Chapter 16: (p. 397) (2)

At the same time the Bureau of Naval Personnel wrote special press releases, arranged interviews for naval officials with members of the black press, and distributed publicity materials in predominantly black schools to attract candidates and to assure interested young men that race was no bar to their selection. In this connection Commander Heinz bid for and received an invitation to address the Urban League's annual conference in August 1949 to outline the Navy's program. The Chief of Naval Personnel, Rear Adm. Thomas L. Sprague, also (p. 415) arranged for the training of all those engaged in promoting the program--professors of naval science, naval procurement officers, and the like. In states where such assignments were considered acceptable, Sprague planned to appoint Negroes to selection committees.[16-64] In a related move he also ordered that when local law or custom required the segregation of facilities used for the administration of qualifying tests for reserve officer training, the Navy would use its own facilities for testing. This ruling was used when the 1949 examinations were given in Atlanta and New Orleans; to the delight of the black press the Navy transferred the test site to its nearby facilities.[16-65] These efforts had some positive effect. In 1949 alone some 2,700 black youths indicated an interest in the Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps by submitting applications.[16-66]

[Footnote 16-64: Memo, Dir of Tng, BuPers, for Chief,
NavPers, 1 Jul 49; Ltr, Granger to Cmdr Luther
Heinz, 3 Aug 49; Ltr, Heinz to Granger, 18 Aug 49.
All in Pers 42, BuPersRecs. See also Interv, author
with Nelson, 26 May 69, and Ltr, Nelson to author,
10 Feb 70, both in CMH files.]

[Footnote 16-65: Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to Cmdt, All
Continental Naval Dists, 17 Mar 50, Pers 42,
BuPersRecs; Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22
Dec 49, PPB 291.2.]

[Footnote 16-66: Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22
Dec 49, PPB 291.2.]

Despite these well-intentioned efforts, the Navy failed to increase significantly the number of black officers or sailors in the next decade (_Table 8_). The percentage of Negroes in the Navy increased so slowly that not until 1955, in the wake of the great manpower buildup during the Korean War, did it exceed the 1949 figure. Although the percentage of black enlistments increased significantly at times--approximately 12 percent of all enlistments in 1955 were black, for example--the proportion of Negroes in the Navy's enlisted ranks was only 0.4 percent higher in 1960 than in 1949. While the number of black officers increased more than sevenfold in the same decade, it was still considerably less than 1 percent of the total officer strength, well below Army and Air Force percentages.

Table 8--Black Manpower, U.S. Navy

A. Enlisted Strength

_Percent
_Year_ _Total Strength_ _Black Strength_ Black_

1949 363,622 17,051 4.5
1950 329,114 14,858 3.7
1951 656,371 17,604 2.7
1952 728,511 23,010 3.2
1953 698,367 24,734 3.5
1954 635,103 24,236 3.8
1955 574,157 30,623 5.3
1956 586,782 37,308 6.3
1957 593,022 38,222 6.4
1958 558,955 30,978 5.7
1959 547,236 30,098 5.5
1960 544,323 26,760 4.9

B. Percentage of Blacks Enlisted in Steward's and Other Branches

_Year_ _Steward's Branch_ _Other Branches_

1949 65.12 34.88
1950 57.07 42.93
1951 55.27 44.73
1952 54.95 45.05
1953 51.73 48.27
1954 53.43 48.57
1955 51.19 48.81
1956 25.38 74.62
1957 21.66 78.34
1958 23.35 76.65

C. Officer Strength (Selected Years)

_Year_ _Black Officers on Active Duty_ _Total Officers_

1949 19 45,464
1951 23 66,323
1953 53 78,095
1955 81 71,591
1960 149

_Source_: BuPers, Personnel Statistics Branch. See especially BuPers, "Memo on Discrimination of the Negro," 24 Jan 59, BAF2-014. BuPers Technical Library. All figures represent yearly averages.

