Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 Part 17

The majority of black guardsmen in general service served ash.o.r.e under the captains of the ports, local district commanders, or at headquarters establishments. Men in these a.s.signments included hundreds in security and labor details, but more and more served as yeomen, radio operators, storekeepers, and the like. Other Negroes were a.s.signed to local Coast Guard stations, and a second all-black station was organized during the war at Tiana Beach, New York. Still others partic.i.p.ated in the Coast Guard's widespread beach patrol (p. 118) operations. Organized in 1942 as outposts and lookouts against possible enemy infiltration of the nation's extensive coastlines, the patrols employed more than 11 percent of all the Coast Guard's enlisted men. This large group included a number of horse and dog patrols employing only black guardsmen.[4-53] In all, some 2,400 black Coast Guardsmen served in the sh.o.r.e establishment.

[Footnote 4-53: USCG Historical Section, The Coast Guard at War, 18:1-10, 36.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sh.o.r.e LEAVE IN SCOTLAND. (_The distinctive uniform of the Coast Guard steward is shown_.)]

The a.s.signment of so many Negroes to sh.o.r.e duties created potential problems for the manpower planners, who were under orders to rotate sea and sh.o.r.e a.s.signments periodically.[4-54] Given the many black general duty seamen denied sea duty because of the Coast Guard's segregation policy but promoted into the more desirable sh.o.r.e-based jobs to the detriment of whites waiting for rotation to such a.s.signments, the possibility of serious racial trouble was obvious.

[Footnote 4-54: USCG Pers Bull 44-42, 25 Jun 42, sub: Relief of Personnel a.s.signed to Seagoing Units, USCG Cen Files 61A701.]

At least one officer in Coast Guard headquarters was concerned enough to recommend that the policy be revised. With two years' service in Greenland waters, the last year as executive officer of the USCGC _Northland_, Lt. Carlton Skinner had firsthand experience with the limitations of the Coast Guard's racial policy. While on the _Northland_ Skinner had recommended that a skilled black mechanic, (p. 119) then serving as a steward's mate, be awarded a motor mechanic petty officer rating only to find his recommendation rejected on racial grounds. The rating was later awarded after an appeal by Skinner, but the incident set the stage for the young officer's later involvement with the Coast Guard's racial traditions. On sh.o.r.e duty at Coast Guard headquarters in June 1943, Skinner recommended to the commandant that a group of black seamen be provided with some practical seagoing experience under a sympathetic commander in a completely integrated operation. He emphasized practical experience in an integrated setting, he later revealed, because he was convinced that men with high test scores and specialized training did not necessarily make the best sailors, especially when their training was segregated. Skinner envisioned a widespread distribution of Negroes throughout the Coast Guard's seagoing vessels. His recommendation was no "experiment in social democracy," he later stressed, but was a design for "an efficient use of manpower to help win a war."[4-55]

[Footnote 4-55: Interv, author with Skinner; Ltr, Skinner to author, 29 Jun 75, in CMH files. The Skinner memorandum to Admiral Waesche, like so many of the personnel policy papers of the U.S. Coast Guard from the World War II period, cannot be located. For a detailed discussion of Skinner's motives and experiences, see his testimony before the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 25 Apr 49, pp. 1-24.]

Although Skinner's immediate superior forwarded the recommendation as "disapproved," Admiral Waesche accepted the idea. In November 1943 Skinner found himself transferred to the USS _Sea Cloud_ (IX 99), a patrol s.h.i.+p operating in the North Atlantic as part of Task Force 24 reporting on weather conditions from four remote locations in northern waters.[4-56] The commandant also arranged for the transfer of black apprentice seamen, mostly from Manhattan Beach, to the _Sea Cloud_ in groups of about twenty men, gradually increasing the number of black seamen in the s.h.i.+p's complement every time it returned to home station. Skinner, promoted to lieutenant commander and made captain of the _Sea Cloud_ on his second patrol, later decided that the commandant had "figured he could take a chance on me and the _Sea Cloud_."[4-57]

[Footnote 4-56: A unique vessel, the _Sea Cloud_ was on loan to the government for the duration of the war by its owner, the former Amba.s.sador to Russia, Joseph Davies. Davies charged a nominal sum and extracted the promise that the vessel would be restored to its prewar condition as one of the world's most famous private yachts.]

[Footnote 4-57: Interv, author with Skinner.]

