A CHRONOLOGY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN MILITARY SERVICE From the Colonial Era through the Antebellum Period

Illustration from the 1855 edition of "Colored Patriots of the American Revolution" by W.C. Nell shows Crispus Attucks, the "first martyr of the American Revolution" fired on by British soldiers in Boston on March 5, 1770.

Engraving of the Boston Masacre by Paul Revere, 1770

Crispus Attucks' grave

Minuteman statue, Lexington, MA

Battle of Bunker Hill

Black sailor

Land grant to Austin Dabney

Benedict Arnold

Surrender at Yorktown

1639 The Virginia House of Burgesses passed the first legislation to exclude blacks from the militia.

1652 Because of the possibility of Indian attack, a Massachusetts law required all blacks, Scotsmen, and Native Americans who lived with or were servants of English settlers to participate in military training.

1656 Massachusetts prohibited blacks and Indians from military service because of white fears about possible uprisings.

1660 Connecticut passed a law barring African Americans and Native Americans from military service. By the end of the 17^th century, all of the colonies had enacted similar laws.

1689 During King William’s War, France and its Indian allies threatened England’s North American colonies. Black militia fought and died in this imperial conflict. They also served later in Queen Anne’s War (1702-13), the second of three major confrontations between the French and English for control of North America.

1703 The South Carolina assembly offered to free any slave who captured or killed any Native Americans considered hostile to the colony.

1705 The Virginia Assembly passed legislation preventing "Negro[es], mulatto[s], or Indian[s]" from holding civil, military or ecclesiastical office.

1707 An early South Carolina law required militia captains "to enlist, traine [sic] up and bring into the field for each white, one able slave armed with a gun or lance."

1708 Charles Town, South Carolina, employed "slave cowboys" to help protect the settlement from Indian attack.

1715 South Carolina used slaves to help fight during the Yamasee War.

1729 Armed blacks helped to defend French Louisiana from Indian attack.

1735 Free black militia officers in Louisiana led black troops during an Indian war.

1747 The South Carolina assembly provided for the use of black troops in the event of danger or emergency, and authorized the enlistment of 50 percent of all able-bodied slaves between the ages of 16 and 20.

1756-1763 Black soldiers served during the French and Indian War, the North American colonial struggle which pitted the French and Spanish against the British. Barzillai Lew fought during this conflict as a member of a Massachusetts militia company. He later saw action at the Battle of Bunker Hill during the American Revolution.

5 March 1770 Crispus Attucks, a runaway slave turned Jacktar, and four other colonists were killed during the so-called Boston Massacre, in which British soldiers fired on unarmed men and boys who were causing a disturbance. He was the first African American killed during the American Revolution.

1774 Massachusetts began enlisting blacks in its militia companies.

1774 General Thomas Gage rejected the petition of Boston blacks, who offered to fight for the British in exchange for their freedom.

1774 New York offered to emancipate any slaves who served in the militia for 3 years.

1775 The Massachusetts Committee of Safety directed that only free blacks could serve in the militia.

19 April 1775 Blacks took part in the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The first armed clash between England and her colonists in North America was sparked by the dispatch of 700 British soldiers from the Boston garrison. Sent to seize colonial arms and possibly arrest rebel leaders, the "redcoats" encountered armed resistance instead. Pomp Blackman and Prince Estabrook were two of the black Minutemen who took part in the event immortalized as the "shot heard ‘round the world." Estabrook was killed during the fighting.

May 1775 Black patriots helped Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys take Fort Ticonderoga, New York, by surprise.

15 June 1775 The Continental Congress chose George Washington to head the newly established Continental Army. Shortly after assuming command, Washington ordered his officers not to recruit black troops. He later rescinded this order to allow the enlistment of free blacks. Congress subsequently approved this decision in 1776.

17 June 1775 Several black soldiers (most notably Peter Salem and Salem Poor) helped defend Breed’s Hill in the Battle of Bunker Hill on Charlestown Heights overlooking Boston Harbor. Although tactically a British victory, this confrontation was psychologically significant for the colonists. The patriots met British regulars and successfully held on to their position until they ran out of ammunition.

July 1775 American General Horatio Gates ordered his officers not to recruit "any deserter from the Ministerial army, nor any stroller, negro, or vagabond, or persons suspected of being an enemy to the liberty of America, nor any under eighteen years of age."

26 September 1775 Edward Rutledge proposed that all blacks in the Continental Army be discharged. Voted down by northern delegates, the issue cropped up again in October 1775, because of white fears that the Army was becoming a refuge for runaway slaves. At that time, a committee agreed to exclude blacks (especially slaves) from the service. However, after northern officers and soldiers strongly protested the measure, Washington reversed this decision in December 1775 to permit free blacks to serve.

November 1775 The "Ethiopian Regiment" was formed in Virginia after about 800 blacks responded to the royal governor’s offer of freedom to all male slaves who joined the British forces.

28 November 1775 The Continental Congress formally established the Continental Navy, after authorizing the construction of two warships on 13 October to defend against the British fleet. The approved rules regulating the new military service allowed both free and enslaved blacks to enlist.

5 December 1775 The Massachusetts Bay General Court officially commended Salem Poor for his service as "a brave and gallant soldier."

1776 Virginia opened its militia to all free males regardless of race. Blacks were initially used as pioneers (i.e., members of military construction crews), drummers, and fifers.

1776 Early in the Revolutionary War, South Carolina passed a law declaring the death penalty for any bondsman who joined the British army or navy. As the war progressed, all of the southern states increased patrols, established local guard units, removed slaves from proximity to British forces, and imposed severe punishments on would-be defectors. But these actions could not prevent several thousand slaves from seeking service and freedom with the British.

21 February 1776 Washington issued orders reinforcing his decision to keep slaves from serving in the Continental Army.

26 September 1776 The British in New York City executed Captain Nathan Hale of Connecticut for spying. The hangman was a loyalist slave named Bill Richmond, who later gained fame as a boxing champion in Europe.

1777 After it was discovered that slaves claiming to be free men had enlisted in the militia, the Virginia assembly passed a law prohibiting blacks from joining without a certificate of freedom.

1777 As the war with England dragged on, Congress began to assign troop quotas for each state. Consequently, the need for manpower became so great that the states began recruiting more blacks. Additional black enlistments resulted from the use of a substitution system in which those men wishing to avoid service found it easier and less expensive to provide a black substitute. Most northern states and Maryland also allowed slaves to serve.

1777 The Rhode Island assembly passed a resolution allowing "every able-bodied negro, mulatto or Indian man slave" to enlist in two segregated battalions led by white officers. Among the incentives offered to recruits were equal pay and freedom.

11 September 1777 After the Battle of the Brandywine fought on this date, Edward Hector, a black soldier who served in the Third Pennsylvania Artillery, was awarded a cash bonus for bravery.

October 1777 The General Assembly of Connecticut authorized the selectmen of any town to free any suitable slaves or indentured servants who enlisted in the state militia.

1777 The Rhode Island assembly authorized the enlistment of slaves in the militia. Those blacks who served for the duration of the war would be emancipated.

April 1778 Thomas Kench, an artillery regiment soldier, wrote to the Massachusetts assembly to urge the enlistment of blacks in segregated units. He believed that the "ambition [of the all-black units] would entirely be to outdo the white men in every measure that the fortunes of war calls upon a soldier to endure." However, Massachusetts authorities voted to continue the state’s practice of "taking negroes in our service, intermixed with the white men."

28 June 1778 During the Battle of Monmouth fought in New Jersey on this date, Continental troops, including 700 black soldiers, proved to be the military equals of British regulars.

August 1778 A black battalion of over 300 slaves, promised their freedom after the war and given equal pay, fought during the unsuccessful Franco-American assault on Newport, Rhode Island. Continental Army officers dispatched by Washington to fill depleted ranks in that area had recruited them.

24 August 1778 Adjutant General Alexander Scammell reported that 755 black soldiers, scattered over 14 brigades, were enlisted in the Continental Army. The majority of black soldiers came from the New England states. Of the states outside this region, Virginia sent the largest number of black troops.

29 December 1778 During the British capture of Savannah, Georgia, 3500 regular troops under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell overwhelmed the patriot militia of 1000 men. Quamino Dolly, an elderly black slave, aided the British by guiding them to the town.

1779 Delegates from South Carolina objected to a proposal approved by Congress authorizing the use of slaves as soldiers during the American Revolution.

14 February 1779 Slave patriot Austin Dabney won fame for his participation in the Battle of Kettle Creek, Georgia. During this clash, American militia successfully defeated a Tory brigade. Dabney was the only black who fought in this military action. The Georgia legislature freed Dabney in 1786 to prevent his master from exploiting his military fame. In 1821, legislators granted him a 112-acre farm in honor of his heroism during the Revolutionary War.

March 1779 Congress urged South Carolina and Georgia to raise 3000 black troops to be segregated into all-black units. Owners would be indemnified, and though slaves would receive no pay or bounties, they would be rewarded for their faithful service at the war’s end with freedom and $50. However, both states rejected this recommendation, despite their desperate need for soldiers.

31 May 1779 American troops commanded by General Anthony Wayne captured the British fort at Stony Point, New York. The success of this expedition was attributable to a slave named Pompey, who obtained a British password and helped capture one of the fort’s guards. He was only one of several black spies and undercover agents aiding the patriot cause during the American Revolution.

June 1779 British General Sir Henry Clinton officially promised to emancipate any male slaves who escaped to join the British militia. As the war progressed, both sides increased their recruitment of black troops.

21 June 1779 Spain declared war on England, joining France in the war raging in North America and Europe. The Spanish, however, refused to recognize American independence. Troops dispatched from Spanish Louisiana on expeditions against the British in the South and West included companies of free blacks and slaves commanded by black officers. During the successful campaign to capture Pensacola and Mobile from the British, six black officers were cited for bravery. King Carlos III later awarded medals of valor to them.

3 Sep-28 October 1779 A French fleet under the command of Admiral Jean Baptiste d’Estaing in conjunction with American forces unsuccessfully laid siege to Savannah, Georgia. More than 500 free blacks from Haiti were part of d’Estaing’s troops.

1780 Maryland was the only southern state that allowed slaves to enlist in the militia.

June 1780 An all-black unit known as the Connecticut Colonials served for over 2 years. Disbanded in November 1782, the company’s 52 free blacks and slaves were integrated with the state’s white units in the final months of the war.

23 September 1780 Two blacks aided in the capture of British spy Major John Andre, who served as adjutant general to British General Sir Henry Clinton. Three American militiamen caught him after his meeting with American turncoat General Benedict Arnold. Andre was hanged at Tappan, New York, on 2 Oct.

1781 British General Charles Cornwallis, who was forced to surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, on 19 October 1781, hired slave James Armistead to spy on the Americans. Armistead, however, was actually an undercover agent for the patriots. In recognition of his services, the Virginia legislature emancipated Armistead in 1786.

June 1781 Maryland passed legislation subjecting all free men to a military draft. A total of 750 black troops were inducted and incorporated with other troops.

1781 The New York General Assembly authorized slaves to join the military. After 3 years of service until regularly discharged, those slaves who joined would become free citizens of New York.

1782 The British in New York freed those blacks who joined British ranks before 30 Nov.

1783 Because the re-enslaving of black veterans became so widespread throughout the South, Virginia passed legislation that freed all those slaves who had served in the Revolutionary War.

3 September 1783 American and British representatives signed the Treaty of Paris, recognizing American independence and ending the American Revolution. Almost 10,000 blacks served during the war, 5000 of whom were regular soldiers in the Continental Army.

1783 North Carolina legislators recognized Edward Griffin’s meritorious service during the Revolution by freeing him.

1791 The U.S. Congress passed legislation excluding blacks and Native Americans from the peacetime militia.

May 1792 Additional legislation adopted by Congress restricted enlistment in the militia to white male citizens. All of the state militia laws also reflected the same restriction. Among the reasons cited by later scholars for this decision were white fears about slave rebellions; the misguided belief that African Americans either could not or would not fight; concern that black military service would cause unwanted social changes; and the notion that the arming of blacks indicated the failure of white troops.

1798 Secretary of War James McHenry and Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddert issued separate directives prohibiting the enlistment of blacks for use on warships of the newly established U.S. Navy or in the recently created U.S. Marine Corps. These decisions reversed the non-racial enlistment policy that had been in effect since the Revolutionary War.

1798 Despite earlier efforts to exclude them from the military, blacks served during the undeclared naval war with France. The earlier restriction was never enacted because of the Navy’s continual need for personnel. The hard lot of sailors in this period and the difficulty of enlisting experience seaman left recruiters little choice but to open the service to anyone, regardless of race.

22 June 1807 Three of the four sailors forcibly removed by the British after the H.M.S. Leopard fired on the U.S.S. Chesapeake were black. They were identified as William Ware, Daniel Martin and John Strachan. The volatile incident began when the British frigate halted the U.S. ship just outside the 3-mile limit off the coast of Virginia to demand the return of the alleged deserters. The British killed 3 Americans and wounded 18, but only 1 of the sailors removed from the Chesapeake, a white man named John Wilson, was later proven to be a deserter. Britain returned two of the black sailors to the United States, but the third died in England.

1812-1815 Free blacks and slaves served during the War of 1812. The British once again recruited slaves for their Navy as well as armed escaped slaves in Florida and various Indian tribes.

1812 Louisiana permitted free blacks to serve in the state militia.

3 March 1813 The U.S. Navy officially authorized the enlistment of free blacks, because of continuing manpower shortages.

10 September 1813 African Americans fought during the Battle of Lake Erie, a significant U.S. victory during the War of 1812. About 10 to 25 percent of Admiral Oliver H. Perry’s men were black.

2 August 1814 Almost 1000 blacks in New York City helped to fortify the Brooklyn Heights approach guarding the town from British attack.

September 1814 White leaders in Philadelphia requested aid from two black preachers to help organize the city’s defense after British troops attacked Washington, D.C. Black workers helped to refortify the west bank of the Schuylkill River south of town.