The Navy had an explanation for the small number of Negroes. The reduced manpower ceilings imposed on the Navy, even during the Korean War, had caused a drastic curtailment in recruiting. At the same time, with the brief exception of the Korean War, the Navy had depended on volunteers for enlistment and had required volunteers to score ninety or higher on the general classification test. The percentage of those who scored above ninety was lower for blacks than for whites--16 percent against 67 percent, a ratio, naval spokesmen suggested, that explained the enlistment figures. Furthermore, the low enlistment quotas produced a long waiting list of those desiring to volunteer. All applicants for the relatively few openings were thoroughly screened, and competition was so keen that any Negroes accepted for the monthly quota had to be extraordinarily well qualified.[16-67]

[Footnote 16-67: For a public expression of these
sentiments see, for example, Ltr, Capt R. B. Ellis,
Policy Control Br, BuPers, to President of
Birmingham, Ala., Branch, NAACP, 30 Mar 50, Pers 66
MM, GenRecsNav.]

What the Navy's explanation failed to mention was that the rise and decline in the Navy's black strength during the 1950's was intimately related to the number of group IV enlistees being forced on the services under the provisions of the Defense Department's program (p. 416) for the qualitative distribution of manpower. Each service was required to accept 24 percent of all recruits in group IV from fiscal year 1953 to 1956, 18 percent in fiscal year 1957, and 12 percent thereafter. Between 1953 and 1956 the Navy accepted well above the required 24 percent of group IV men, but in fiscal year 1957 took only 15.1 percent, and in 1958 only 6.8 percent. In 1958, with the knowledge of the Secretary of Defense, all the services took in fewer of the group IV's than the distribution program required, but justified the reduction on the grounds that declining strength made it necessary to emphasize high quality in recruits. In a move endorsed by the Navy, the Air Force finally requested in 1959 that the qualitative distribution program be held in abeyance. On the basis of this request the Navy temporarily ceased to accept all group IV and some group III men, but resumed recruiting them when it seemed likely that the (p. 417) Secretary of Defense would refuse the request.[16-68]

[Footnote 16-68: BuPers, "Memo on Discrimination of
the Negro," 24 January 1959, Pers A1224, BuPers
Tech Library.]

The correlation between the rise and fall of the group IV enlistments and the percentage of Negroes in the Navy shows that all the increases in black strength between 1952 and 1959 came not through the Navy's publicized and organized effort to attract the qualified black volunteers it had promised the Fahy Committee, but from the men forced upon it by the Defense Department's distribution program. The correlation also lends credence to the charges of some of the civil rights critics who saw another reason for the shortage of Negroes. They claimed that there had been no drop in the number of applicants but that fewer Negroes were being accepted by Navy recruiters. One NAACP official claimed that Negroes were "getting the run around." Those who had fulfilled all enlistment requirements were not being informed, and others were being given false information by recruiters. He concluded that the Navy was operating under an unwritten policy of filling recruit quotas with whites, accepting Negroes only when whites were unavailable.[16-69] If these accusations were true, the Navy was denying itself the services of highly qualified black applicants at a time when the Defense Department's qualitative distribution program was forcing it to take large numbers of the less gifted. Certainly the number of Negroes capable of moving up the career and promotion ladder was reduced and the Navy left vulnerable to further charges of discrimination.

[Footnote 16-69: Ltr, Exec Secy, Birmingham, Ala.,
Branch, NAACP, to Chief, NavPers, 14 Mar 50, Pers
A, GenRecsNav.]

As for the shortage of officers, Nelson cited the awareness among candidates that promotions were slower for blacks in the Navy than in the other services where there was "less caste and class to buck."[16-70] Nelson was aware that out of the 2,700 blacks who had indicated an interest in the reserve officer training program in 1949 only 250 actually took the aptitude tests. Of these, only two passed the tests and one of these was later rejected for poor eyesight. An Urban League spokesman believed that some failed to take the tests out of fear of failure but that many harbored a suspicion that the program was not entirely open to all regardless of race.[16-71] Reinforcing this suspicion was the fact that, despite the intentions of the (p. 418) Bureau of Naval Personnel and the Navy's increasing control over the appointment process, as of 1965 not a single Negro had been appointed to any of the 150-man state selection committees on reserve officer training.[16-72] Also to be considered, as the American Civil Liberties Union later pointed out, was the promotion record of black officers. As late as 1957 no black officer had ever commanded a ship, and while both black and white officers started up the same promotion ladder, the blacks were usually transferred out of the line into staff billets.[16-73]

[Footnote 16-70: Interv, Nichols with Nelson, 1953, in
Nichols Collection; Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb
70; both in CMH files.]

