soldiers now share movie theaters, service clubs and messes. The star and five other regulars on the 1949 football team were Negroes. White officers salute Negro officers without boggling. But living quarters are still separate, and the changeover will take time. Said a Negro corporal: "Every now & then, somebody will make a crack at you under their breath. But I don't pay any mind to that. It's better in the Army than outside."

-Lester B. Granger, executive secretary of the National Urban League; John H. Sengstacke, publisher of the Chicago Defender.

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