Here is a segment from a longer article that tells the sad story about racial segregation in the U.S. Armed Forces. The small portion that is attached here tells of a secret group of fifty army researchers who were dispatched to the European front and
"interviewed thousands of [White] soldiers about their attitudes toward Negro platoons fighting experimentally within their divisions."
Their findings proved that to these front-line respondents, the experimental platoons were truly their equal. In 1948 this research was showed to President Truman, who signed Executive Order 9981, thus bringing to an end racial segregation within the ranks of the U.S. Military. The U.S. Navy was the biggest offender
Colonel Chauncey Hooper was a World War I veteran; of African-American stock, he had served with the "Harlem Hellfighters" (the 369th Regiment, 93rd Division). When 1943 came along, he could be found as an army colonel in Hawaii, lording over a regiment of "colored" New Yorkers calling themselves "Hooper's Troopers". This article is by no means about Hooper as much as it concerns the high number of Harlem Jazz musicians who served under his command
Dorie Miller was an African-American hero during the Second World War, click here if you would like to read about him. A single page report on the instituted racist policies practiced by the U.S. Navy throughout the course of the Second World War.
Click here the institutional racist policies of the W.W. I American Army.
A single page from the early war period tells the tale of Natalie Donaldson
Click here to read about the African-American efforts during the First World War.
Eight months before the American entry to the war, FDR's Commerce Department Office turned its attention to the thousands of Black-owned businesses throughout the country in order to help maximize their profits and bring them into the wartime economy. Inasmuch as the Roosevelt administration believed that the integration the armed forces was far too risky a proposition during wartime, it did take steps to insure that fair hiring practices were observed by all industries that held defense contracts with the Federal government; during the summer of 1941 a law was passed making such discrimination a crime.
The attached editorial from Collier's Magazine applauded the President for doing the right thing.
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