It was a chance well taken. Before decommissioning in November 1944, the _Sea Cloud_ served on ocean weather stations off the coasts of Greenland, Newfoundland, and France. It received no special treatment and was subject to the same tactical, operating, and engineering requirements as any other unit in the Navy's Atlantic Fleet. It pa.s.sed two Atlantic Fleet inspections with no deficiencies and was officially credited with helping to sink a German submarine in June 1944. The _Sea Cloud_ boasted a completely integrated operation, its 4 black officers and some 50 black petty officers and seamen serving throughout the s.h.i.+p's 173-man complement.[4-58] No problems of a racial nature arose on the s.h.i.+p, although its captain reported that his crew experienced some hostility in the various departments of the Boston Navy Yard from time to time. Skinner was determined to provide truly integrated conditions. He personally introduced his black officers (p. 120) into the local white officers' club, and he saw to it that when his men were temporarily detached for sh.o.r.e patrol duty they would go in integrated teams. Again, all these arrangements were without sign of racial incident.[4-59]

[Footnote 4-58: Log of the _Sea Cloud_ (IX 99), Aug-Nov 44, NARS, Suitland.]

[Footnote 4-59: Interv, author with Skinner.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: COMMANDER SKINNER AND CREW OF THE USS SEA CLOUD.

_Skinner officiates at awards ceremony._]

It is difficult to a.s.sess the reasons for the commandant's decision to organize an integrated crew. One senior personnel officer later suggested that the _Sea Cloud_ was merely a public relations device designed to still the mounting criticism by civil rights spokesmen of the lack of sea duty for black Coast Guardsmen.[4-60] The public relations advantage of an integrated s.h.i.+p operating in the war zone must have been obvious to Admiral Waesche, although the Coast Guard made no effort to publicize the _Sea Cloud_. In fact, this absence of special attention had been recommended by Skinner in his original proposal to the commandant. Such publicity, he felt, would disrupt the military experiment and make it more difficult to apply generally the experience gained.

[Footnote 4-60: Interv, author with Rear Adm R. T.

McElligott, 24 Feb 75, CMH files. For an example of the Coast Guard reaction to civil rights criticism, see Ltr, USCG Public Relations Officer to Douglas Hall, Was.h.i.+ngton _Afro-American_, July 12, 1943, CG 051, Office of the USCG Historian.]

The success of the _Sea Cloud_ experiment did not lead to the widespread integration implied in Commander Skinner's recommendation.

The only other extensively integrated Coast Guard vessel a.s.signed to a war zone was the destroyer escort _Hoquim_, operating in 1945 out (p. 121) of Adak in the Aleutian Islands, convoying s.h.i.+pping along the Aleutian chain. Again, the commander of the s.h.i.+p was Skinner. Nevertheless the practical reasons for Skinner's first recommendation must also have been obvious to the commandant, and the evidence suggests that the _Sea Cloud_ project was but one of a series of liberalizing moves the Coast Guard made during the war, not only to still the criticism in the black community but also to solve the problems created by the presence of a growing number of black seamen in the general service.

There is also reason to believe that the Coast Guard's limited use of racially mixed crews influenced the Navy's decision to integrate the auxiliary fleet in 1945. Senior naval officials studied a report on the _Sea Cloud_, and one of Secretary Forrestal's a.s.sistants consulted Skinner on his experiences and their relation to greater manpower efficiency.[4-61]

[Footnote 4-61: Ltr, Skinner to author, 2 Jun 75.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENSIGN JENKINS AND LIEUTENANT SAMUELS, _first black Coast Guard officers, on board the Sea Cloud_.]

Throughout the war the Coast Guard never exhibited the concern shown by the other services for the possible disruptive effects if blacks outranked whites. As the war progressed, more and more blacks advanced into petty officer ranks; by August 1945 some 965 Negroes, almost a third of their total number, were petty or warrant officers, many of them in the general service. Places for these trained specialists in any kind of segregated general service were extremely limited, and by the last year of the war many black petty officers could be found serving in mostly white crews and station complements. For example, a black pharmacist, second cla.s.s, and a signalman, third cla.s.s, served on the cutter _Spencer_, a black c.o.xswain served on a cutter in the Greenland patrol, and other black petty officers were a.s.signed to recruiting stations, to the loran program, and as instructors at the Manhattan Beach Training Station.[4-62]

[Footnote 4-62: USCG Historical Section, The Coast Guard at War, 23:53; Intervs, author with Lt Harvey C. Russell, USCGR, 14 Feb 75, and with Cap.r.o.n, CMH files.]