11 September 1814 Black soldiers participated in the American victory at Plattsburg, New York, where U.S. regular troops and militia manned field fortifications protecting the road to the Hudson Valley and New York City.

21 September 1814 General Andrew Jackson issued a proclamation urging the "Free Colored Inhabitants of Louisiana" to volunteer for service in his army. Black recruits were offered equal pay and the same bounty in money and lands as white volunteers. Those blacks who joined were organized into segregated units with white officers and black noncommissioned officers.

October 1814 The New York legislature authorized the formation of two black militia regiments headed by white officers. Those free blacks who enlisted received equal pay, while slaves who joined with their masters’ permission were freed at the war’s end.

8 January 1815 Two battalions of 430 black soldiers fought with General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans, two weeks after the Treaty of Ghent had been signed, ending the War of 1812. Black troops from the West Indies also fought for the British.

3 March 1815 Congress passed legislation creating a postwar army of 10,000 men, but no blacks were recruited. Later that year, the War Department issued a memorandum that included disparaging remarks about African Americans.

1816 The U.S. Navy officially excluded slaves from serving on board ships or in shipyards.

Nov-December 1817 U.S. troops destroyed the Negro Fort on the Apalachicola River in Spanish Florida. Manned primarily by escaped slaves, the fortification had been used to continue attacks on the Americans after the War of 1812.

1818 Blacks fought with the Seminoles against the U.S. Army during both the First and Second Seminole Wars. In the latter conflict, the Seminoles and their black allies held off their white adversaries from 1835 to 1843. Although ultimately defeated, it cost the U.S. government $40 million and 1800 lives to finally subdue this group of intrepid fighters.

1820 Congress prohibited the enlistment of blacks or mulattos in the U.S. Army. This was reinforced by a subsequent regulation issued by the Army in 1821, limiting service to free white males. The state militias instituted similar restrictions.

1830 Ohio passed a law excluding African Americans from serving in the state militia.

1831 Greenbury Logan, one of the first blacks to settle in Texas, was one of the few African Americans who fought for the Lone Star Republic’s independence from Mexico.

1836 Over 300 men defending Goliad, Texas, were slaughtered by Mexican troops after laying down their arms. Included among the dead was fifer Peter Allen, a black musician who served with Captain Wyatt’s Company.

1839 In response to white complaints about the use of black sailors, the U.S. Navy imposed a quota limiting African Americans to five percent of the service’s total personnel.

1842 South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun introduced a bill to prohibit blacks from serving in the Navy, except as menial labor. Although passed by the Senate, the House never brought the bill to a vote.

24 April 1846 The excuse for war needed by President James K. Polk after Mexico refused to negotiate with John Slidell came with a minor skirmish on this date. Mexican cavalry clashed with U.S. troops blockading a Mexican town. Only a few African Americans served during the Mexican-American War, because of the increasing racial prejudice and growing North-South split over the slavery issue. They were present unofficially with the Army as personal servants of white officers and in other support roles. Officially, at least 1000 black sailors served on board U.S. ships blockading Mexican harbors during the conflict.

A CHRONOLOGY OF
AFRICAN AMERICAN MILITARY SERVICE
From the Civil War to World War I

The opening shots of the Civil War fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on 12 April 1861 once again raised questions on both sides of the conflict about the feasibility and wisdom of using African Americans and Native Americans in a combat role. From the beginning of the armed clash, both sides used African Americans for a variety of essential but oftentimes menial support tasks. But neither side expected the war to last long enough to warrant the use of nonwhite combatants. What ultimately tipped the scales in favor of black participation was this first truly modern war’s seemingly insatiable demand for manpower, along with President Abraham Lincoln’s decision to transform the conflict from a fight to preserve the Union into a crusade to abolish slavery.

Though initially denied the right to bear arms in the first year of the Civil War, by the end of 1862 black soldiers were fighting for the Union. Volunteer units from different states, along with the U.S. Colored Troops, went on to serve with distinction throughout the Civil War. Black soldiers won a total of 15 Congressional Medals of Honor, while another 7 African-American sailors were also honored for their heroism. By January 1864, even Confederate officers began to appreciate the need for recruiting blacks for military service. The southern civilian leadership, however, opposed the idea until the final months of the war. By the time President Jefferson Davis signed a bill on 13 March 1865 authorizing the enlistment of slaves beginning 3 April, it was too late to save the Confederacy.

After General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House on 9 April 1865, many of the Union’s all-black units began to muster out. Several other black units, however, remained on duty in the south during the Reconstruction period. The permanent presence of blacks in the peacetime military seemed assured by the formation of state militias allowing African Americans to serve, and the passage of federal legislation in 1866 that reorganized the armed forces and permitted blacks to enlist in the Regular Army. By 1869, the U.S. Army had four all-black units: the 9^th and 10^th Cavalry as well as the 24^th and 25^th Infantry regiments (the latter consolidated from four infantry regiments established earlier). In the more than half century from 1865 to 1916, members of these Regular Army units repeatedly proved their prowess in the Indian Wars of 1867-1891, the Spanish-American War (1898), the Philippines Insurrection (1899-1901), and Pershing’s punitive expedition into Mexico in 1916. African- American soldiers and sailors again won respect and recognition for their heroism by winning several Congressional Medals of Honor as well as laudatory comments from senior officers and the press.

Despite their loyalty, bravery, and ability to endure under adverse conditions, African-American military men suffered many indignities because of racial discrimination. During the Civil War, blacks confronted inequalities in pay, length of enlistment, quality of weaponry and medical services, and promotional opportunities. By the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^th, "Jim Crow" discrimination and white contempt for blacks were increasingly reflected in the military environment. One of the worst insults given to African-American servicemen involved unfounded white doubts about black servicemen’s fighting abilities and dedication to duty. As they had demonstrated time and again, when confronted with the enemy, black soldiers fought bravely because they were Americans, not because of their skin color or ethnic heritage.

The adverse conditions and discrimination that were part of the black military experience in the period between the Civil War and America’s entry into World War I in 1917 grew worse as the new century progressed. Black troops had to put up with substandard housing, equipment, and food. The difficulties experienced by African Americans who aspired to military command prohibited all but a handful of black officers from being commissioned. Numerous restrictions were placed on African-American servicemen concerning assigned duties and promotional opportunities. As the nation’s armed forces modernized, blacks were excluded from the more technical areas. The official reason cited for these discriminatory practices was the lack of technical skill and general intelligence among black soldiers. Inevitably, such racist attitudes had a negative impact on the morale of the affected troops. Racially spawned clashes occurred more frequently between black soldiers and the communities surrounding the posts where African Americans were assigned, and at times escalated into serious riots, usually resulting in additional problems for the black troops. Racial tension in the armed forces and throughout the nation reached critical levels in the years preceding the outbreak of World War I.

But African Americans continued to join both the U.S. Army and Navy between 1898 and 1917, even though both services were beginning to cut back on the number of black recruits. In spite of the increasing racism, many black men still viewed the military as a place where they could prove their individual ability and worth in service to their country. They also hoped to win greater social participation for all blacks through their military sacrifice. Unfortunately these hopes were not realized for most African Americans in the early years of the 20^th century where "Jim Crow" held sway. Yet when the call to arms came on 2 April 1917, African Americans again stood ready to give their lives for the freedom usually denied them.

New Orleans Native Guard

Contrabands, Camp Brightwood. Washington, D.C., ca. 1863

Harriet Tubman

Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers of the Second Battalion, Virginia Volunteers

Black soldiers in action at Island Mound

Jefferson Davis

Lewis Douglass

William Carney

Ulysses S. Grant

Fort Pillow

Robert E. Lee

McClean House, Appomattox Court House, VA

9th Cavalry

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Buffalo Soldiers

1861 Free blacks throughout the North petitioned President Lincoln for the right to bear arms, but their service was not accepted until later in the Civil War.

April 1861 The free blacks of New Orleans, Louisiana, began organizing a Native Guard battalion with officers of their own race. The state government approved this action and commissioned the black officers. The commanding general of the white and black troops sent a telegram to Confederate authorities in November 1861 because he was "elated at the success of being first to place negroes in the field together with white troops…." Since their first duty was to defend New Orleans, the Native Guards refused to serve elsewhere for the Confederacy once Union forces captured the city. Many of the men later fought for the Union.

15 April 1861 President Abraham Lincoln declared a state of insurrection and called for 75,000 volunteers to serve for 3 months. At this time, the Union Army officially rejected black volunteers. Lincoln did not want to risk antagonizing the Border States or the Butternut Region; many northern whites did not think it appropriate for blacks to fight a "white man’s war;" and most whites (including the president) did not think blacks would be good soldiers. However, the Secretary of the Navy authorized the enlistment of escaped slaves.

June 1861 The Tennessee legislature authorized the governor "to receive into the military service of the State all male free persons of color, between the age of 15 and 50, who should receive $8 per month, clothing and rations." If an insufficient number of blacks joined voluntarily, provisions were also included allowing officials "to press such persons until the requisite number is obtained."

6 August 1861 In an attempt to keep the Confederates from using slaves for military labor, the U.S. Congress passed legislation making it legal to confiscate any property (including slaves) used to aid the rebels.

September 1861 The Secretary of the Navy authorized the enlistment of blacks into the U.S. Navy. Although previously barred from service in the U.S. Army or Marine Corps, "Negroes were readily accepted all along the coast on board the war vessels, it being no departure from the regular and established practice in the service." By the end of the Civil War, traditional figures show that about 25 percent of Union sailors were African Americans, but more recent figures indicate that perhaps only 8 percent of the Navy’s total manpower was black.

1862 Harriet Tubman, probably the most well known "conductor" on the Underground Railroad, served as a nurse, cook, and laundress to Union troops in South Carolina. She also supported the Union cause as a spy, scout, and guerilla leader. In June 1863, she led Union troops in a raid along the Combahee River. Described as "the only American woman to lead troops, black or white, on the field of battle," she and men under the command of Colonel James Montgomery freed 750 to 800 slaves, confiscated property worth thousands of dollars, and destroyed several million dollars of commissary stores and cotton.

May 1862 Major General David C. Hunter pioneered the recruiting of blacks by organizing the 1^st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry at Beaufort. The War Department disrupted this effort until the end of August 1862. Although not officially called to active duty until 31 January 1863, Company A of Hunter’s 1^st South Carolina was unofficially the very first unit of former slaves permitted to join the Union Army. It was redesignated the 33^rd Regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT) in February 1864. It mustered out in January 1866.

June 1862 Flamboyant Kansas Senator James H. Lane began recruiting troops from the growing number of black fugitives who escaped or were liberated from their masters in Missouri and Arkansas. Known as the 1^st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry, unit members wore red silk pantaloons and wool jackets. By late August there were 500 ex-slaves camped outside Leavenworth, trained and ready to do battle. The unit would later become known as the 79^th Infantry Regiment, USCT.

July 1862 The U.S. Congress passed the Militia Act, which authorized the president to use black troops in combat. Lincoln, however, continued to use black manpower primarily in a support role as laborers, kitchen workers, nurses, scouts or spies. Although the figures vary, at least 186,000 African Americans eventually served in the Union Army, while another 30,000 blacks enlisted in the Navy. Several thousand others also supported the war effort as laborers. At least 68,000 blacks were killed or wounded during the Civil War.

25 August 1862 After the disastrous Peninsular Campaign, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton ordered Brigadier General Rufus Saxton to organize 5000 black troops who were to receive equal pay and rations with whites.

September 1862 General Benjamin F. Butler in the Department of the Gulf began recruiting blacks for service in the segregated Louisiana Native Guard regiments. The line officers of the 1^st and 2^nd Regiments were black, while the field officers were white. The 3^rd Regiment was "officered regardless of color." Composed of free men and former slaves, beginning on 27 September 1862, these three units became the first all-black regiments officially mustered into Union Army ranks.

27-28 October 1862 The first use of black troops in combat during the Civil War involved a 225-man detachment from the 1^st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry, who fought in a 2-day engagement at Island Mound, Missouri. A total of 10 men were killed and 12 were wounded. Contemporary accounts of the battle praised the black soldiers’ martial skills and bravery.

23 December 1862 Confederate President Jefferson Davis "raised the black flag" against the North by signing a proclamation ordering the execution of any white Union officers of black troops. In addition, "all negro slaves captured in arms" were to be turned over to the authorities "of the respective States to which they belong, and…dealt with according to the laws of said States." This decision was subsequently endorsed in May 1863 by a resolution passed by the Confederate Congress. After the massacre at Fort Pillow in April 1864 (see separate entry), President Lincoln responded by announcing an equal exchange of executions and hard labor sentences for Confederate officers and enlisted men being held prisoner by the Union.

1863 Secretary of War Stanton ordered that black volunteers be paid at a lower rate than white volunteers, because blacks were considered to be auxiliaries. Instead of the $13 per month paid white troops, regardless if they were volunteers or regular army, African Americans were paid $10, less a $3 deduction for clothing. Many black regiments refused to accept the lesser amount. In addition to less pay initially, African Americans also faced other forms of discrimination: longer enlistment periods, little chance for promotion, inadequate medical care, inferior weapons, and usually no prisoner-of-war status.

1863 The 9^th Regiment USCT composed the first known battle hymn by black soldiers, "They Look Like Men of War."

1 January 1863 Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, a preliminary version of which was first announced to the public in September 1862, went into effect on this date. Provisions for the use of black troops were included in the document. The preliminary statement had opened the armed forces to Confederate slaves who were able to escape and make their way to Union lines.

9 February 1863 In response to Lincoln’s proclamation and with the federal government’s permission, Governor John A. Andrew of Massachusetts ordered the organization of the all-black 54^th Massachusetts Regiment. On 21 February 1863, the first 25 volunteers were organized at Camp Meigs, Readville, Massachusetts. Because of problems enlisting enough black volunteers only from New England, the recruitment area was expanded to encompass the entire Union and its territories. Help from black and white abolitionists, most notably Frederick Douglass, also helped Massachusetts attract the necessary numbers of African Americans. After being involved in a number of significant campaigns during the war, members of the regiment mustered out in August 1865.