[Footnote 16-71: Quoted in Memo, Dir of Tng, BuPers,
for Chief, NavPers, 1 Jul 49, Pers 42, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-72: Memo for Rcd, Evans, 23 Jun 65, sub:
NROTC Boards, ASD/M 291.2.]

[Footnote 16-73: Ltr, Exec Dir, ACLU, to SecNav, 26
Nov 57, GenRecsNav.]

Given the pressure on the personnel bureau to develop some respectable black manpower statistics, it is unlikely that the lack of educated, black recruits can be blamed on widespread subterfuge at the recruiting level. Far more likely is the explanation offered by Under Secretary Kimball, that the black community distrusted the Navy.[16-74] First apparent in the 1940's, this distrust lasted throughout the next decade as young Negroes continued to show a general apathy toward the Navy, which at times turned into open hostility. In September 1961 the Chief of Naval Personnel reported that recruiters were not infrequently being treated to "booing, hissing and other disorderly conduct" when they tried to discuss the opportunities for naval careers before black audiences.[16-75]

[Footnote 16-74: Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22
Dec 49, sub: Implementation of Executive Order
9981, PPB 291.2.]

[Footnote 16-75: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Pers B, 23
Sep 61, copy in Harris Wofford Collection, J. F.
Kennedy Library.]

The Navy's poor reputation in the black community centered on the continued existence of the racially separate servants' branch, in the eyes of many the symbol of the service's racial exclusiveness. The Steward's Branch remained predominantly black. In 1949 it had 10,499 Negroes, 4,707 Filipinos, 741 other nonwhites, and 1 white man. Chief stewards continued to be denied the grade of chief petty officer, on the grounds that since stewards were not authorized to exercise military command over others than stewards because of their lack of military training, chief stewards were not chiefs in the military sense of the word. This difference in authority also explained, as the Chief of Naval Personnel put it, why as a general rule chief stewards were not quartered with other petty officers.[16-76] These (p. 419) distinctions were true also for stewards in the first, second, and third classes, a fact in their case symbolized by differences in uniform. Most of the thousands of black stewards continued to be recruited, trained, and employed exclusively in that branch, and thus for over half the Negroes--65 percent--in the 1949 Navy the chance for advancement was severely limited and the chance to qualify for a different job almost nonexistent.

[Footnote 16-76: Testimony of Vice Adm William M.
Fechteler Before the President's Committee on
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services (the Fahy Cmte), 28 Mar 49, p. 18.]

The Navy instituted several changes in the branch in the wake of the Fahy Committee's recommendations. On 25 July 1949 the Chief of Naval Personnel ordered all chief stewards designated chief petty officers with all the prerogatives of that status; in precedence they came immediately after chief dental technicians,[16-77] who were at the bottom of the list. That the change was limited to chief stewards did not go unnoticed. Joseph Evans of the Fahy Committee staff charged that the bureau "seemed to have ordered this to accede to the committee's recommendations never intending to go beyond Chief Stewards."[16-78] Nelson, by now a sort of unofficial ombudsman and gadfly for black sailors, urged his superiors to broaden the reform, and Kimball warned Admiral Sprague that limiting the change to chief stewards might be "justified on the literal statement of (p. 420) intention, but is vulnerable to criticism of continued discrimination." Without compelling reasons to the contrary, he added, "I do not feel that we can afford to risk any possible impression of reluctant implementation of the spirit of the directive."[16-79]

[Footnote 16-77: BuPers Cir Ltr 115-49, 25 Jul 49.]

[Footnote 16-78: Memo, Evans for Fahy Cmte, 23 Aug 49,
sub: Progress in Navy, Fahy Papers, Truman
Library.]

[Footnote 16-79: Memo, Under SecNav for Chief,
NavPers, 10 Aug 49, MM (1) GenRecsNav.]