The position of instructor at Manhattan Beach became the usual avenue to a commission for a Negro. Joseph C. Jenkins went from Manhattan Beach to the officer candidate school at the Coast Guard Academy, graduating as an ensign in the Coast Guard Reserve in April 1943, almost a full year before Negroes were commissioned in the Navy.

Clarence Samuels, a warrant officer and instructor at Manhattan (p. 122) Beach, was commissioned as a lieutenant (junior grade) and a.s.signed to the _Sea Cloud_ in 1943. Harvey C. Russell was a signal instructor at Manhattan Beach in 1944 when all instructors were declared eligible to apply for commissions. At first rejected by the officer training school, Russell was finally admitted at the insistence of his commanding officer, graduated as an ensign, and was a.s.signed to the _Sea Cloud_.[4-63]

[Footnote 4-63: "A Black History in WWII," pp. 31-34.

For an account of Samuels' long career in the Coast Guard, see Joseph Greco and Truman R. Strobridge, "Black Trailblazer Has Colorful Past," _Fifth Dimension_ (3d Quarter, 1973); see also Interv, author with Russell.]

These men commanded integrated enlisted seamen throughout the rest of the war. Samuels became the first Negro in this century to command a Coast Guard vessel in wartime, first as captain of Lights.h.i.+p No. 115 and later of the USCGC _Sweetgum_ in the Panama Sea Frontier. Russell was transferred from the integrated _Hoquim_ to serve as executive officer on a cutter operating out of the Philippines in the western Pacific, a.s.suming command of the racially mixed crew shortly after the war.

At the behest of the White House, the Coast Guard also joined with the Navy in integrating its Women's Reserve. In the fall of 1944 it recruited five black women for the SPARS. Only token representation, but understandable since the SPARS ceased all recruitment except for replacements on 23 November 1944, just weeks after the decision to recruit Negroes was announced. Nevertheless the five women trained at Manhattan Beach and were a.s.signed to various Coast Guard district offices without regard to race.[4-64]

[Footnote 4-64: USCG Historical Section, The Coast Guard at War, 25:25. See also Oral History Interview, Dorothy C. Stratton, 24 Sep 70, Center of Naval History.]

This very real progress toward equal treatment and opportunity for Negroes in the Coast Guard must be a.s.sessed with the knowledge that the progress was experienced by only a minuscule group. Negroes never rose above 2.1 percent of the Coast Guard's wartime population, well below the figures for the other services. This was because the other services were forced to obtain draft-age men, including a significant number of black inductees from Selective Service, whereas the Coast Guard ceased all inductions in early 1944.

Despite their small numbers, however, the black Coast Guardsmen enjoyed a variety of a.s.signments. The different reception accorded this small group of Negroes might, at least to some extent, be explained by the Coast Guard's tradition of some black partic.i.p.ation for well over a century. To a certain extent this progress could also be attributed to the ease with which the directors of a small organization can reorder its policies.[4-65] But above all, the different reception accorded Negroes in the Coast Guard was a small organization's practical reaction to a pressing a.s.similation problem dictated by the manpower policies common throughout the naval establishment.

[Footnote 4-65: For discussion of this point, see Testimony of Coast Guard Representatives Before the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 18 Mar 49, pp.

25-26.]

CHAPTER 5 (p. 123)

A Postwar Search

The nation's military leaders and the leaders of the civil rights movement were in rare accord at the end of World War II. They agreed that despite considerable wartime improvement the racial policies of the services had proved inadequate for the development of the full military potential of the country's largest minority as well as the efficient operation and management of the nation's armed forces.

Dissatisfaction with the current policy of the armed forces was a spearpoint of the increasingly militant and powerful civil rights movement, and this dissatisfaction was echoed to a great extent by the services themselves. Intimate a.s.sociation with minority problems had convinced the Army's Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies and the Navy's Special Programs Unit that new policies had to be devised and new directions sought. Confronted with the incessant demands of the civil rights advocates and presented by their own staffs with evidence of trouble, civilian leaders of the services agreed to review the status of the Negro. As the postwar era opened, both the Army and the Navy were beginning the interminable investigations that augured a change in policy.