3 March 1863 Congress passed the first national Conscription Act, requiring the enlistment of males between 20 and 45. Substitutes or a payment of $300 could be used for exemption. Although the new law did not exclude African Americans, resentment against the act erupted into violence against blacks who were accused of starting the Civil War. During the four days from 13 to 16 July 1863, primarily Irish-Americans and other poorer men hit hard by the new act, participated in draft riots in New York City, destroying property and lynching blacks. Federal troops were called in to restore order.

14 March 1863 During the Battle of Port Hudson (the last Confederate fort on the lower Mississippi River), five all-black Louisiana regiments sustained severe losses in the unsuccessful Union assault on the fortification. Although a Union defeat, the black troops received considerable praise for their gallantry and determination under fire.

May 1863 The 55^th Massachusetts Regiment was organized.

May 1863 Pennsylvania established Camp William Penn to train black enlistees.

1 May 1863 Major General Nathaniel P. Banks issued General Orders No. 40, organizing the Corps d’Afrique in Louisiana. It was originally planned that the Corps would consist of 18 regiments representing infantry, artillery, and cavalry.

22 May 1863 General Order No. 143 established the Bureau of Colored Troops. Between 178,000 and 200,000 ex-slaves, free blacks, and white officers served under this organization.

28 May 1863 The 54^th Massachusetts embarked for South Carolina.

6 June 1863 General Order No. 47 redesignated the 1^st to 4^th Regiments of the Louisiana Native Guards as the 1^st to 4^th Regiments of Infantry of the Corps d’Afrique. Black officers of the first three regiments were displaced by whites.

28 June 1863 Black troops with the small Union garrison at Milliken’s Bend (near Vicksburg, Mississippi) again proved their military mettle in ferocious hand-to-hand combat until the attacking Confederate force was driven off by the Union warship Choctaw.

July 1863 General Quincy A. Gillmore ordered that no distinction be made among troops in his command.

18 July 1863 Probably the best known of the all-black regiments mustered during the Civil War, the 54^th Massachusetts earned widespread fame for its unsurpassed bravery during the assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina. The unit’s white commanding officer, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, and 116 enlisted men died in the unsuccessful attempt to take the Confederate fort. Another 156 members of the 54^th were wounded or captured during this battle. Union forces finally occupied Fort Wagner on 6 September 1863, after it had been evacuated by the Confederates.

18 July 1863 Sergeant William H. Carney’s bravery under fire during the assault on Fort Wagner earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor. He was the first African American to receive this prestigious award. Another 14 black soldiers were also honored with this medal for their heroism during the Civil War.

August 1863 Iowa authorities began enlisting blacks as part of the state’s quota. On 11 Oct, nine full companies, designated the 1^st African Descent Regiment Iowa Volunteers, were mustered into the Union Army.

24 August 1863 In a letter to the Adjutant General, General Ulysses S. Grant noted that, "The Negro troops are easier to preserve discipline among than are our white troops, and I doubt not will prove equally good for garrison duty. All that have been tried have fought bravely." These sentiments echoed those expressed the day before in a letter to President Lincoln where Grant stated, "By arming the Negro we have added a powerful ally. They will make good soldiers…."

29 August 1863 Because of a lack of black enthusiasm for enlisting after General Banks’ changes creating the Corps d’Afrique, the Army issued General Order 64. It assigned responsibility to the Provost Marshal General for conscripting "all able-bodied men of color" into the Corps d’Afrique. Strict guidelines governing the behavior of Corps soldiers were also established.

17 September 1863 General Quincy A. Gillmore issued General Order No. 77 prohibiting the use of black troops "to prepare camps and perform menial duty for white troops."

2 January 1864 Officers in the Confederate Army of Tennessee proposed recruiting blacks for military service in exchange for freedom. Confederate leaders rejected the suggestion at this time.

8 January 1864 Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts introduced a bill to encourage army enlistments. A measure to redress the pay inequity between black and white volunteers was also included.

11 March 1864 Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew commissioned First Sergeant Stephen A. Swails as Second Lieutenant, Company F, 54^th Massachusetts. Andrew subsequently promoted two more black sergeants to second lieutenants, and within 3 weeks both men were promoted to first lieutenant. Another eight sergeants in the 55^th Massachusetts were also commissioned as second lieutenants, but only three actually mustered in as officers.

April 1864 The 1^st Regiment Corps d’Afrique was renamed the 7^th Regiment USCT. It was redesignated the 10^th Regiment USCT the following month. In October 1865, the 77^th Regiment Infantry was consolidated with the 10^th. In addition, all of the other Corps d’Afrique units were eventually redesignated as USCT regiments.

13 April 1864 After the Union surrender at Fort Pillow, Kentucky, troops under the command of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest massacred about 300 unarmed white and black soldiers.

18 April 1864 Union Major General Frederick Steele, during a diversionary campaign south of Little Rock, Arkansas, sent a party of 1000 troops on a foraging expedition. Among Steele’s troops was the 1^st Kansas Colored Infantry. While returning from their successful quest for supplies, the detachment encountered a significantly larger Confederate force at Poison Spring. After intense fighting, the Confederates prevailed. The 1^st Kansas sustained very heavy losses in this skirmish—117 killed out of 182 men who fought (64 percent). Many of the fatalities were the result of intense racial hatred. The Confederates and their Choctaw allies killed the African-American soldiers as they attempted to surrender or as they laid wounded on the battlefield.

15 June 1864 After months of debate, Congress passed a law giving African Americans equal pay, arms, equipment, and medical services. This same legislation also freed the enslaved wives and children of black soldiers serving with Union forces.

19 June 1864 Joachim Pease won the Congressional Medal of Honor. A black seaman who was the loader of the number one gun, Pease served on the USS Kearsarge, which sank the Confederate raider Alabama off the coast of France on this date. He was one of seven black sailors to be so honored for their heroism during the Civil War.

1 August 1864 The War Department ruled that black troops would be given full pay retroactive to 1 January 1864, provided they were free men on 19 April 1861.

5 August 1864 During the Battle of Mobile Bay, John Lawson, a black landsman on the USS Hartford, emerged as a hero when he continued to man his duty station despite serious injury. His action kept Union guns operative. He was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

September 1864 General William T. Sherman wrote to Washington authorities to protest the organization of black troops in his department. Years later, however, he wrote to Secretary of War James D. Cameron, advising him to remove the word "black" from military regulations and urging him to integrate the armed forces.

November-December 1864 Despite his earlier letter, black troops actively participated in Sherman’s March to the Sea. They served as members of the raiding parties and expeditions sent out to intercept and disrupt Confederate communications as well as to destroy railroads and military stores.

December 1864 The 1^st Regiment Kansas Volunteers was redesignated the 79^th Regiment USCT.

1865 President Lincoln made Martin R. Delany a major, the first African American to be commissioned at this rank in the U.S. Army. He also approved Delany’s plan for placing a black regiment in the field, but the Civil War ended before it could be implemented. Delany was also a well known advocate for the establishment of a black nation in the American west or in Africa.

1865 Lincoln proposed giving the vote to blacks who were either Civil War veterans or educated. Although not enacted at this time, the right of African-American males to vote was eventually embodied in the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was ratified on 3 February 1870.

18 February 1865 General Robert E. Lee again agreed with plans to arm free blacks and ex-slaves to fight for the Confederacy. In a letter on this date, he wrote, "…with reference to the employment of negroes as soldiers[,] I think the measure not only expedient but necessary…. [I]n my opinion, under proper circumstances the negroes will make efficient soldiers." In an earlier letter of 11 January 1865, Lee recommended a special inducement to convince slaves to fight. "Such an interest we can give our negroes by granting immediate freedom to all who enlist, and freedom at the end of the war to the families of those who discharge their duties faithfully, whether they survive or not…."

3 March 1865 Since most African Americans serving with Union forces were not free men before 19 April 1861, many units used mild subterfuge to guarantee them full pay. Consequently, protests about the inequity of the earlier legislation continued to surface. On this date, however, Congress finally put the issue to rest when it authorized equal pay for all black soldiers retroactive to their actual dates of enlistment.

13 March 1865 Confederate President Jefferson Davis signed legislation authorizing the enlistment of up to 300,000 slaves, who would be emancipated if they honorably discharged their duties.

3 April 1865 The day appointed to begin the drafting of slaves for military service came too late to save the Confederacy. The war ended in a Union victory less than a week later.

9 April 1865 Black troops were among the Union forces at Appomattox Court House when General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia. African-American soldiers had fought in all of the significant campaigns in the Petersburg-Richmond area that helped to bring the Civil War to a close.

11-14 May 1865 The last battle of the Civil War was fought in Texas near the Rio Grande. African-American troops from the 62^nd U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment and white soldiers from the 2^nd Texas Cavalry Regiment and the 34^th Indiana Volunteer Infantry participated in the fighting which took place between White’s Ranch and Palmeto Ranch.

1866 Soon after the Regular Army established its black regiments, 22 states and the District of Columbia organized similar National Guard units. Reconstruction governments in the South recruited large numbers of African Americans to help maintain order and ensure Republican control, but black communities throughout the North and Midwest took the lead in getting the new units organized in those areas. One major difference between the state and federal units was the commissioning of African Americans as company and field grade officers in the National Guard.

1-3 May 1866 During 3 days of racial violence in Memphis, Tennessee, white civilians and police killed 46 African Americans and injured numerous others. At least two whites were also killed. In addition, mobs burned 90 houses, 12 schools, and 4 churches. The establishment of Fort Pickering, a post for black troops, and the use of black soldiers to patrol the city contributed to the tension that erupted into one of the bloodiest riots of the Reconstruction Era. It was only one of several violent outbreaks in the South that helped Radical Republicans win support for their own plan of Military Reconstruction.

28 July 1866 Radical Republicans in Congress pushed through legislation allowing blacks to serve in the armed forces during peacetime. In the resulting reorganization, the U.S. Army established 67 regiments, 6 of which were all black. There were two cavalry (the 9^th and 10^th) and four infantry (the 38^th, 39^th, 40^th and 41^st) units, each containing about 1000 men. Blacks were excluded from the five artillery units, because white leaders believed African Americans did not have the required technical skills. Most of the blacks who enlisted in the reorganized U.S. Army were Civil War veterans.

1869 The Army reorganized its black infantry units, combining the original four regiments into two—the 24^th and 25^th Infantry. They, along with the 9^th and 10^th Cavalry, saw action in the ongoing Indian wars that troubled the West between 1865 and 1898. During this period of service, the Native Americans began referring to the black troopers as "buffalo soldiers." This nickname was derived partly from the soldiers’ physical characteristics (i.e., dark skin and tightly curled hair) which were reminiscent of the buffalo, and partly from the Indian warriors’ respect for the black troopers’ fighting abilities.

1869 Robert Brown Elliot served as adjutant general of South Carolina, with responsibility for establishing a state militia to protect black and white citizens from the Ku Klux Klan. The following year, he became the first black general to command the South Carolina National Guard.

"Harlem Hellfighters"

Sgt. Henry Johnson

803rd Pioneer Infantry Band

James Reese Europe

W.E.B. DuBois

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369^th Infantry Regiment Member

James Reese Europe

Benjamin O. Davis, Jr

Dr. Charles Richard Drew

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Benjamin O. Davis, Sr.

Colonel Rollo C. Ditto

October 1916 After joining the French Foreign Legion before the war, then serving with the French infantry in 1915, African American Eugene Jacques Bullard transferred into the French Air Service, where he became a highly decorated combat pilot. Known as the "Black Swallow of Death," Bullard flew over 20 combat missions. Despite his outstanding record, Bullard was never allowed to fly for the United States, even after it entered the war.

1916-17 Because of the growing bias against the use of black soldiers, African Americans serving in the regular Army and National Guard numbered about 20,000 (approximately 2 percent of all service-men). There were only three black commissioned officers. Despite the Army’s need for men when war was declared, it initially continued to reject most African-American volunteers.

1917 Dr. Louis T. Wright, the first black physician appointed to the staff of a white hospital in New York City (1919), served during WWI as a first lieutenant in the Medical Corps. He introduced the injection method of smallpox vaccination eventually adopted by the U.S. Army.

1917 Lloyd A. Hall was appointed Assistant Chief Inspector of Powder and Explosives in the U.S. Ordnance Department. He held the position for 2 years.

1917 Noted architect Vertner W. Tandy was the first black officer in the New York National Guard. Commissioned as a first lieutenant, he was later promoted to captain, then major.

1917 Alton Augustus Adams became the first black bandleader in the U.S. Navy.

1917 The Army forced its highest-ranking African-American officer to retire, supposedly because he was unfit for duty. Although Colonel Charles R. Young suffered from high blood pressure and Bright’s disease, white leaders’ rejection of black proposals that Young command an all-black division may actually have been the motive behind the Army’s decision. Determined to continue his Army career, Young rode his horse from Ohio to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate his fitness for duty. However, he was not reinstated until November 1918, at which time the Army assigned him to Fort Grant, Illinois, where he trained black troops.

1917 The American Red Cross rejected the applications of qualified African-American nurses on the grounds that the U.S. Army did not accept black women.

25 March 1917 The District of Columbia National Guard, under command of African-American officer Major James E. Walker, was assigned to protect the national capital.

6 April 1917 The United States entered World War I after President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany. The Senate concurred on 4 April 1917, while the House agreed on 6 Apr. Over 367,000 African-American soldiers served in this conflict, 1400 of whom were commissioned officers. Most blacks were placed in noncombat Services of Supply (SOS) units (i.e., labor battalions); for example, 33 percent of the stevedore force in Europe was black. At least 100,000 African Americans were sent to France during WWI. Despite the American restriction on the use of blacks in combat units, about 40,000 African Americans fought in the war.

