Military -Strength through Diversity
Strength through Diversity
African Americans in World War II
Fully qualified African
American nurses often found that racial segregation and discrimination hampered
their entry into military service during World War II. And even those who made
it in found Jim Crow discrimination waiting for them at the door. In 1945, thanks
to pressure applied by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, 60 Black women were sent
to Lovell Hospital at Fort Devens (outside Boston) to be trained as medical
technicians. The commanding officer objected to Black medical technicians
placing thermometers in the mouths of White servicemen, and he ordered these
women to be reclassified from medical technicians to orderlies. A group of
African American servicewomen met with the commanding officer, only to be
insulted and dismissed. They walked out of the meeting and refused to report to
work the next morning. After being threatened with charges of mutiny, most
returned to work. Six did not. When these six were threatened with execution,
still four stayed away. They were eventually court-martialed for refusing to
obey orders, found guilty, and sentenced to a year of hard labor. They also
received dishonorable discharges. A national protest led by the NAACP, the
ACLU, and Mary McLeod Bethune’s National Council of Negro Women forced a
reversal of the decision (Bray 2016), but resistance to African American women
serving across all of the armed forces persisted throughout the war (Wynn
2010).
For many Black men, the military offered decent wages and the
potential for upward mobility after the war. But the military life, they
discovered, was a continuation of the discrimination and segregation prevalent
in the wider society. Often, both the military and government officials looked
on Black soldiers as inferior. They rejected Black leaders, claiming Black
people would serve best under White officers. While the U.S. Army maintained
separate Black regiments, the Navy restricted Blacks to positions as cooks,
janitors, and waiters. The Marine Corps refused to allow Blacks to join
altogether. But possibly the worst treatment occurred among those Blacks
serving in the South. Here, even Nazi prisoners of war were accorded better
treatment than Black soldiers. Prisoners of war could dine with Whites, often
ride on the trains, and even go into town to view movies. Black soldiers and
civilians were denied all of these (Wynn 2010).
In 1940, just 4,000 African Americans served in the U.S. Navy,
most of them as cooks or dishwashers or in the engine rooms. Another 12,500
served in naval construction units such as the Seabees, and another thousand in
the Coast Guard. It was not until 1943 that African Americans were admitted
into all naval branches on a proportional basis, and the first Black naval
officers were appointed in February 1944. Segregation still prevailed, and the
only way Blacks could crew a ship was if it were entirely Black. In 1944, the
USS Mason and the submarine chaser
USS PC-1264, both with all-Black
crews, were commissioned to escort destroyers. That same year, the first
integrated crews were introduced on 25 auxiliary vessels. By the end of the
war, 165 African Americans were serving in the Navy and 5,000 in the Coast
Guard. The overwhelming majority of these, 95%, still served in mess halls.
Only 54 Black naval officers and 700 Coast Guard officers were serving at the
close of hostilities, in 1945 (Wynn 2010).
Resistance Story: Eleanor Roosevelt and Tuskegee Airmen
Eleanor Roosevelt
was instrumental in helping African American military pilots break down the
racial barriers in the Armed Forces and U.S. Aviation. She was one of the key voices that helped
secure a $175,000 Rosenwald Fund loan to build the Moton Field, the training
base used by the 99th Pursuit Squadron (an all-Black flying unit training at
Tuskegee Institute in Alabama). (South East Express Team, 2026)
The 99th
Pursuit Squadron was the first to be deployed overseas (first to North Africa
in 1943, then Sicily, and later Italy).
A total of 933 pilots were ultimately trained; of these, five were
Haitians from the Haitian Air Force, one was from Trinidad, the Dominican
Republic, and Jamaica. The 99th
and 332nd Fighter Groups were the only black fighter units to see combat during
the war. They earned a total of 96
Distinguished Flying Crosses, several Silver Stars, 8 Purple Hearts, 14 Bronze
Stars, 744 Air Medals, the French Croix de Guerre, and the Red Star of
Yugoslavia for their missions over Italy and enemy-controlled parts of central
and southern Europe. And then, in April
2006, the U.S. Congress passed Public Law 109-213 to award the Congressional
Gold Medal to the Tuskegee Airmen in recognition of their unique military
record and their role in inspiring revolutionary reform in the Armed Forces. (U.S. Congress, 2006)
This is the highest civilian honor Congress bestows.
Achieving Diversity
On July 26, 1948, President Harry S.
Truman signed Executive Order 9981: Integration of the Armed Forces and
declared that “equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the
armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.” The
executive order also directed that Black must be accepted into job-training
programs within defense plants, forbade discrimination by defense contractors,
and established the Fair Employment Practices Commission. (National
Archives, 2022) In many ways, the
U.S. military set the standard for diversity among U.S. institutions. According to a 2022 RAND report, diverse
military units lead to improved problem-solving skills, resilience, and
adaptability in high-stress environments.