Unfortunately, the services and the civil rights leaders had somewhat different ends in mind. Concerned chiefly with military efficiency but also accustomed to racial segregation or exclusion, most military leaders insisted on a rigid appraisal of the performance of segregated units in the war and ignored the effects of segregation on that performance. Civil rights advocates, on the other hand, seeing an opportunity to use the military as a vehicle for the extension of social justice, stressed the baneful effects of segregation on the black serviceman's morale. They were inclined to ignore the performance of the large segregated units and took issue with the premise that desegregation of the armed forces in advance of the rest of American society would threaten the efficient execution of the services' military mission. Neither group seemed able to appreciate the other's real concerns, and their contradictory conclusions promised a renewal of the discord in their wartime relations.h.i.+p.

_Black Demands_

World War II marked the beginning of an important step in the evolution of the civil rights movement. Until then the struggle for racial equality had been sustained chiefly by the "talented tenth,"

the educated, middle-cla.s.s black citizens who formed an economic and political alliance with white supporters. Together they fought to (p. 124) improve the racial situation with some success in the courts, but with little progress in the executive branch and still less in the legislative. The efforts of men like W. E. B. DuBois, Walter White, and Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP and Lester Granger of the National Urban League were in the mainstream of the American reform movement, which stressed an orderly pet.i.tioning of government for a redress of grievances.

But there was another facet to the American reform tradition, one that stressed ma.s.s action and civil disobedience, and the period between the March on Was.h.i.+ngton Movement in 1940 and the threat of a black boycott of the draft in 1948 witnessed the beginnings of a s.h.i.+ft in the civil rights movement to this kind of reform tactic. The articulate leaders of the prewar struggle were still active, and in fact would make their greatest contribution in the fight that led to the Supreme Court's p.r.o.nouncement on school segregation in 1954. But their quiet methods were already being challenged by A. Philip Randolph and others who launched a sustained demand for equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces during the early postwar period. Randolph and leaders of his persuasion relied not so much on legal eloquence in their representations to the federal government as on an understanding of bloc voting in key districts and the implicit threat of civil disobedience. The civil rights campaign, at least in the effort to end segregation in the armed forces, had the appearance of a ma.s.s movement a full decade before a weary Rosa Parks boarded a Montgomery bus and set off the all-embracing crusade of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The growing political power of the Negro and the threat of ma.s.s action in the 1940's were important reasons for the breakthrough on the color front that began in the armed forces in the postwar period. For despite the measure of good will and political ac.u.men that characterized his social programs, Harry S. Truman might never have made the effort to achieve racial equality in the services without the constant pressure of civil rights activists.

The reasons for the transformation that was beginning in the civil rights struggle were varied and complex.[5-1] Fundamental was the growing urbanization of the Negro. By 1940 almost half the black population lived in cities. As the labor shortage became more acute during the next five years, movement toward the cities continued, not only in the south but in the north and west. Attracted by economic opportunities in Los Angeles war industries, for example, over 1,000 Negroes moved to that city each month during the war. Detroit, Seattle, and San Francisco, among others, reported similar migrations.

The balance finally s.h.i.+fted during the war, and the 1950 census showed that 56 percent of the black population resided in metropolitan (p. 125) areas, 32 percent in cities of the north and west.[5-2]

[Footnote 5-1: This discussion is based in great part on Arnold M. Rose, "The American Negro Problem in the Context of Social Change," _Annals of the Academy of Political Science_ 257 (January 1965):1-17; Rustin, _Strategies for Freedom_, pp.

26-46; Leonard Broom and Norval Glenn, _Transformation of the Negro American_ (New York: Harper and Row, 1965); St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton, _Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City_ (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1970); John Hope Franklin, _From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro America_, 3d ed. (New York: Knopf, 1967); Woodward's _The Strange Career of Jim Crow_; Seymour Wolfbein, "Postwar Trends in Negro Employment," a report by the Occupational Outlook Division, Bureau of Labor Statistics, in CMH; Oscar Handlin, "The Goals of Integration," and Kenneth B.

Clark, "The Civil Rights Movement: Momentum and Organization," both in _Daedalus_ 95 (Winter 1966).]

[Footnote 5-2: For a discussion of this trend, see Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Social and Economic Conditions of Negroes in the United States"

(Current Population Reports P23, October 1967); see also Charles S. Johnson, "The Negro Minority,"

_Annals of the Academy of Political Science_ 223 (September 1942):10-16.]