18 May 1917 Congress passed the Selective Service Act authorizing the registration and draft of all men between 21 and 30, including African Americans. About 700,000 black men volunteered for the draft on the first day, while over 2 million ultimately registered. Previously, in April 1917, the American Negro Loyal Legion advised the federal government that it could quickly raise about 10,000 African-American volunteers. Shortly after the draft was instituted, the Central Committee of Negro College Men organized at Howard University furnished over 1500 names in response to an Army requirement for 200 college-educated blacks to be trained at a promised officers school. Despite African-American support for the war effort, some Army leaders had doubts about enlisting large numbers of blacks because senior officers either feared the negative response of southern politicians, believed blacks could not fight, or were concerned about possible subversion by an "oppressed minority." Because of the large number of blacks seeking to enlist, the War Department ordered that African- Americans not be recruited.

19 May 1917 After Congress authorized 14 training camps for white officer candidates but none for African Americans, black protests and pressure on Army officials and Congress forced the War Department to correct this discriminatory situation. On this date, the U.S. Army established the first all-black officer training school at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. About half of the black officers during the WWI were commissioned in the first 4 months after classes began on 15 June 1917. Of these officer candidates, 250 were drawn from the noncommissioned officers (NCOs) of the four black Regular Army units.

21 May 1917 Leo Pinckney was the first African American drafted in WWI.

June 1917 The first American troop ship dispatched to France included over 400 black stevedores and longshoremen. By November 1918, about 50,000 African Americans in the U.S. Army were employed as laborers in French ports. The SOS units handled a variety of duties: loading and unloading cargo, constructing roads and camps, transporting materials, laying railroad tracks, digging graves and ditches, serving as motorcycle couriers and military train porters, etc. Their physical accomplishments often impressed the French. In September 1918, for example, black servicemen unloaded 25,000 tons of cargo per day for several weeks, well over the amount French officials estimated could be moved in one month.

23 August 1917 Increasing racial tension involving U.S. servicemen eventually flared into a major riot in Texas where black troops were assigned to Camp Logan to guard the construction of a training facility. Members of the 1^st and 3^rd Battalions, 24^th Infantry Regiment stationed in the Houston area had been provoked by weeks of racial harassment culminating in an attack on, then arrest of Corporal Charles W. Baltimore. These racial problems were compounded by the absence of the stabilizing influence of experienced black NCOs and the presence of inexperienced and insensitive white officers. At least 100 unit members responded to the tense, rumor-charged situation by marching on the town, where they opened fire on the police station, killing 16 whites (including 5 policemen) and wounding 12 others. In the next 14 months, the Army quickly court martialed 6 men from the 1^st Battalion and 149 from the 3^rd in four separate trials. Army investigators identified individual soldiers involved and brought charges against each one separately. During the trial of the first 64 men charged, 5 were freed, 4 were convicted of lesser charges, 42 were given life sentences, and 13 were condemned to die. Another 16 men were condemned to hang in two later trials.

September 1917 Emmett J. Scott was appointed Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of War. A former secretary to Booker T. Washington, Scott worked to assure the nondiscriminatory application of the Selective Service Act.

17 October 1917 The Army commissioned 639 black officers who had been trained at the new all-black facility established at Fort Des Moines. By war’s end, the school had produced 1400 commissioned officers, many of whom commanded labor battalions. Others, however, served in combat with distinction.

11 December 1917 The Army carried out the executions of the first 13 men (one of whom was Corporal Charles W. Baltimore) condemned to die for their role in the Houston riot. To lessen public reaction, there was no prior public announcement of the executions, nor did the Army allow any appeals. Because of black Americans’ very negative response to these actions, President Woodrow Wilson was forced to modify existing War Department policy. From then on, the president would examine the death penalty verdicts in all military law cases. Of the 16 men condemned in two subsequent trials, 10 had their sentences commuted, while the death sentences were upheld for 6 soldiers found guilty of killing specific individuals.

27 December 1917 The 369^th Infantry Regiment (or "Harlem Hellfighters") was the first all-black U.S. combat unit to be shipped overseas during WWI. Unfortunately, this distinction was the result of a violent racial incident in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The unit’s unquenchable desire to win justice and avenge a physical attack on their drum major, Noble Sissle, ultimately forced the War Department to send them to Europe. Because there was no official combat role at this time for America’s black soldiers, General John J. Pershing responded to France’s request for troops by assigning the 369^th (and the 93^rd Division’s other regiments) to the French army. The Germans dubbed the unit the "Hellfighters," because in 191 days of duty at the front they never had any men captured nor ground taken. Almost one-third of the unit died in combat. The French government awarded the entire regiment the Croix de Guerre. Sergeant Henry Johnson was the first African American to win this prestigious award when he singlehandedly saved Private Needham Roberts and fought off a German raiding party.

1917-18 African-American women supported the WWI effort by organizing and serving as hostesses at YMCA centers for black soldiers ready to embark for France. They also served as nurses with the integrated Field Medical Supply Depot in Washington, D.C.

1917-18 After the racial clashes in Texas and other parts of the United States, Army leaders became increasingly distrustful of the Army’s longstanding black units. The 24^th and 25^th Infantry Regiments never went to France. Instead the 24^th Infantry spent the entire conflict guarding far-flung outposts on the Mexican border, while the 25^th Infantry was sent to the Philippines and Hawaii. The Army also abandoned its plans to raise 16 regiments to accommodate the numerous black draftees, because it feared the likelihood of other violent racial incidents. It eventually activated the all-black 92^nd and 93^rd Infantry Divisions, both of which suffered during the war from incomplete training, the prejudice of white officers, inadequately prepared replacements, and the lack of Army enthusiasm and support. Compounding these handicaps was the fact that all too often during combat in WWI black troops were also blamed unfairly for problems caused by inadequate white leadership as well as ineffectual combat planning and coordination.

1917-18 Although it was never formally organized as a division (it had only four infantry regiments and no service or support units), the 93^rd Infantry Division actually achieved a better combat record than the 92^nd Infantry Division. Much of the division’s success in battle was the result of unit cohesiveness among the former National Guard unit members who made up the bulk of the 93^rd Division’s troops. Another important factor was the assignment of the division to the French, who trained, equipped, and fielded these men without regard to race. Strangely enough, white U.S. Army officers thought they were disparaging the combat effectiveness of the 93^rd by attributing it to the integration of the French forces. It took the U.S. military three more decades and two more overseas wars to realize the inefficiency of its shortsighted and discriminatory policy of racial segregation.

1918 The 369^th Infantry’s regimental band, conducted by noted black musician and composer James Reese Europe, was credited with introducing American jazz to France and the rest of Europe. The band traveled throughout France in the early months of this year, giving concerts that featured this uniquely African-American music. Black musicians in other regiments also helped to spread an appreciation for jazz to Europe’s civilian population.

1918 Ralph Waldo Tyler, a reporter and government official, was the first and only official African-American war correspondent in WWI. The Committee on Public Information accredited Tyler to report on war news of interest to black Americans.

1918 A racial incident in Manhattansville, Kansas, was sparked by a local theater’s refusal to admit a black sergeant, a type of discrimination prohibited by state law. The theater owner was fined after other African-American soldiers and the black press openly protested the event. To avoid similar problems in the future, however, the local Army commander ordered black servicemen "to refrain from behavior that would provoke a racial response."

June 1918 The all-black 92^nd ("Buffalo") Division, which had been activated in October 1917, arrived in France, then moved to the front in August 1918. Formed entirely of African-American draftees, many of the division’s men (mainly those from the 365^th and 366^th regiments) were assigned to road-building details. However, members of the 367^th and 368^th regiments remained under fire almost constantly until the armistice of November 1918. Despite individual acts of heroism, Army leaders maintained that the division did not perform well under combat conditions. Much of their criticism was based on the 368^th Infantry Regiment’s inability to withstand the German assault in the Argonne forest in September 1918, although white units in the area suffered the same failure. After its transfer to another command, the 92^nd Division’s performance improved with better training and increased morale. For its combat success and bravery at Metz in November 1918, the French awarded the Croix de Guerre to the 1^st Battalion, 367^th Infantry Regiment. Unfortunately, the division’s accomplishments could not overcome the racism of its white leadership. The latter’s poor opinion of the unit, which they attributed to undesirable racial characteristics, had a significant impact on the U.S. armed forces’ subsequent policies on the use of African-American servicemen. The unit was disbanded after WWI, but was reactivated in October 1942 for duty during WWII.

July 1918 In an editorial written for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) publication, Crisis, W.E.B. DuBois urged black Americans to put the war effort before their own needs by "closing ranks" with white Americans in support of the fighting in France. His sentiments were partly based on the continuing belief that African-American military participation might help win greater acceptance and freedom for all blacks in the United States. They were also partly based on DuBois’ own desire to win a commission with Army intelligence, which he later declined.

August 1918 Senior U.S. Army officers had the 369^th Infantry’s musicians ordered back from the front to support troop morale by entertaining Allied soldiers in camps and hospitals.

7 August 1918 At the urging of U.S. Army officers, the French liaison to the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) Headquarters issued a "secret" memorandum instructing his fellow officers and civilian authorities on how to "handle" African-American troops during WWI. To avoid any unpleasantness with the Americans, he advised other French officers to keep their distance from any black officers, to give only moderate praise to black troops, and to keep black troops and white French women apart.

September 1918 The all-black 809^th Pioneer Infantry arrived in France. During the 14-day voyage aboard the troop ship President Grant, about half of the 5000 men on board fell ill with "Spanish flu" (a global influenza epidemic that killed millions of people in 1918-19). So many men died en route that their bodies had to be buried at sea. The first task allotted 75 of the unit’s men upon the ship’s arrival in France was that of unloading the bodies of additional flu victims. Called "Black Yankees" by the French (an ironic nickname since many of the 809^th’s men were from the South), this pioneer infantry unit (i.e., a construction crew) built hospitals and completed extensive repairs and new construction at the French port of St. Nazaire, where many American soldiers disembarked in WWI. Although trained to fight, the 809^th worked mainly in construction until the Armistice.

3 September 1918 German propaganda leaflets dropped on African-American troops attempted to exploit the contradictory attitudes reflected in American society. The Germans touched on a sensitive area by noting that black troops were sent to fight for democracy in Europe, while being denied this same personal freedom at home. The leaflets unsuccessfully urged black soldiers to defect. "To carry a gun in this service is not an honor but a shame. Throw it away and come over to the German lines. You will find friends who will help you."

16 September 1918 The U.S. Army executed the last six soldiers sentenced to die for their involvement in the Houston riot. For the next two decades, the NAACP campaigned to win the release of the remaining imprisoned rioters. This effort eventually resulted in the freeing by 1938 of the last men involved in the deadly incident.

November 1918 The 369^th (or "Harlem Hellfighters") was the first Allied regiment to reach the Rhine River during the final offensive against Germany.

November 1918 Members of the 370^th Infantry Regiment won 21 American Distinguished Service Crosses and 68 French Croix de Guerre during WWI. This all-black unit from Illinois fought in the last battle of WWI and captured a German train a few minutes after the Armistice was declared.

13 November 1918 The Army Nurses Corps accepted 18 black nurses on an "experimental" basis following the influenza epidemic. The Army sent half of them to Camp Grant, Illinois, and the other half to Camp Sherman, Ohio. Although their living quarters were segregated, they were assigned to duties in an integrated hospital. Because of the postwar reduction in force, the Army released all 18 women in August 1919.

1919 Despite the valor and efficiency with which most black Americans discharged their duty to the United States during World War I, they received little recognition for their efforts once they returned home. Although the 369^th Infantry Regiment was honored with white soldiers in a grand parade down New York City’s Fifth Avenue, other areas either ignored or downplayed the African-American contribution to the Allied victory. However, many blacks refused to quietly accept such slights. In St. Joseph, Missouri, for example, black veterans would not march at the back of a victory parade because it was incompatible with the democratic principles for which they had fought. The U.S. government also did not award any of the 127 Medals of Honor earned in WWI to an African- American serviceman. This error was corrected on 24 April 1991, when President George Bush posthumously awarded the 128^th WWI Medal of Honor to Corporal Freddie Stowers, a black soldier killed on 28 September 1918 while leading an assault on a German-held hill in France.

1919 During the summer following the Armistice of November 1918, racial violence spawned serious riots in Texas, Nebraska, Illinois, Washington, D.C., and other parts of the United States. This same year, 10 veterans were among the 75 African Americans lynched by white mobs. Unlike most confrontations before and during WWI, however, African Americans fought back in these postwar flare-ups. Some scholars attribute this new spirit of resistance to the changed attitudes of black veterans. Their experiences in the war as well as the lack of French racial prejudice toward them made many African-American veterans unwilling to passively endure continued discrimination and ill treatment once they returned to the United States.

15 March 1919 Delegates representing AEF units met in Paris, France, to form the American Legion, a veterans organization. Black veterans were allowed to join, but only in segregated posts.

9 May 1919 The 369^th Infantry Regiment’s former band leader, James Reese Europe, was stabbed to death by Herbert Wright, an unstable, disgruntled musician. In the few short months between the end of WWI and his death, Europe composed and recorded music based on his experiences during the Great War. Sung by Noble Sissle, who had been the drum major for the 369^th, songs such as "On Patrol In No Man’s Land" and "All of No Man’s Land Is Ours" described the harsh combat conditions of the western front.

14 July 1919 The U.S. Army prohibited African-American soldiers from participating in the Bastille Day victory parade held in Paris.

June 1920 Congress passed the National Defense Act, which downsized the Army to 30,000 officers and enlisted men. All four of the Army’s longstanding black units survived the cutbacks, primarily because white leaders feared the legal and social ramifications of eliminating them. Necessity also dictated the retention of both infantry and cavalry units to prevent the possibility of integrating brigades as well as to provide troops for duty in the Philippines.

