![]() ![]() A presidential commission chaired by Charles Fahy recommended an end to discrimination in jobs, schooling, assignment, and recruitment. Three factors would ultimately lead to integration: the growing recognition that segregation undercut the United States' moral stature during the Cold War the need to reduce racial tensions within the military and the manpower needs produced by the Korean war.įollowing President Truman's Executive Order, two boards were established to make recommendations about integration. It would take several years - and another war - before the military actually ended segregation. ![]() In July, he issued Executive Order 9981 calling on the military to end racial discrimination. armed forces to desegregate as quickly as possible. Although black and white troops served in separate platoons, this experience helped the Army break with its usual practice of placing African American troops in separate units and assigning them to non-combat duties. Some 2,500 African American troops volunteered. With only 80,000 Allied troops available in the area to resist the German forces, black troops were invited to volunteer to fight alongside white troops. In December, 1944, 250,000 German troops launched a massive counteroffensive, later known as the Battle of the Bulge, in Belgium. Military necessity helped to shatter racial barriers. In mid-1944, the War Department ordered all buses to be operated in a non-discriminatory fashion. In March 1943, the War Department ordered the desegregation of recreational facilities at military facilities. ![]() It was during World War II that the policy of racial segregation within the military began to break down under pressure from African American leaders, who pointed out the contradiction of a country fighting Nazi racism having a segregated military. This policy remained intact through the Spanish American War, World War I (when two African American divisions participated in combat), and World War II. In 1869, Congress made racial separation in the military official government policy. It was not until the Civil War that African Americans were required to fight in racially separate units. An African American minuteman, Prince Easterbrooks, a slave, was wounded at the battle of Lexington, and, altogether, some 5,000 African Americans fought for American independence during the Revolution despite British promises of freedom to any slaves who defected to the Loyalist side. Even later, in the fall of 1954, an all-African American unit, the 94th Engineer Battalion, was stationed in Europe.Īfrican Americans have participated actively in the country's wars. As recently as the end of 1950, when the Korean War was entering its seventh month, African American troops were trained at a segregated facility at Fort Dix, New Jersey, near New York City. Yet the integration of the armed forces is a relatively recent development. He rose through the Army's ranks to become the first black head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Colin Powell, now the country's first African American Secretary of State, has become a symbol of the Army's relative openness. Army the country's most successful effort at racial integration. ![]()
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