Admiral Sprague got the point, and on 30 August he announced that effective with the new year, stewards--first, second, and third class--would be designated petty officers with appropriate pay, prerogatives, and precedence, and that their uniforms would be changed to conform to those of other petty officers. He also amended the bureau's manual to allow commanding officers to change the ratings of stewards without headquarters approval, thus enlarging the opportunity for stewards, in all other respects qualified, to transfer into other ratings.[16-80] These reforms brought about a slow but steady change in the assignment of black sailors. Between January 1950 and August 1953, the percentage of Negroes in the general service rose from 42 to 47 percent of the Navy's 23,000 man black strength, with a corresponding drop in the percentage of those assigned to the Steward's Branch.[16-81]

[Footnote 16-80: BuPers Cir Ltr 141-49, 30 Aug 49. See
also Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22 Dec 49,
sub: Implementation of Executive Order 9981, PPB
291.2; Memo, Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, 4 May 50,
sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity, Pers
42, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-81: Memo, Dir, Plans and Policy, BuPers,
for Capt Brooke Schumm, USN, PPB, 17 Jul 50, sub:
Secretary of Defense Semi-Annual Report, Negro
Enlisted Personnel Data for, Pers 14B; Memo, Head,
Strength and Statistics Br, BuPers, for Head,
Technical Info Br, BuPers, 25 Aug 53, sub:
Information Requested by LCDR D. D. Nelson
Concerning Negro Strength, Pers A14; both in
BuPersRecs.]

Yet these reforms were modest in terms of the pressing need for a substantive change in the racial composition of the Steward's Branch. Despite the changes in assignment policy, the Steward's Branch was still nearly 65 percent black in 1952, and the rest were mostly Filipino citizens under contract. Secretary of the Navy Kimball's observation that 133 stewards had transferred out of the branch in a recent four-month period hardly promised any speedy change in the current percentages.[16-82] In fact there was evidence even at that late date that some staff members in the personnel bureau were working at cross-purposes to the Navy's expressed policy. Worried about the shortages of volunteers for the Steward's Branch, a group of officials had met in August 1951 to discuss ways of improving branch morale. Some suggested publicizing the branch to the black press and schools, showing that Negroes were in all branches of the Navy including the Steward's. They also studied a pamphlet called "The Advantages of Stewards Duty in the Navy" that gave nine reasons why a man should become a steward.[16-83]

[Footnote 16-82: Kimball was sworn in as Secretary of
the Navy on 31 July 1951. Ltr, SecNav to Granger,
19 Nov 52, SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-83: BuPers, Plans and Policy Div, "Review
of Suggestions and Recommendations to Improve
Standards, Morale, and Attitudes Toward Stewards
Branch of U.S. Navy" (ca. 2 Aug 51), BuPersRecs.]

Obviously the Navy had to set a steady course if it intended any lasting racial reform of the Steward's Branch, but its leaders seemed ambivalent toward the problem. Despite his earlier efforts to raise the status of stewards, Kimball, in a variation on an old postwar argument, tried to show that the exclusiveness of the Steward's (p. 421) Branch actually worked to the Negro's advantage. As he explained to Lester Granger in November 1952, any action to effect radical or wholesale changes in ratings "would not only tend to reduce the efficiency of the Navy, but also in many instances be to the disadvantage or detriment of the individuals concerned, particularly those in the senior Steward ratings."[16-84] Supporting this line of argument, the Chief of Naval Personnel announced the reenlistment figures for the Steward's Branch--over 80 percent during the Korean War period. These figures, Vice Admiral James L. Holloway, Jr., added, proved the branch to be the most popular in the Navy and offered "a rational measure of the state of the morale and job satisfaction."[16-85]

[Footnote 16-84: Ltr, SecNav for Granger, 19 Nov 52,
SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-85: Ltrs, Chief, NavPers, to James C.
Evans, OSD, 19 Jun 53, and Granger, 28 Jul 53, both
in P 8 (4), BuPersRecs.]

These explanations still figured prominently in the Navy's 1961 defense of its racial statistics. Discussing the matter at a White House meeting of civil rights leaders, the Chief of Naval Personnel pointed out that all the black stewards could be replaced with Filipinos, but the Navy had refrained from such a course for several reasons. The branch still had the highest reenlistment rate. It provided jobs for those group IV men the Navy was obliged to accept but could never use in technical billets. Without the opportunity provided by the branch, moreover, "many of the rated black stewards would probably not achieve a petty officer rating at all."[16-86]

[Footnote 16-86: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Pers B, 23
Sep 61, Harris Wofford Collection, J. F. Kennedy
Library. See also Memo, Chief, NavPers, for ASD/M,
29 Mar 61, sub: Stewards in U.S. Navy, Pers 8 (4),
BuPersRecs; Memo, Special Asst to SecDef, Adam
Yarmolinsky, for Frederic Dutton, Special Asst to
President, 31 Oct 61, sub: Yarmolinsky Memo of
October 26, Harris Wofford Collection, J. F.
Kennedy Library.]