1921 The Army disbanded the 3^rd Battalion, 24^th Infantry Regiment, which had been relegated to duty at various isolated posts in New Mexico in the aftermath of the deadly Houston riot of 1917.

1922 Joseph H. Ward was named medical officer-chief of the Veterans Administration (VA) hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama. He was the first African American appointed to head a VA hospital.

1922 As a result of severe cutbacks in military spending after WWI, the 24^th Infantry Regiment was reduced to 828 men. The unit was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, where it helped transform the previously temporary home of the Army’s Infantry School into a permanent facility. Kept segregated from the rest of the post, unit members were classified as riflemen and machine gunners, but they actually performed mostly manual labor: maintenance, construction, logging, deliveries, gardening, and cleanup details. Except for some instruction in marksmanship, close order drill, and military courtesy, black troops received little combat training between the wars. By 1934, the Army had made some attempts to improve the 24^th Infantry Regiment’s ability to perform its military mission, but few real changes were implemented.

8 January 1922 The Army’s highest ranking black officer—Colonel Charles R. Young—died while serving as the U.S. military liaison in Nigeria.

1925 An Army War College study reported that African Americans would never be fit to serve as military pilots because of their supposed lack of intelligence and cowardice in combat. The famed "Tuskegee Airmen," however, would later completely disprove these questionable conclusions during combat in Europe. Between 1943 and 1945, the group earned 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 14 Bronze Stars, 8 Purple Hearts, 3 Distinctive Unit Citations as well as several other awards.

1929 Alonzo Parham entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the first black cadet to be accepted since the graduation of Charles R. Young in 1889. He left after only 1 year. The next African-American cadet was not admitted until 1932.

1932 The U.S. Navy again allowed African Africans to enlist, lifting the restriction in place since the end of WWI that excluded blacks from serving in this branch of the U.S. armed forces. However, they were only admitted into the predominantly Filipino Steward’s Branch.

1936 Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., graduated from West Point, after enduring 4 years of "silencing." The academy’s fourth African-American graduate, Davis was the first to be commissioned in the 20^th century. Second Lieutenant Davis reported to Fort Benning to join the 24^th Infantry Regiment, which continued to function primarily as a labor pool.

1936 James Johnson received an appointment to the U.S. Navy Academy, but he was forced to resign after only 8 months because of ill health. George Trivers followed in 1937, but left 1 month later for academic reasons. Both cadets suffered severe hazing by white midshipmen and discrimination by instructors.

1937 Willa Beatrice Brown, the first African-American woman to get a commercial pilot’s license, and her flight instructor, Cornelius R. Coffey, co-founded the National Airmen’s Association of America to promote African-African aviation. The following year, they established the Coffey School of Aeronautics, where Willa Brown served as director. The Army and Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) selected the Coffey School "to ‘conduct the experiments’ that resulted in the admission of African Americans into the Army Air Forces." The school trained about 200 pilots between 1938 and 1945, some of whom later served as part of the famed "Tuskegee Airmen" when Coffey became a feeder school for the official flight program at Tuskegee Institute.

1939 After the number of African-American soldiers had dropped to less than 4000 and in response to growing black demands, the U.S. Army began accepting black volunteers in proportion to their demographic presence (about 9 to 10 percent of the U.S. population). The only black regiments in the National Guard were the 369^th New York, 8^th Illinois, and the 372^nd Regiment, which included men from Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and the District of Columbia. African-American servicemen represented only 2 percent of the nation’s fighting force before WWII.

May 1939 The Committee for the Participation of Negroes in National Defense was formed. Headed by noted black historian Rayford W. Logan, who served as acting chair, the committee successfully helped to get nondiscrimination clauses inserted into the Selective Service Act passed in September 1940.

May 1939 Sponsored by the National Airmen’s Association and aided by the Chicago Defender, a black newspaper, African-American aviators Chauncey Spencer and Dale White lobbied for the inclusion of blacks as pilots in the Civilian Pilot Training Program then being debated in Congress. They won the support of several congressmen while in Washington, D.C., including that of Missouri Senator Harry S Truman.

27 June 1939 Congress passed the Civilian Pilot Training Act to create a pool of trained aviators in the event of war. Civilian schools, at least one of which was supposed to accept black pilots, provided the required flight training. Willa B. Brown lobbied for the inclusion of African Americans in both the training program and the Army Air Corps. At least seven different institutions enrolled blacks for flight training, but the Army Air Corps continued to exclude African- American pilots.

3 September 1939 Britain and France declared war after Germany invaded Poland, while President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced American neutrality in a fireside chat. During the years between WWI and WWII, the U.S. armed forces had continued to underuse and segregate African-American servicemen. The Army restricted its African-American soldiers to all-black units, while the Navy relegated black sailors to menial labor and service tasks, primarily in the nonwhite Steward’s Branch. The U.S. Marine Corps (USMC), like the Army Air Corps, continued its traditional exclusion of African Americans.

1939-40 To absorb the larger numbers of African Americans being admitted, the Army formed several new all-black units, primarily in the service and technical forces. The 47^th and 48^th Quartermaster Regiments formed in 1939 were followed in 1940 by the 1^st Chemical Decontamination Company (1 Aug), the 41^st General Service Engineer Regiment (15 Aug) as well as artillery, coastal artillery, and transportation units.

16 September 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Selective Training and Service Act, the first peacetime draft in U.S. history. The act contained an anti-discrimination clause and established a 10 percent quota system to ensure integration. Shortly thereafter, Assistant Secretary of War Robert Patterson issued a memo on segregation that seemingly contradicted the new legislation’s racial policy. Segregated troops remained official U.S. Army policy throughout World War II, because it did not consider racial separation to be discriminatory. The Army did attempt to dispel racist beliefs among its white officers by issuing Army Service Forces Manual M5, Leadership and the Negro Soldier. Classified "restricted," this publication tried to avoid condescension and stereotyping, while insisting on identical treatment for all soldiers, regardless of race. It also provided some sociological and historical information meant to eliminate erroneous beliefs concerning the use of African-American combat troops.

17 September 1940 Black leaders met with the Secretary of the Navy and the Assistant Secretary of War to present a 7-point program for the mobilization of African Americans. Included were demands for flight training, the admission of black women into Red Cross and military nursing units, and desegregation of the armed forces. President Roosevelt issued a statement on 9 October 1940 that argued against the latter demand on the basis that it would adversely impact national defense. Although he promised to ensure that the services enlisted blacks in proportion to their demographic presence, Roosevelt basically continued policies dating back to WWI. Many African Americans were angered by the White House’s erroneous claim that the black leaders had approved the statement. However, additional political pressure by African Americans and some Republicans convinced Roosevelt to do more. Consequently, Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. was promoted to Brigadier General, flight training for blacks was planned, more blacks were drafted, Judge William H. Hastie was made a special aide to the Secretary of War, and a black advisor was appointed for the Selective Service Board.

October 1940 African-American servicemen in the U.S. armed forces prior to the nation’s entry into WWII in December 1941 totaled only 13,200 in the Army and 4000 in the Navy. During this month, the War Department established its basic racial policy by continuing segregation and by establishing a quota for enlisting blacks based on a percentage of their numbers in the general population.

1 October 1940 African-American physician Dr. Charles Richard Drew, who pioneered a system for storing blood plasma thereby originating the "blood bank," served as director of the First Plasma Division Blood Transfusion Association. This British organization supplied plasma for British troops during WWII. In 1941, Drew was appointed to be the first director of the American Red Cross Blood Bank, which supplied blood to U.S. forces. He resigned from this position, however, to protest the organization’s November 1941 decision to exclude black blood donors. Dr. Drew’s research was responsible for saving countless lives during WWII.

25 October 1940 Just before the November elections, President Roosevelt approved the promotion of Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., to the rank of brigadier general, making him the highest ranking African American in the armed forces. He began his military career with the 8^th U.S. Volunteer Infantry (1898-99), then served with the 9^th Cavalry (1899-1917) and other units before retiring in 1948. General Davis pioneered the way for the next generation of black officers who attained even higher positions of authority in the U.S. military.

1 November 1940 Judge William H. Hastie, dean of the Howard University Law School, assumed the position of Civilian Aid to the Secretary of War in Matters of Black Rights. The position was similar to that held by Emmett J. Scott during World War I.

18 December 1940 The U.S. Army Air Corps sent plans to Tuskegee Institute in Alabama concerning the training of African-American pilots. On 6 January 1941, General Henry H. ("Hap") Arnold informed the Assistant Secretary of War about his decision to restrict the training of black flyers to Tuskegee where the necessary facilities to more quickly implement the program were available. In addition, the school was close enough to Montgomery to be supervised by the Maxwell Field Commander. Despite this decision, Arnold remained opposed to allowing African-American pilots into the air corps, and he made several attempts to disband the program. By 1943, however, political considerations and increasing reports of the combat successes achieved by black aviators forced Arnold to stop tampering with the "Tuskegee Airmen."

1941 The U.S. Army activated the 366^th Infantry Regiment, the first all-black Regular Army unit officered by African Americans only.

1941 Willa B. Brown became a training coordinator for the Civil Aeronautics Administration and a teacher in the Civilian Pilot Training Program.

January 1941 Black labor organizer and civil rights leader (and later politician, writer, and professor) Ernest Calloway was the first black to refuse to be inducted because he objected to the Army’s racist segregation policy. He was a member of the Conscientious Objectors Against Jim Crow, a group which claimed African Americans should be exempt from military service because of discrimination. Calloway’s protest and subsequent imprisonment generated a lot of national publicity. Although this particular group disbanded after Calloway was incarcerated, over 400 other black men also became conscientious objectors during WWII. Some were members of the Nation of Islam who refused induction on religious grounds, while others like William Lynn refused to serve because the quota system established by the armed forces contradicted the anti-discrimination clauses of the September 1940 Selective Service and Training Act.

January 1941 Labor and civil rights leader, A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, proposed a massive March on Washington in July 1941 to protest unfair labor practices in the defense industry and the military’s discrimination against African Americans. During WWI, Randolph had not endorsed other black leaders’ calls to put aside their own grievances and unite behind the war effort, stating "that rather than volunteer to make the world safe for democracy, he would fight to make Georgia safe for the Negro." His demands for full black participation continued in WWII.

9 January 1941 Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson formally approved the establishment of the flight training program at Tuskegee Institute.

13 January 1941 The U.S. Army established the 78^th Tank Battalion, the first black armor unit. The first African-American tankers reported to Fort Knox, Kentucky, to begin armored warfare training in March 1941. The 78^th was redesignated on 8 May 1941 as the 758^th Tank Battalion (Light). It was the first of three tank battalions comprising the 5^th Tank Group, which was made up of black enlisted men and white officers. The other two tank battalions were the 761^st and 784^th. Initially inactivated on 22 September 1945 at Viareggio, Italy, the 758^th was reactivated in 1946 and later fought in the Korean War as the 64^th Tank Battalion.

February 1941 The 1^st Battalion, 351^st Field Artillery Regiment was activated at Camp Livingston, Louisiana, as part of the 46^th Field Artillery Brigade. Redesignated the 351^st Field Artillery Battalion in 1943, the unit arrived in Europe in December 1944. The African-American enlisted personnel were officered by 16 blacks and 15 whites. While stationed in England from December 1944 to February 1945, the 351^st Field Artillery Group-Colored’s 50-man Caisson Choir sang for the British public in such notable places as Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral. After being transferred to France in March 1945, the unit was attached to the 9^th U.S. Army. While engaged in fighting with the Germans, the 361^st fired over 6200 rounds of 155mm Howitzer artillery ammunition into enemy territory.

25 June 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 which reiterated the federal government’s previously stated policy of nondiscrimination in war industry employment. It also created a Committee on Fair Employment Practice to oversee the application of the president’s directive and to expand new job opportunities for black workers. This action was in keeping with a promise made to A. Philip Randolph if he would call off his planned "March on Washington" to protest discrimination and segregation.

29 June 1941-16 November 1944 While on assignment with the Army’s Inspector General, Brigadier General Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., completed several notable inspections involving black troops stationed at northern and southern posts. In a memorandum of 9 November 43, Davis pointed out the nearly impossible task required of African-American soldiers in developing "a high morale in a community that offers him nothing but humiliation and mistreatment." He reported that instead of working to eliminate "Jim Crow" laws in the military, "the Army, by its directives and by actions of commanding officers, has introduced the attitudes of the ‘Governors of the six Southern states,’ in many of the other 42 states of the continental United States." He also conducted several important inquiries into racial clashes between white soldiers or civilians and black soldiers stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Alexandria, Louisiana; Fort Dix, New Jersey; Selfridge Field (now Air Force Base), Michigan; and Camp Stewart, Georgia. In his reports, Davis recommended that African-American soldiers gradually be removed from southern posts and that black officers be assigned to command black troops. General Davis also represented the War Department at numerous functions involving black civilians, such as war bond rallies or speeches given to war industry workers.

July 1941 The Army opened its integrated officers candidate schools. For the first 6 months, however, only 21 of the more than 2000 men admitted were black. Whites protested the policy and some black leaders demanded a quota be established to ensure parity, but the Army justified its policy of ignoring race in regard to officer training on the grounds of efficiency and economy. Unfortunately, race still continued to determine assignments after newly commissioned officers graduated. Too often more qualified African-American officers were put in charge of service units, while less qualified white officers continued to be assigned to black combat units. The degree of authority and respect given to black officers also remained a serious problem, since African-American officers were unable to command even the lowest ranking white soldiers.

19 July 1941 The U.S. Army Air Corps began training African-American pilots at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Actual flight instruction began on 25 Aug. The Tuskegee Institute, which prepared the 926 members of the famed "Tuskegee Airmen" for combat in WWII, remained the only official military flight training school for black pilots until its program closed with the graduation of the last class on 26 June 1946.