(Slapakova,
et al. 2022)
But it was not
until April 28, 1993, that the Defense Department changed the rules of combat,
allowing women to fly in combat missions for the first time. Consequently, approximately 300,000 women
served in combat during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
Of these, 800 were wounded, and another 130 were killed. And finally, on January 24, 2013, women were
allowed to serve in all combat roles. (History.com,
2025)
Of the 2,022,141 active-duty members serving in the U.S. military, 67.5 percent were White, 19.2 percent were Hispanic or Latino, and 17.7 percent were Black or African American. Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders collectively comprised 5.7 percent. (See Figure 10.x1 and 10.x2)
Table 10.x1: Race
of the Total DOD Military Force (n= 2,022,141)
Source: Department of Defense,
2024)
Table 10.X1 Hispanic
Ethnicity of Total DOD Military Force (N=2,022,141)
Source: Department of Defense,
2024)
Table 10X3: Race of
Active-Duty Officers (N=233, 581)
Source: Department of Defense,
2024)
Among active-duty
officers, Whites make up 74 percent, Black or African Americans 9.3 percent,
and 5 percent were Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian
or other Pacific Islander.
Table 10.X4:
Percentage of Active-Duty Members of Racial Groups and Whites by Service Branch
and Pay Grade
Source: Department of Defense,
2024)
Observing Table
10X4, it is noted that, on average, racial minority groups comprised 32.5% of
the Total DOD active-duty personnel. The
Navy was the most diverse, followed by the Army. While, on average, 15.3 percent of officers
(pay grades 087-10) were Racial Minorities, both the Army and the Marine Corps
had the highest percentages of officers who were Racial Minorities.
Source: Department of Defense,
2024)
World Security through Sustainable Economies
Our best chance of averting wars lies in efforts to increase
world security by working toward sustainable jobs and economies. Asserting the
basic dignity of all, regardless of race, class, ethnicity, religion, age, or
gender, is a good starting place. Measures such as random bag checks, airport
strip searches, and racial profiling have done little to make us any safer, but
they have increased the threats to our basic freedoms. At the core of the
American judicial system is the presumption of innocence, yet we have targeted
our citizens for internment, hostility, and even death, with no basis for our
accusations other than our fear. Fear is a poor substitute for trust, and it
erodes the very democratic principles that we cherish.
Our military institutions, the most diverse institutions in
the nation, hold the key to the effective and efficient use of all our human
resources. Encouraging all citizens to serve in, participate with, and provide
oversight of our military institutions can be the greatest deterrent to abuses,
the greatest safeguard to peace, and the most effective weapon against
terrorism.
If we are going to diversify the military, the change needs to
start from the top (Sicard 2016)—something 25 four-star generals, admirals, and
other military leaders agree on (Duster 2013). This means getting more women
and people of color into the officer pipeline. This is indeed what is happening
at West Point. In 2019, the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) welcomed its
most diverse group of cadets in history. Among the 1,190 cadets, 43% were
people of color (Fink 2019). These same patterns need to be replicated across
all military academies if the armed forces are going to become truly diverse.
The enemy of democracy is tyranny. And the principal allies of
tyranny are poverty, hopelessness, and inequity. If we are going to stop
terrorism, then we must first prevent it by supporting equal access to
education; alleviating poverty, hunger, and misery; and promoting civil
liberties and freedom (Martin 2015).
Wars are more likely to occur where lawlessness, hopelessness,
and helplessness prevail. The most likely to suffer are those most vulnerable,
regardless of whether they are in the United States or abroad. In such
situations, it is difficult to determine who is right or wrong, good or evil.
None of these terms makes any sense in the face of devastated lives, pain, and
suffering. We should realize that during our own Revolutionary War, we were the
extremists, the terrorists, and the discontents.
We cannot, however, continue to see our military budget
increase unchecked, now over $1 trillion. This is unsustainable. Also
unsustainable are the more than 6,900 U.S. military personnel who have died
since 9/11, and the more than 30,000 wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. And
of course, this does not take into consideration the hundreds of thousands of
returning troops that will suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (Hartung
and Smithberger 2019). We need to find alternatives to war and militarism,
particularly when responding to terrorism. As one nation among many, the United
States needs to join the United Nations to help uphold the rule of law
worldwide. All parties need to be brought to the table, and all need to be held
to the same standard. The International Criminal Court provides a forum for
holding accountable those who commit crimes against humanity, whether they are
state agents or non-state actors (Rothkopf and Lord 2013).
Within our own country, we need to encourage service by all as
part of what it means to be a citizen. The idea that military service and other
forms of public service should be shared equally by all, regardless of race,
class, or gender, reflects the fact that we all have a stake in this democracy.
The most secure democracy is one in which all citizens participate.
Comments
Post a Comment