However well founded these arguments were, they did not satisfy the Navy's critics, who continued to press for the establishment of one recruitment standard and the assignment of men on the basis of interest and training rather than race. Lester Granger, for example, warned Secretary Kimball of the skepticism that persisted among sections of the black community: "As long as that branch [the Steward's Branch] is composed entirely of nonwhite personnel, the Navy is apt to be held by some to be violating its own stated policy."[16-87] To Kimball's successor, Robert B. Anderson,[16-88] Granger was even more blunt. The Steward's Branch, he declared, was "a constant irritant to the Negro public." He saw some logical reason for the continued concentration of Negroes in the branch but added "logic does not necessarily imply wisdom and I sincerely believe that it is unwise from the standpoint of efficiency and public relations to continue the Stewards Branch on its present basis."[16-89]

[Footnote 16-87: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 24 Oct 52,
SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-88: Secretary Anderson, appointed by
President Eisenhower, became Secretary of the Navy
on 4 February 1953.]

[Footnote 16-89: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 24 Apr 53,
SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]

Granger's suggestion for change was straightforward. He wanted the Bureau of Naval Personnel to find a way to introduce a sufficiently large number of whites into the branch to transform its racial composition. The task promised to be difficult if the charges leveled in the Detroit _Free Press_ were accurate. In May 1953 the paper (p. 422) reported incidents of naval recruiting officers who, "by one ruse or another," were shunting young volunteers, sometimes without their knowledge, into the Steward's Branch.[16-90]

[Footnote 16-90: Detroit _Free Press_, May 16, 1953.]

Granger's suggestions were taken up by Secretary Anderson, who announced his intention of integrating the Steward's Branch and ordered the Chief of Naval Personnel to draw up plans to that end.[16-91] To devise some practical measures for handling the problem, the personnel bureau brought back to active duty three officers who had been important to the development of the Navy's 1946 integration policy. Their study produced three recommendations: abolish the segregation of the Steward's Branch from the general service and separate recruitment for its members; consider consolidating the branch with the predominantly white Commissary Branch; and change the steward's insignia.[16-92]

[Footnote 16-91: UP News Release, September 21, 1953,
copy in CMH.]

[Footnote 16-92: Ltr, Cmdr Durwood W. Gilmore, USNR et
al., to Chief, NavPers, Vice Adm J. L. Holloway,
Jr., 31 Aug 53, P 8 (4), BuPersRecs.]

The group acknowledged that the Steward's Branch was a "sore spot with the Negroes, and is our weakest position from the standpoint of Public Relations," and two of their recommendations were obviously aimed at immediate improvement of public relations. Combining the messmen and commissary specialists would of course create an integrated branch, which Granger estimated would be only 20 percent black, and would probably provide additional opportunities for promotions, but in the end it could not mask the fact that a high proportion of black sailors were employed in food service and valet positions. Nor was it clear how changing the familiar crescent insignia, symbolic of the steward's duties, would change the image of a separate group that still performed the most menial duties. Long-term reform, everyone agreed, demanded the presence of a significant number of whites in the branch, and there was strong evidence that the general service contained more than a few group IV white sailors. The group's proposal to abolish separate recruiting would probably increase the number of blacks in the general service and eliminate the possibility that unsuspecting black recruits would be dragooned into a messman's career; both were substantial reforms but did not guarantee that whites would be attracted or assigned to the branch.

Admiral Holloway was concerned about this latter point, which dominated his discussions with the Secretary of the Navy on 1 September 1953. He had, he told Anderson, discussed with his recruiting specialists the possibility of recruiting white sailors for the branch, and while they all agreed that whites must not be induced to join by "improper procedures," such as preferential recruitment to escape the draft, they felt that whites could be attracted to steward duty by skillful recruiters, especially in areas of the country where industrial integration had already been accomplished. His bureau was considering the abolition of separate recruiting, but to make specific recommendations on matters involving the stewards he had created an ad hoc committee, under the Deputy Chief of Naval Personnel and composed of (p. 423) representatives of the other bureaus. When he received this committee's views, Holloway promised to take "definite administrative action."[16-93]

[Footnote 16-93: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, 1
Sep 53, sub: Mr. Granger's Visit and Related
Matters, Pers, GenRecsNav.]