4 August 1941 The first commanding officer of Huntsville Arsenal (Alabama), Colonel Rollo C. Ditto, arrived and broke ground for the initial construction of the installation. Huntsville Arsenal, which was part of the Chemical Warfare Service, was the sole manufacturer of colored smoke munitions. It also produced gel-type incendiaries and toxic agents such as mustard gas, phosgene, lewisite, and tear gas. The Army broke ground on neighboring Redstone Arsenal on 25 October 1941. This Ordnance Corps installation manufactured chemical artillery ammunition, burster charges, rifle grenades, and various types of bombs. African-American men and women worked at both arsenals during WWII. By May 1944, when civilian employment reached its wartime peak of 6,707 men and women, blacks represented 22 percent of the work force at Huntsville Arsenal.

Bennett, Lerone Jr. Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America. New York: Penguin Books, 1982.

Bowers, William T., William M. Hammond and George L. MacGarrigle. Black Soldier White Army. Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History, 1996.

Carruth, Gorton. The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993.

Dupuy, R. Ernest and Trevor N. Dupuy. The Encyclopedia of Military History. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1986.

Foner, Eric and John A. Garraty, eds. The Reader’s Companion to American History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991.

Harley, Sharon. The Timetables of African-American History: A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in African-American History. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.

Horton, James Oliver and Lois E. Horton, eds. A History of the African American People. London: Salamander Books Limited, 1995.

Lanning, Michael Lee (LTC, ret.), The African-American Soldier; From Crispus Attucks to Colin Powell. Secaucus, NJ: Birch Lane Press, 1997.

MacGregor, Morris J. Jr. Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1981.

Quarles, Benjamin. The Negro in the Making of America. New York: Touchstone, 1996.

Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr., ed. The Almanac of American History. New York: Perigee Books, 1983.

Wilson, Joseph T. The Black Phalanx; African American Soldiers in the War of Independence, the War of 1812, and the Civil War. New York: Da Capo Press, 1994.

The following information has been condensed and quoted from Morris J. MacGregor, Jr.’s book, Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965. A historian with the U.S. Army Center of Military History (CMH), MacGregor received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from the Catholic University of America. He also studied at John Hopkins University and the University of Paris on a Fulbright grant. MacGregor served for ten years in the Historical Division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before joining the CMH staff in 1968.

Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 is one of the volumes in the Defense Historical Studies Program, which includes several "interservice histories, covering matters of mutual interest to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The preparation of each volume is entrusted to one of the service historical sections, in this case the Army’s Center of Military History." In his preface, MacGregor states,

This book describes the fall of the legal, administrative, and social barriers to the black American’s full participation in the military service of his country. It follows the changing status of the black serviceman from the eve of World War II, when he was excluded from many military activities and rigidly segregated in the rest, to that period a quarter of a century later when the Department of Defense extended its protection of his rights and privileges even to the civilian community. To round out the story of open housing for members of the military, I briefly overstep the closing date given in the title.

The work is essentially an administrative history that attempts to measure the influence of several forces, most notably the civil rights movement, the tradition of segregated service, and the changing concept of military efficiency, on the development of racial policies in the armed forces. It is not a history of all minorities in the services. Nor is it an account of how the black American responded to discrimination….

At times I do generalize on the attitudes of both black and white servicemen and the black and white communities at large as well. But I have permitted myself to do so only when these attitudes were clearly pertinent to changes in the services’ racial policies and only when the written record supported, or at least did not contradict, the memory of those participants who had been interviewed. In any case this study is largely written from the top down and is based primarily on the written records left by the administrations of five presidents and by civil rights leaders, service officials, and the press.

The first section of the Integration Chronology covers the immediate post-WWII period through 1954, when the Secretary of Defense announced the abolition of the last racially segregated unit in the U.S. Armed Forces. Additional material may be added as time permits.

Post 1945 The all-black 24^th Infantry was the only black regiment left intact after WWII. The 25^th Infantry Regiment was also still on active duty, but its battalions were split and attached to various divisions to replace inactive or unfilled organic elements. The all-black 9^th and 10^th Calvary Regiments, which had been inactivated in 1944 with the 2^nd Cavalry Division, were reactivated in 1950 as separate tank battalions.

1 October 1945 Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson ordered the U.S. Army to review its racial policies. Consequently, General George C. Marshall established a board headed by Lieutenant General Alvan C. Gillem, Jr., to study the situation and prepare a directive on the use of African Americans in the postwar Army.

17 November 1945 The Gillem Board finished its study of the Army’s racial policies and sent its report to the Chief of Staff. Although it came close to recommending that the Army integrate its forces, the Gillem Board members ultimately decided not to do so because integration "would have been a radical step, out of keeping with the climate of opinion in the country and in the Army itself." Instead the board provided 18 specific recommendations based on the principles that African Americans had "a constitutional right to fight" and the Army had "to make the most effective use of every soldier." Although the Gillem Board advised Army leaders to provide more opportunities for qualified blacks based on individual merit, it sidestepped the fundamental problem of segregation and only committed the Army to limited reforms.

1945-46 During the immediate postwar period, the U.S. Armed Forces began developing new racial policies. The need to make the most effective use of all available manpower, demands by civil rights groups, and higher black reenlistment rates were major factors affecting the new policies.

1945-50 The Marine Corps’ postwar attempt to adhere to a policy of rigid racial segregation remained in effect until the Korean War. It ultimately established a numerical quota of 1500 blacks, most of whom the Corps tried to assign to the nonwhite Steward’s Branch. Few recruits signed up for such duty, while those men already in that branch constantly sought transfers to general duty. Not only did this continual pressure cause problems for the USMC, but the unwillingness of most U.S. communities to accept "a large segregated group of black marines…was infinitely more difficult."

27 February 1946 The U.S. Navy published Circular Letter 48-46, making black sailors "eligible for all types of assignments in all ratings in all activities and all ships of Naval service." It also directed that "housing, messing, and other facilities" no longer be segregated. Although this new policy was a step forward, there were still no high-ranking black officers, no whites in the Steward’s Branch, and no African Americans in any specialized assignments.

28 February 1946 Secretary of War Patterson approved the Army’s new racial policy. The ambiguous recommendations of the Gillem Board had been "blessed" by Army Chief of Staff Dwight D. Eisenhower before they were submitted to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).

4 March 1946 The Army released the Gillem Board Report to the press, many of whose black members took a cautious approach to accepting the new policy as a significant change in traditional Army attitudes and procedures.

10 April 1946 War Department Circular 105, which provided for the assignment of men to critically needed specialties, "explicitly excluded Negroes." It was later revised to include all enlisted men, regardless of race.

27 April 1946 The Secretary of War directed the rapid distribution of War Department Circular 124, as the Army’s new racial policy and the full Gillem Board Report were now known. However, the lack of specific guidance on how to implement the Gillem Board’s "recommendations on how best to employ blacks within the traditional segregated framework" made the new policy almost useless. Despite its shortcomings, the Gillem Board’s comments were a step forward, because the board rejected the racist attitudes limiting the military role of African Americans and made integration the Army’s ultimate goal.

1 July 1946 The U.S. Army Air Force (AAF) argued for the exclusion of African Americans in its branch as well as a halt to the enlistment of blacks in the Regular Army. Although the AAF later backed off these demands, it continued to press for a significantly lower quota of black soldiers, along with restrictions on the areas where they could be used.

17 July 1946 The Secretary of War suspended black enlistments in the Regular Army.

10 August 1946 The Army began using Army Regulation (AR) 615-369 to eliminate the least qualified men (most of whom were black) after a reasonable attempt was made to use them.

19 September 1946 After meeting with a delegation from the National Emergency Committee Against Mob Violence, President Harry S Truman established the President’s Committee on Civil Rights to investigate racial violence. The committee would also study ways to strengthen and improve the federal, state, and local governments’ ability to protect the civil rights of all Americans.

26 September 1946 Unaffected by Circular Letter 48-46, the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) Commandant approved the corps’ postwar racial policy of continued segregation and racial tokenism. Unable to entirely eliminate African Americans, the Marine Corps adhered as closely as possible to its white-only tradition by limiting blacks to "small, self-contained units performing traditional laboring tasks…."

October 1946 The Army again began accepting qualified African-American recruits. The Adjutant General announced on 2 October that the Army would accept without limitation all former officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) who volunteered for service. On 31 Oct, however, the Army established a score of 100 on the Army General Classification Test (AGCT) for all African-American enlistees (as opposed to 70 for whites), while at the same time rescinding the choice-of-assignment provision for them. The Army argued that its policies "regulating the quality of [its black] recruits" were justified because they "followed the spirit if not the letter" of the Gillem Board Report. These obviously discriminatory guidelines generated a lot of opposition and criticism, particularly in regard to the quota. Considered a temporary provision by the Gillem Board members, Army traditionalists used the quota as a way to restrict the number of African-American soldiers.

1946-48 The U.S. Navy was unable to attract many African Americans in the postwar period. "The Navy was beginning to welcome the Negro, but the Negro no longer seemed interested in joining," primarily because of the nonwhite Steward’s Branch. By 1948, the Navy’s main racial problem was a serious lack of black sailors.

1946-49 The Army practice of attaching rather than assigning black combat units to white "parent units" weakened the morale of African-American troops and hampered their training because of the men’s sense of impermanence and alienation. By 1950, however, the Army changed this policy by assigning "black units as organic parts of combat divisions." It also started assigning African-American personnel "to fill the spaces of white units," although Army leaders still "opposed…the combination of small black with small white units" into a single battalion. Such practices continued to elicit harsh criticism from black leaders throughout the United States.

1947 Army leaders in the United States began accelerating efforts to discharge soldiers who had scored less than 70 on the AGCT, supposedly in an attempt to close the education/training gap between black and white servicemen. At the same time, however, Lieutenant General Clarence R. Huebner initiated a major project to educate and train thousands of African-American soldiers in Europe. By 1950, this program was not only "producing some of the finest trained black troops in the Army," but provoking charges of discrimination from white soldiers excluded from the project. The program’s success could also be seen in the improved morale and conduct of black troops in Europe, along with a corresponding decline in racial incidents, crime, and venereal disease rates. Despite the clear connection between education and better performance, the Army never implemented this program in all of its commands.

1947 The Marine Corps modified its segregated racial policy because of the inefficiency of assigning surplus combat-trained African Americans to service and supply units when the Fleet Marine Force (FMF) units were seriously understrength. During this year, the Corps began attaching black units to the undermanned FMF, creating composite units similar to those in the postwar Army.

1947 During the summer of this year, the AAF closed the flight training program at Tuskegee Airfield, Alabama, ending the last segregated officer training in the armed forces. Integrated aviation classes were established at Randolph Field, Texas.

1947 A. Philip Randolph and other black leaders formed a Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service. The group planned another march on Washington, D.C. to reinforce African-American demands that the federal government draft a nondiscrimination measure for the military. Randolph and his committee later focused on defeating any selective service bill containing provisions for segregated troops.

February 1947 Less than a year after the publication of the Gillem Board Report, Army leaders still considered segregation to be a policy worth retaining indefinitely. From their viewpoint, integration would only become feasible once the Army "completed the long, complex task of raising the quality and lowering the quantity of black soldiers."

May 1947 The Secretary of War adopted a National Guard Policy Committee resolution allowing individual states to determine the issue of "integration above the company level," although the Army continued to prohibit "integration at the company level." That same year, New Jersey became the first state to specifically end segregation in its militia. This action created new problems for Army leaders, who now had to deal with "an incompatible situation between the segregated active forces and the incompletely integrated reserve organization."

30 June 1947 By this time, African-American soldiers represented 7.91 percent of the Army’s total manpower. Instead of being based on their demographic presence in the U.S. population, however, black enlistments were "geared to a percentage of the total Army strength." By adjusting the enlistment quota, the Army could easily increase or decrease the percentage of blacks within its ranks.

25 July 1947 Congress passed the National Security Act, reorganizing the U.S. military establishment. The new legislation created the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), a separate Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. It also reorganized the War Department as the Department of the Army and made the Joint Chiefs of Staff a permanent agency.

October 1947 To avoid the political backlash if he failed to act on discrimination in the federal government, President Truman’s political advisors decided that his best move was to issue an executive order "securing the civil rights of both civilian government employees and members of the armed forces."

29 October 1947 The President’s Committee on Civil Rights presented President Truman with a comprehensive survey on civil rights conditions in the United States, and made several sweeping recommendations to correct the situation. In addition to such remedies as permanent civil rights and fair employment practices commissions and legislation to eliminate discrimination in the nation’s legal and electoral systems, the committee called for laws and policies to end discrimination and segregation in the armed forces. The committee even went so far as to urge the President to use the military "as an instrument of social change."

December 1947 Although the Army had been reporting that it provided its African-American troops equal access to all Army schools, in reality over half were closed to black soldiers, "regardless of qualifications." During this month, however, the Army began a special effort "to broaden the employment of Negroes under the terms of the Gillem Board policy." It converted 19 general reserve units to black, recruited 6000 African Americans, increased the quotas for specialist schools, raised the number of courses with black quotas, and opened new courses to African Americans. By March 1949, though, the number of training spaces for black soldiers had declined again.

1948 Lieutenant General Idwal H. Edwards, Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel; Lieutenant Colonel Jack F. Marr, a member of General Edward’s staff; and Major General Richard E. Nugent, then Director of Civilian Personnel, were the principal developers of the now separate U.S. Air Force’s racial policy. After abandoning the Army’s racial policy as too inefficient, the group altered its first impulse toward full integration to pursue a plan of limited integration based on "the Navy’s postwar integration of its general service." Although a relatively mild reform program, the group’s proposals provoked widespread opposition from many Air Force officers. "But if integration, even in a small dose, was unpalatable, widespread inefficiency was intolerable." For that practical reason, therefore, the Air Force was poised to take further action.

1948 Black leaders and the press became increasingly disillusioned with the disparity between the Army’s supposed goal of complete integration and the reality of continued segregation in the service.

2 February 1948 Because of his concern about the passage of a new draft law containing a provision for universal military training, President Truman removed the parts relating to the military when he transmitted to Congress on this date the recommendations of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights.