The three recommendations of the reservist experts did not survive intact the ad hoc committee's scrutiny. At the committee's suggestion, Holloway rejected the proposed merger of the commissary and steward functions on the grounds that such a move was unnecessary in an era of high reenlistment. He also decided that stewards would retain their branch insignia. He did approve, however, in a decision announced on 28 February 1954, putting an end to the separate recruitment of stewards with the exception of the contract enlistment of Filipino citizens. As Anderson assured Congressman Adam Clayton Powell of New York, only after recruit training and "with full knowledge of the opportunities in various categories of administrative specialties" would an enlistee be allowed to volunteer for messman's duty.[16-94]

[Footnote 16-94: Ltr, SecNav to Congressman Adam C.
Powell, 19 Mar 54, SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]

Admiral Holloway promised a further search for ways to eliminate "points of friction" regarding the stewards, and naval officials discussed the problem with civil rights leaders and Defense Department officials on several occasions in the next years.[16-95] The (p. 424) Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, Adam Yarmolinsky, reported in 1961 that the Bureau of Naval Personnel "was not sanguine" about recruiting substantial numbers of white seamen for the Steward's Branch.[16-96] In answer, the Chief of Naval Personnel could only point out that no matter what their qualifications or ambitions all men assigned to the Steward's Branch were volunteers. As one commentator observed, white sailors were very rarely attracted to the messmen's field because of its reputation as a black specialty.[16-97]

[Footnote 16-95: See, for example, ASD/M, Thursday
Reports, 7 Jan 54 and 12 Apr 56, copies in Dep ASD
(Civil Rights) files; see also Memo, Chief,
NavPers, for Special Asst to SecDef, 29 Mar 61,
sub: Stewards in U.S. Navy, BuPersRecs.]

[Footnote 16-96: Memo, Adam Yarmolinsky for Fred
Dutton, 31 Oct 61, sub: Yarmolinsky Memo of October
26, Harris Wofford Collection, J. F. Kennedy
Library.]

[Footnote 16-97: Greenberg, _Race Relations and
American Law_, p. 359.]

Nevertheless, by 1961 a definite pattern of change had emerged in the Steward's Branch. The end of separate recruitment drastically cut the number of Negroes entering the rating, while the renewed emphasis on transferring eligible chief stewards to other specialties somewhat reduced the number of Negroes already in the branch. Between 1956 and 1961, some 600 men out of the 1,800 tested transferred to other rating groups or fields. The substantial drop in black strength resulting from these changes combined with a corresponding rise in the number of contract messmen from the western Pacific region reduced for the first time in some thirty years Negroes in the Steward's Branch to a minority. Even for those remaining in the branch, life changed considerably. Separate berthing for stewards, always justified on the grounds of different duties and hours, was discontinued, and the amount of time spent by stewards at sea, with the varied military work that sea duty involved, was increased.[16-98]

[Footnote 16-98: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Special
Asst to SecDef, 29 Mar 61, sub: Stewards in U.S.
Navy, Pers 8 (4), GenRecsNav.]

If these changes caused by the increased enlistment of stewards from the western Pacific relieved the Steward's Branch of its reputation as the black man's navy, they also perpetuated the notion that servants' duties were for persons of dark complexion. The debate over a segregated branch that had engaged the civil rights leaders and the Navy since 1932 was over, but it had left a residue of ill will; some were bitter at what they considered the listless pace of reform, a pace which left the impression that the service had been forced to change against its will. To some extent the Navy in the 1950's failed to capitalize on its early achievements because it had for so long missed the point of the integrationists' arguments about the stewards. In the fifties the Navy expended considerable time and energy advertising for black officer candidates and recruits whom they guaranteed a genuinely equal chance to participate in all specialties, but these efforts were to some extent dismissed by critics as not germane. In 1950, for example, only 114 Negroes served in the glamorous submarine assignments and even fewer in the naval air service.[16-99] Yet this obvious underrepresentation caused no great outcry from the black community. What did cause bitterness and (p. 425) protest in an era of aroused racial pride was the fact that servants' duties fell almost exclusively on nonwhite Americans. That these duties were popular--the 80 percent reenlistment rate in the Steward's Branch continued throughout the decade and the transfer rate into the branch almost equaled the transfer out--was disregarded by many of the more articulate spokesmen, who considered the branch an insult to the black public. As Congressman Powell informed the Navy in 1953, "no one is interested in today's world in fighting communism with a frying pan or shoe polish."[16-100] Although statistics showed nearly half the black sailors employed in other than menial tasks, Powell voiced the mood of a large segment of the black community.

[Footnote 16-99: The Navy commissioned its first black
pilot, Ens. Jesse L. Brown, in 1950. He was killed
in action in Korea.]

[Footnote 16-100: Ltr, Powell to John Floberg, Asst
SecNav for Air, 29 Jun 53, SecNav files,
GenRecsNav.]

The Fahy Committee had acknowledged that manpower statistics alone were not a reliable index of equal opportunity. Convinced that Negroes were getting a full and equal chance to enlist in the general service and compete for officer commissions, the committee had approved the Navy's policy, trusting to time and equal opportunity to produce the desired result. Unfortunately for the Navy, there would be many critics both in and out of government in the 1960's who disagreed with the committee's trust in time and good intentions, for equal opportunity would remain very much a matter of numbers and percentages. In an (p. 426) era when a premium would be placed on the size of minority membership, the palm would go to the other services. "The blunt fact is," Granger reminded the Secretary of the Navy in 1954, "that as a general rule the most aspiring Negro youth are apt to have the least interest in a Navy career, chiefly because the Army and Air Force have up to now captured the spotlight."[16-101] A decade later the statement still held.

[Footnote 16-101: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 7 Jan 54,
SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]

It was ironic that black youth remained aloof from the Navy in the 1950's when the way of life for Negroes on shipboard and at naval bases had definitely taken a turn for the better. The general service was completely integrated, although the black proportion, 4.9 percent in 1960, was still far less than might reasonably be expected, considering the black population.[16-102] Negroes were being trained in every job classification and attended all the Navy's technical schools. Although not yet represented in proportionate numbers in the top grades within every rating, Negroes served in all ratings in every branch, a fact favorably noticed in the metropolitan press.[16-103] Black officers, still shockingly out of proportion to black strength, were not much more so than in the other services and were serving more often with regular commissions in the line as well as on the staff. Their lack of representation in the upper ranks demonstrated that the climb to command was slow and arduous even when the discriminatory tactics of earlier times had been removed. In 1961 the Navy could finally announce that a black officer, Lt. Comdr. Samuel L. Gravely, Jr., had been ordered to command a destroyer escort, the USS _Falgout_.[16-104]

[Footnote 16-102: Memo, ASD/M for SA et al., 21 Nov
51, sub: Manuscript on the Negro in the Armed
Forces, SecDef 291.2.]

[Footnote 16-103: See New York _Herald Tribune_,
December 2, 1957, and New York Post, March 14,
1957.]

[Footnote 16-104: Gravely would eventually become the
first black admiral in the U.S. Navy.]

But how were these changes being accepted among the rank and file? Comments from official sources and civil rights groups alike showed the leaven of racial tolerance at work throughout the service.[16-105] Reporter Lee Nichols, interviewing members of all the services in (p. 427) 1953,[16-106] found that whites expected blacks to prove themselves in their assignments while blacks were skeptical that equal opportunities for assignment were really open to them. Yet the Nichols interviews reveal a strain of pride and wonderment in the servicemen at the profound changes they had witnessed.

[Footnote 16-105: See, for example, Ltr, Exec Secy,
President's Cmte on Equal Treatment and Opportunity
in the Armed Services, to CNO, 21 Jun 49, FC file;
Memo, Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, BuPersRecs; Memo,
ASD/M for SA et al., 21 Nov 51, sub: Manuscript on
the Negro in the Armed Forces, SecDef 291.2; Ltr,
Exec Secy, ACLU, to SecNav, 26 Nov 57, SecNav
files, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-106: Nichols's sampling, presented in the
form of approximately a hundred interviews with men
and women from all the services, was completely
unscientific and informal and was undertaken for
the preparation of his book, _Breakthrough on the
Color Front_. Considering their timing, the
interviews supply an interesting sidelight to the
integration period. They are included in the
Nichols Collection, CMH.]

In time integrated service became routine throughout the Navy, and instances of Negroes in command of integrated units increased. Bigots of both races inevitably remained, and the black community continued to resent the separate Steward's Branch, but the sincerity of the Navy's promise to integrate the service seemed no longer in doubt.