April 1948 By this month, there were still only 41 black officers in the Regular Army, up from 8 in June 1945. At this time, the Army began a major effort to recruit more African-American officers. In compliance with Circular 124, the Army was able to significantly improve these figures by 30 June 1948, when it reported a total "of 1000 black commissioned officers, 5 warrant officers, and 67 nurses serving with 65,000 black enlisted men and women."

26 April 1948 African-American leaders met with Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal at a National Defense Conference held at the Pentagon on this date. Instead of uniting behind Forrestal’s gradual plan to integrate the armed forces, the group supported A. Philip Randolph’s argument that "segregation itself was discrimination." Although the Secretary of Defense agreed with the group’s goals, he remained convinced that his gradual approach was best. A few months later, however, President Truman rejected this method by issuing his own directive on the matter.

28 May 1948 The first real breakthrough in the USMC’s policy of rigid racial segregation came with the commissioning of Lieutenant John E. Rudder, the first black to receive a regular commission in the Marine Corps. Rudder’s brief active career, which ended for personal reasons in 1949, was nonetheless important "because it affirmed the practice of integrated officers training and established the right of Negroes to command…." However, the Marine Corps was still committed to segregated units.

19 June 1948 Georgia Senator Richard B. Russell introduced an amendment to the Selective Service Bill being debated by Congress. Russell’s amendment "would guarantee segregated units for those draftees who wished to serve only with members of their own race." Senator William Langer of North Dakota countered with an amendment to prohibit all segregation. The draft bill passed by Congress on this date contained no special provisions on race.

24 June 1948 The reinstitution of the draft after President Truman signed the Selective Service Act on this date sparked an interservice squabble over how the increased numbers of African-American inductees would be distributed among the different services.

15 July 1948 The Democratic National Convention renominated Harry Truman for president, despite growing southern opposition to the strong civil rights platform accepted by Truman. The President’s political advisors viewed black votes as "an essential ingredient in a Truman victory."

17 July 1948 The "Dixiecrats," who bolted the Democratic Party after it passed a campaign platform with a strong civil rights plank, met as the State Rights Democrats to nominate South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond for president.

26 July 1948 President Truman signed Executive Order 9981, providing for equal treatment and opportunity for African-American servicemen. Because of Cold War concerns in Europe and the mostly nonwhite "Third World" as well as growing black demands, integration had become a major defense issue. Political considerations in a presidential election year and the appointment of James V. Forrestal as Secretary of Defense were two other significant factors influencing Truman’s decision to issue his order.

July- December 1948 Executive Order 9981 actually had little immediate affect on the armed forces. Neither the Army nor the Navy planned to alter their existing racial policies. Their decisions were partly based on the mistaken assumption that Circular 124 and Circular Letter 48-46 were already in compliance with the President’s order on equal treatment and opportunity. Despite evidence to the contrary, the U.S. Armed Forces in this period did not consider segregation to be discriminatory. The fact that Truman was not favored for reelection also influenced the initially low-key reaction to Executive Order 9981. Even Congress responded with a "wait-and-see" attitude.

September 1948 Although the Army staff objected, Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall began developing a plan to experiment with integrated units in order to prove that integration on a large scale would not work. The Army presented its formal proposal on 2 December 1948, but nothing came of the plan because the Navy and Air Force strenuously objected to being included in it. As a result, Secretary of Defense Forrestal decided "that interservice integration was unworkable."

16-18 September 1948 The White House released the names of the men selected to serve on the presidential committee established "to oversee the manpower policies of all the services…. The success of the new policy [Executive Order 9981] would depend to a great extent, as friends and foes of integration alike recognized, on the ability and inclination of this committee." President Truman selected Charles Fahy, an attorney and former Solicitor General, to chair the new group. Officially known as the Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, it was more commonly referred to as the Fahy Committee.

December 1948 Despite the availability of statistics supporting the Navy’s claim for having a progressive racial policy, 62 percent of all African-American sailors still served in the nonwhite Steward’s Branch. In addition, the Navy’s statistics showed a significant increase in the percentage of blacks assigned to the integrated general service branch (up from 6 percent in 1945 to 38 percent in 1947). However, the number of black sailors in the Navy overall dropped from 9900 in 1946 to 6000 by 1948. Almost all of these men were also in the enlisted ranks; there were only four African-American naval officers by this month and only six black WAVES. The Navy rationalized its inability to attract African-American recruits by claiming that "Negroes favored the Army because they were not a seafaring people." This claim not only blatantly ignored the Navy’s own history, but greatly minimized the adverse impact on black perceptions arising from the Navy’s unwillingness to provide greater opportunities for African Americans or to integrate the Steward’s Branch.

1948-50 The service that complied most easily and quickly with Executive Order 9981 was the Air Force, which had already begun to review and revise its racial policy before the President took action. Air Force manpower experts, however, based their criticism of segregation on issues of efficiency rather than compliance with Truman’s new policy. Influenced by political interests, manpower concerns, and black aspirations, Air Force Secretary W. Stuart Symington used the suggestions of his manpower experts to substantially change his service’s racial policy.

1949 By this time, the War Department was experiencing growing problems with its racial policies, most of which were under increasing attack by black leaders and civil rights groups. The Army’s continued insistence on racial quotas was particularly troublesome. Despite the Army’s argument supporting quotas "as a guarantee of black participation," it actually limited the number of African Americans admitted into the service as well as the variety of training and jobs available to them. Traditionalists seeking to maintain a segregated Army could not prevent all racial progress, but the use of quotas and the remaining restrictions on how black soldiers were employed made reform efforts very slow.

1949 Despite a lot of "foot-dragging," the Army confronted and overcame to some extent such obstacles to reform as entrenched racial prejudice, institutional inertia, and the poor education and undermotivation of many black enlistees. Consequently, "the Army’s postwar racial policy must be judged successful, and considered in the context of the times, progressive." Yet, the continuation of racial disturbances and "disproportionate black crime and [venereal] disease rates" were significant indicators that the Army’s policy of segregation remained a serious problem in the postwar period.

1949 The postwar practice of excluding African-American servicemen from some allied nations became a problem once some of the services began to integrate. Although it became Department of Defense (DOD) policy to freely assign black troops any place U.S. forces were sent, the individual services continued to limit foreign assignments for African Americans, although not always at the allied nations’ request.

1949 The Marine Corps Commandant defended the USMC’s segregated racial policy by arguing that the armed forces should follow society’s lead in this area, not vice versa.

January 1949 Congress began to debate more frequently the integration of the armed forces. Renewal of the Selective Service Act in 1950 focused the racial debate on an amendment resubmitted by Georgia Senator Richard B. Russell. This modification allowed servicemen to serve in segregated units if they so desired. Considered to be "the high point of the congressional fight against armed forces integration," the Russell amendment was eventually defeated, as was a similar House amendment submitted in 1951.

6 January 1949 The Air Force proposed on this date to open "all jobs in all fields" to African Americans, limited only by individual qualifications and "the needs of the service." The new plan retained some black service units, but eliminated all of the Air Force’s other all-black organizations. However, some serious problems arose during the 4-month delay between the proposal’s submission and its approval on 11 May 1949. Black morale problems surfaced and congressional debate was sparked after part of the plan was leaked to the press. Despite African Americans’ fears that they would not fare well under the proposed policy, "the Air Force’s senior officials were determined to enforce the new program both fairly and expeditiously."

28 February 1949 DOD’s newly-created Personnel Policy Board drafted a common racial policy that abolished all racial quotas and established uniform draft standards with provisions to divide enlistees qualitatively and quantitatively in times of national emergency. The proposed directive also provided African Americans the opportunity to serve as individuals in integrated units. All of the services were to be fully integrated by 1 July 1950. During the interim, however, the number of blacks in integrated units would still be limited, while enlisted men could choose to serve under officers of their own race. Secretary of Defense Forrestal’s resignation, opposition from the various service secretaries, and serious defects in the proposed policy eventually killed this first attempt to establish a DOD-wide racial policy.

March 1949 The Fahy Committee initiated its efforts "not to impose integration on the services, but to convince them of the merits of the President’s order and to agree with them on a plan to make it effective." The committee’s first goal was to overcome the Army’s determination to retain segregation because of senior leaders’ twin beliefs that blacks were unreliable and ineffective in combat and that white soldiers would not serve with African Americans. The committee’s investigations established that "an indivisible link existed between military efficiency and equal opportunity." It used the "efficiency argument" to undermine the Army’s rationale for determining military occupational specialties (MOSs), limiting the number of black specialists, and maintaining its racial quota.

5-6 April 1949 DOD’s Personnel Policy Board approved and Secretary of Defense Johnson signed a general racial policy statement that "reiterated the President’s executive order…." Not meant to be an endorsement of current service policies, the DOD directive sought to made individual merit and ability the basis for the military’s personnel decisions. "All persons would be accorded equal opportunity for appointment, advancement, professional improvement, and retention…." However, the policy stopped short of full integration, its authors satisfied that "although some segregated units would be retained, ‘qualified’ Negroes would be assigned without regard to race."

May 1949 The Army and Navy failed to significantly change their racial policies in keeping with the Secretary of Defense’s new racial policy statement. Unsatisfied with their initial response, Secretary of Defense Johnson ordered both services to revise their policies by 25 May. However, the Personnel Policy Board and the Secretary of Defense approved "the Air Force’s proposal for integration of a large group of its black personnel."

11 May 1949 Air Force Letter 35-3, published the same day that the Secretary of Defense approved it, "spelled out a new bill of rights for Negroes in the Air Force." Living quarters as well as work places were no longer separated for most units.

23 May 1949 The Navy committed itself "to a program that incorporated to a great extent the recommendations of the Fahy Committee…." Among the reforms suggested were a "vigorous recruiting program" to dispel black suspicions about the Navy and its nonwhite Steward’s Branch; making chief stewards similar in rank to chief petty officers; and establishing "the same entry standards as the Army."

26 May 1949 Despite pressure from the Secretary of Defense and the Fahy Committee, the Army continued to defend Circular 124. Although the Army was ordered to prepare another response, OSD and the Fahy Committee drew further apart on what this response should be. The two fundamental points on which the Army and the committee disagreed dealt with the free assignment of school-trained blacks and abolition of the Army’s racial quota.

June 1949-May 1950 The Air Force’s 106 black units and 167 integrated units dropped 1 month later to 89 black units (with 14,609 men) and 350 integrated units (which included 7369 African Americans). Less than a year later there were only 24 black units (with 4675 men) and 1506 integrated units (with 21,033 blacks). Although the program was initially conceived as limited integration, it quickly achieved universal application, which "progressed rapidly, smoothly, and virtually without incident."

7 June 1949 The military branch least affected by Executive Order 9981 (theoretically, at least) was the U.S. Navy. Although it had an established racial policy of equal treatment and opportunity, it was applied poorly. The Navy’s new racial plan, submitted on this date, provided specific actions to bring its policy and practices "into line." Despite this effort, the Navy still did not attract many African-American recruits. Between 1952 and 1959, the increased numbers of blacks in the Navy came "from the men forced upon it by the Defense Department’s distribution program."

1 July 1949 The postwar downsizing of the USMC greatly affected its ability to maintain its original racial policy. On this date, the Marine Corps Commandant ordered that African-American recruits be trained in separate platoons at Parris Island, South Carolina. By 22 September 1949, the corps had eliminated even the segregated training platoons. This led to the integration of black NCO platoon leaders and various on-post NCO clubs and other facilities. The last two segregated groups at Montford Point, the USMC’s all-black training facility near Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, had previously been inactivated on 31 July and 9 September 1949. Though these policy changes appeared to be in keeping with Executive Order 9981, they were actually driven by defense budget cuts. The Marine Corps still remained committed to segregation, which it instituted through the use of "colored" jobs designed to keep black and white marines separate from each other.

18 September 1949 A panel of senior Army officers, appointed on this date and chaired by Lieutenant General Stephen J. Chamberlin, produced a report that was "perhaps the most careful and certainly the last apologia for a segregated Army." It reiterated the traditional arguments for resisting integration and called for the retention of the 10-percent quota. "[T]he board called on [Army] Secretary Gray to repudiate the findings of the Fahy Committee and the stipulations of Executive Order 9981 and to maintain a rigidly segregated service with a carefully regulated percentage of black members."

30 September 1949 Secretary of Defense Johnson approved Army Secretary Gordon Gray’s new racial policy, then announced it to the press, all without consulting the Fahy Committee. The Army’s new policy opened all occupational specialties to those qualified, abolished racial quotas for Army schools, and ended its racially separate promotion systems and standards. But it did not address the two main areas of contention: the racial quota and the free assignment of blacks. An unsuccessful effort to break the stalemate between the Army and the committee, Johnson had also hoped this action would dispel continuing public criticism and mitigate the personal political liability of the still unsettled question of race in the armed forces.

1 October 1949 The Adjutant General of the Army dispatched "additional policies" based on the Army’s new racial plan, which had been proposed as a revision of Circular 124. Some commanders began integrating African-American specialists into white units in what they thought was accordance with these "additional policies." Consequently, officials in the Army’s personnel and training divisions sent a second message on 27 October essentially "ordering commanders to interpret the secretary’s plan in its narrowest sense, blocking any possibility of broadening the range of black assignments." Secretary of the Army Gray rescinded the latter message after learning about it from unfavorable press reports.

6 October 1949 In a news conference held on this date, President Truman supported the Fahy Committee’s position on the Army’s proposed racial policy by referring to Johnson’s earlier announcement as a "progress report." Acknowledging that it would be a gradual process, the President "declared that his aim was the racial integration of the Army."

25 November 1949 The Fahy Committee received the Army’s revision of Circular 124. Despite several weeks of review by various Army staff agencies, the proposed plan was basically the same one originally submitted to DOD by Army Secretary Gray on 30 September 1949. It "still contained none of the committee’s key recommendations…. The quota and assignment issues remained the center of controversy between the Army and the committee."

14 & 27 December 1949 In meetings held with President Truman and the Army on 14 December and Secretary of the Army Gray and the Army Chief of Staff on 27 Dec, the Fahy Committee made considerable progress in reconciling the stalemate over assignments and the quota. "Gray began with a limited view of the executive order—the Army must eliminate racial discrimination, not promote racial integration. In their meeting on 27 December Fahy was able to convince Gray that the former was impossible without the latter."

1949-54 Both the Navy and the Air Force made significant changes in their racial policies, primarily to make more efficient and effective use of available manpower. "In a period of reduced manpower allocations and increased demand for technically trained men, these services came to realize that racial distinctions were imposing unacceptable administrative burdens and reducing fighting efficiency."

16 January 1950 After compromises on both sides, the Army published Special Regulation 600-629-1, Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army, which the Fahy Committee accepted. One significant aspect of the new policy was in accord with the committee’s stand on "free assignments." On this same day, the Army published the first list of vacancies in critical specialties that were to be filled without regard to race.

27 March 1950 Secretary of the Army Gray ordered the service to open its recruiting without regard to race. He did so after winning President Truman’s agreement to a proviso that the Army could reinstitute a racial quota if the new policy resulted in "a disproportionate balance of racial strengths."

April 1950 Despite the Marine Corps’ determination "to retain its system of racially segregated units indefinitely," several factors forced the service to change its "exclusionist policy." The manpower demands that would arise from the Korean War, the imposition on this date of the Secretary of Defense’s "qualitative distribution of manpower," and the draft opened the corps to a large influx of African-American recruits.

April 1950 The Army integrated basic training at the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) Training Center at Fort Lee, Virginia.

22 May 1950 The Fahy Committee presented its final report, Freedom to Serve: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, to President Truman. Although the committee recommended that it be retained on standby or that a watchdog group be established, the President decided against this course and publicly dissolved the committee several months later.

25 June 1950 North Korean troops armed with Soviet-made weapons crossed the 38^th parallel, invading South Korea and sparking the outbreak of the Korean War. Within 5 months of this action, the U.S. Army had doubled in size. "This vast expansion of manpower and combat commitment severely tested the Army’s racial policy and immediately affected the racial balance of the quota-free Army."

6 July 1950 As part of the Army Organization Act of 1950, Congress repealed the statutory requirement for the service’s four all-black regiments.

August 1950 The Army assumed the former Selective Service "task of deciding the race of all draftees." A lot of effort between 1949 and 1951 was devoted to establishing acceptable racial categories and definitions. Although not used for assignment, "racial statistics had to be kept," hence the need for "racial tags."

August 1950 The 1^st Provisional Marine Brigade was assigned several African-Americans during the fighting on the Pusan Perimeter, which was "the first time black servicemen were integrated as individuals in significant numbers under combat conditions."

August-December 1950 Eighth Army commanders in Korea began filling losses in their white units with individuals from "a growing surplus of black replacements arriving in Japan…." By early 1951, "9.4 percent of all Negroes in the theater were serving in some forty-one newly and unofficially integrated units. Another 9.3 percent were in integrated but predominantly black units. The other 81 percent continued to serve in segregated units…." This limited conversion to integrated units became permanent because "it worked…. The performance of integrated troops was praiseworthy with no reports of racial friction."

September 1950 Beginning this month, the 1^st Marine Division was assigned numerous African-American marines, "the clearest instance of a service abandoning a social policy in response to the demands of the battlefield."

20 September 1950 Retired General George C. Marshall became Secretary of Defense.

1951 The Marine Corps’ segregated racial policy "ended [this year] with the cancellation of the last all-black designation…."

February 1951 The Chamberlin Board reconvened "to reexamine the Army’s racial policy in light of the Korean experience." Despite the widespread support for further integration in the Far East, continuing support for segregation was still the norm throughout the rest of the Army. "This attitude was clearly reflected again by the Chamberlin Board," which still unsuccessfully called for segregated units and a racial quota.

March 1951 By this date, at least half of the African Americans serving in the Marine Corps under combat conditions were assigned to integrated units. They "perform[ed] in a way that not only won many individuals decorations for valor but also won the respect of commanders for Negroes as fighting men."

March 1951 The Army’s nine training divisions were integrated by this time, after a "trouble-free and permanent" conversion period which began late in 1950. Fort Ord was the first training division "to adopt the expedient of mixing black and white inductees in the same units for messing, housing, and training." It was quickly followed by the other Army training divisions and replacement centers, "with Fort Dix, New Jersey, and Fort Knox, Kentucky, the last to complete the process."

April 1951 By this time, "black units throughout the Army were reporting overstrengths, some as much as 60 percent over their authorized organization tables." Unlike WWII, however, when only about 22 percent of all African Americans in the Army served in combat units, black soldiers during the Korean War were "assigned to the combat branches in approximately the same percentage as white soldiers, 41 percent."

April 1951 The Secretary of Defense alleviated Army fears of becoming "a dumping ground for the ignorant and untrainable" by ordering the qualitative distribution of troops among all the services.

10 April 1951 Secretary of Defense Marshall approved the Qualitative Distribution of Military Manpower Program. It required "the Navy and Air Force to share responsibility with the Army for the training and employment of less gifted inductees." The new program upgraded the Army, placed more African Americans in the other services, and ultimately "destroyed the Army’s best argument for the reimposition of the racial quota."

May 1951 By this time, the Army still had not carried out the policy to which it had agreed with the Fahy Committee. "[M]uch of the Army clung to old sentiments and practices for the same old reasons," but the Korean War ultimately changed these outmoded attitudes and practices forever.

14 May 1951 Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgeway, who replaced General Douglas MacArthur in Korea, formally requested authority to abolish segregation in the Eighth Army.

July 1951 By the third anniversary of Executive Order 9981, OSD had dealt with some race issues, but had really done little to push the armed forces closer to full integration. "The integration process that began in those years [1948-51] was initiated…by the services themselves."

26 July 1951 On the third anniversary of President Truman’s order, the Army announced the integration of its Far East Command. "The 77^th Engineer Combat Company was the last combat unit to lose the asterisk, the Army’s way of designating a unit black." About 75 percent of Eighth Army infantry units were integrated before November 1951. "It was not until May 1952 that the last divisional and nondivisional organizations were integrated." The integration of the U.S. Army in Korea led to greater racial harmony and military efficiency.

September 1951 Senior Army leaders moved closer to accepting full integration. Their attitude was affected partly by the percentage of blacks in the Army by this date, and partly by the successful integration of the Eighth Army in Korea and training camps at home.

November 1951 A contract study "on the Army’s experiences with black troops in Korea," known as Project CLEAR, confirmed earlier findings that African-American soldiers in integrated units fought as well as whites. It also reported that integration improved black morale and did not lower that of whites. "In sum, the Project CLEAR group concluded that segregation hampered the Army’s effectiveness while integration increased it."

December 1951 By the end of this year, about 7 percent of black enlisted men, 17 percent of black officers, and all black WACs were serving in integrated units in Europe, even though initially there was little support for full integration in this area.

13 December 1951 The USMC Commandant announced a general policy of racial integration. Six months later, he advised the Chief of Naval Personnel that there were no more segregated units in the Marine Corps and that integration "was believed to be an accomplished fact…." However, restrictions on how African Americans were employed continued into the 1960s. Another problem area was the corps’ continued use of all-black stewards. The corps did not begin signing up white stewards again until 1956.

29 December 1951 The Army Chief of Staff ordered all of the service’s "major commanders to prepare integration programs for their commands. Integration was the Army’s immediate goal, and…it was to be progressive, in orderly stages, and without publicity."

1952 Despite some changes, the Navy’s nonwhite Steward’s Branch was still 65 percent black (the rest were Filipino). On 28 February 1954, the Navy ended the separate recruitment of stewards, except for Filipinos under contract. As a result, by 1961, blacks were a minority in the Steward’s Branch for the first time in 30 years.

April 1952 The Army European Command’s integration program began this month "quietly and routinely," with no publicity and "without incident." The Army completed this program on November 1954, when it inactivated "the last black unit in the command, the 94^th Engineer Battalion."

September 1952 The Air Force had "only one segregated unit…left, a 98-man outfit, itself more than 26 percent white (about 25 men). Negroes were then serving in 3466 integrated units."

December 1952 The Army Chief of Staff ordered worldwide integration of this service. All of the earlier fears cited to support the continuation of a segregated Army proved to be groundless. There was no increase in racial incidents, no breakdown of discipline, no uprising against integration by white soldiers or surrounding white communities, no backlash from segregationists in Congress, or major public denouncements of the new policy.

October 1953 Because of the Korean War, the number of African-American marines rapidly grew from 1525 (half of whom were stewards) in May 1949 to 17,000 (with only 500 stewards) by this time. "As the need for more units and replacements grew during the war, newly enlisted black marines were more and more often pressed into integrated service in the Far East and at home….The competence of these Negroes and the general absence of racial tension during their integration destroyed long accepted beliefs to the contrary and opened the way for general integration [of the Marine Corps]."

30 October 1954 The Secretary of Defense announced that the last racially segregated unit in the armed forces of the United States had been abolished.

General (Ret.) Johnnie Edward Wilson

Former Commander, U.S. Army Materiel Command

General Johnnie Edward Wilson was born on February 4, 1944. He was raised in Lorain, Ohio and entered the Army in August 1961 as an enlisted soldier, attaining the rank of SSG before attending Officer Candidate School (OCS). On completion of OCS in 1967, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Ordnance Corps. He was awarded a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He also holds a Master of Science degree in Logistics Management from the Florida Institute of Technology. His military education includes completion of the Ordnance Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, the Army Command and General Staff College, and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

General Wilson held a wide variety of important command and staff positions culminating in his current assignment as the Commanding General, U.S. Army Materiel Command. Other key assignments include: Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, Department of the Army, Pentagon; Chief of Staff, U.S. Army Materiel Command; Commanding General, Ordnance Center and School, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland; Deputy Commanding General, 21st Theater Army Area Command, U. S. Army Europe and 7th Army; Commander, 13th Support Command, Fort Hood, Texas; and Commander, Division Support Command, 1st Armored Division, U.S. Army Europe.

General Wilson served with distinction at every level of command. He commanded three times at the company level; a maintenance company in the 82d Airborne Division as a First Lieutenant, followed by command of a supply and services company in Vietnam with the 173d Airborne Brigade, and a maintenance company with the 1st Armored Division in Europe. At the Lieutenant Colonel level, General Wilson commanded the 709th Maintenance Battalion, 9th Infantry Division, Fort Lewis, which converted and became the Army's first Main Support Battalion. General Wilson commanded twice at the Colonel level serving as the DISCOM Commander of the 1st Armored Division followed by command of the 13th Support Command at Fort Hood, Texas.

General Wilson next served as the Deputy Commanding General, 21st TAACOM, the Army's largest and most diverse logistics unit. Based on his wide experience with leading soldiers, General Wilson was selected to command the Ordnance Center and School responsible for the training and professional development of thousands of soldiers, NCOs and officers every year. Following this successful assignment, General Wilson served as the Chief of Staff, AMC, where he was responsible for resource and personnel management for a workforce with over 80,000 military and civilian members. From 1994 to 1996, General Wilson served as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, Department of Army, where he was responsible for worldwide logistics.

General Wilson's awards and decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal (with Oak Leaf Cluster), Legion of Merit (with Oak Leaf Cluster), Bronze Star Medal (with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters), Meritorious Service Medal (with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters), Army Commendation Medal, Good Conduct Medal, Special Forces Tab, Master Parachutist Badge and the Army Staff Identification Badge.

On 26 July 1948, President Harry S Truman signed Executive Order 9981, establishing the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. It was accompanied by Executive Order 9980, which created a Fair Employment Board to eliminate racial discrimination in federal employment.

Segregation in the military services did not officially end until the Secretary of Defense announced on 30 September 1954 that the last all-black unit had been abolished. However, the president’s directive put the armed forces (albeit reluctantly) at the forefront of the growing movement to win a fully participatory social role for the nation’s African-American citizens.

The true fulfillment of the entire scope of Executive Order 9981—equality of treatment and opportunity—actually required an additional change in Defense Department policy. This occurred with the publication of Department of Defense Directive 5120.36 on 26 July 1963, 15 years to the day after Truman signed the original order. This major about-face in policy issued by Secretary of Defense Robert J. McNamara expanded the military’s responsibility to include the elimination of off-base discrimination detrimental to the military effectiveness of black servicemen.

As part of a continuing observance of Executive Order 9981, the U.S. Army Materiel Command requested that each of its major subordinate commands develop a program of events to support this commemoration. The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM) Historical Function's contribution will be a series of articles and chronologies detailing not only the ongoing process of eliminating discrimination in the Department of Defense but highlighting African Americans’ distinguished military contributions. To keep these issues in perspective, some background information on the effort to ensure black civil rights will also be included.

Whereas it is essential that there be maintained in the armed services of the United States the highest standards of democracy, with equality of treatment and opportunity for all those who served in our country’s defense:

Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority invested in me as President of the United States, and as Commander in Chief of the armed services, it is hereby ordered as follows:

1. It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale.

2. There shall be created in the National Military Establishment an advisory committee to be known as the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, which shall be composed of seven members to be designated by the President.

3. The Committee is authorized on behalf of the President to examine into the rules, procedures and practices of the armed services in order to determine in what respect such rules, procedures and practices may be altered or improved with a view to carrying out the policy of this order. The Committee shall confer and advise with the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, and Secretary of the Air Force, and shall make such recommendations to the President and to said Secretaries as in the judgement of the Committee will effectuate the policy hereof.

4. All executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government are authorized and directed to cooperate with the Committee in its work, and to furnish the Committee such information or the services of such persons as the Committee may require in the performance of its duties.

5. When requested by the Committee to do so, persons in the armed services or in any of the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall testify before the Committee and shall make available for use of the Committee such documents and other information as the Committee may require.

6. The Committee shall continue to exist until such time as the President shall terminate its existence by Executive Order.