Before our actual entry into the war the great problem was production of the goods needed by the nations who were fighting Hitler. Every citizen was urged to man the production line and help defeat the Axis. Our giant corporations were expanding overnight, producing both for foreign governments and for our expanded training programs, our increased army and navy, and our merchant marine.

But the Negroes found, when they applied for jobs, that openings were mostly on the menial and unskilled levels. The situation became so critical that President Roosevelt, on June 25, 1941, issued his now well known executive order 8802 prohibiting discrimination because of race, color, religion, or national origin, in employment in war industries and government agencies.

As of today it may be said that there has been considerable, even remarkable, improvement in the employment of Negroes since the summer of 1941. Part of this has been the result of 8802 and the activity of the Committee on Fair Employment Practice created by shortage of manpower.

Almost every section of the aircraft industry, the one which held out most stubbornly against him at first, is now employing the Negro. Some plants have taken the action cheerfully and have hired numbers of colored people. Others have done so reluctantly, and a few, notably those located in “Free Kansas,” are still refusing the Negro. Lockheed, Douglas, Vultee, Boeing, Consolidated, North American, Bell, Curtiss-Wright, Martin, United Aircraft (Pratt & Whitney), Republic and Gruman now have Negro employees. Boeing, maker of the Flying Fortress, has worker unions, holding a closed shop contract, still refuses to admit Negro members.

Many of those concerns are finding that the Negro worker, both men and women, are giving excellent service, even highly technical performances.

Employment has increased in the private shipyards all over the nation. It has always been fair in navy yards.

Keeping pace with the aircraft and shipbuilding, numerous private corporations engaged in war production are increasing their numbers of Negro employees. The picture is not entirely rosy. Numbers of these concerns employ far few colored workers in proportion to their total roster. The prime compliant today is that the Negroes are having difficulty in being upgraded from the lower paid categories.

The Armed Services

The struggle for jobs, however, did not contain the drama incident to the treatment of Negroes in the armed services. Negroes have been accustomed to varying degrees of discrimination and insult in civilian life. They knew some of that would follow their men into the army, but they were not prepared for the succession of restrictions, beatings, shootings, and general man-handling received by black men in uniform, fighting supposedly for the Four Freedoms.

Greatest complaint has risen because of the treatment of men in Southern communities near army camps. Civilian police have not been restrained in their oppression of Negro soldiers. A Negro sergeant was shot dead by a policeman as he lay helpless on the sidewalk in an Arkansas town. Another soldier was killed in cold blood by a Baltimore policeman. City and State police in Alexandria, La., by a statement of the War Department itself, shot and wounded more than a dozen Negro soldiers in a one-sided “battle” early in 1942. Dozens of Negroes in uniform have been dragged off buses, and  some have been shot.

Military police have done their share toward creating bitterness and unrest in both the Negro civilian and army circles. 

White Americans troops overseas have taken color prejudice along with them and have attempted to set up Dixie practices wherever they settle down. Complaints have come back from Negro soldiers in Australia--not against Australians, but against their white fellow soldiers from America. Affairs reached such a state in England last fall that the War Department sent Brigadier General Benjamin O. Davis* of the Inspector General’s office to investigate the charges of friction between white and colored American troops in the British Isles.

An amusing story is being told just now about a conference of American officials, including some high army soldiers, in North Africa on the question of entertainment for the soldiers. When a prominent American Negro entertainer was mentioned, the American whites objected for the reason that she was colored. Whereupon a very wealthy and influential native of the area whose cooperation was absolutely necessary to the Americans, arose and stalked out of the room after announcing with pride that one of his maternal relatives was a full blooded Negro. Figuratively the Americans had to get on their knees to heal the breach created by their typical “prejudice as usual-at home and abroad.”

Some Progress

The whole picture is not dismal, although, to be truthful, the signs of progress are few and far between. The army trained Negro and white men in the same officer-candidate schools without segregation. This has been a most significant step forward and great benefit should result from it. We are still the only nation with dark citizens or subjects having so many Negro officers in our army. It is true that the vast number are junior officers and that promotions beyond first lieutenant (as line officers) are rare as yet. But we have hundreds upon hundreds of competent Negro officers.

Here and there are fair and just commanding officers who try to see that their colored outfits get the treatment due them as men and soldiers. There are rumored to be men within the War Department itself who would not shudder and die at the genuine democracy in mixing races in the same units, and would not have apoplexy if a Negro officer were placed in command of white troops.

The employment picture is brighter, as has been noted. This holds some promise for the post war period, although everyone realizes that all Negroes now employed will not be able to retain their jobs.

The chief gain seems to be in the examination and discussion of this old, difficult problem of color and the democratic theory. Millions of people who never much thought about it are having to think about whether we can have a stable democratic world and still maintain inequality and proscription based on color. There are signs that more and more of the people are coming to the belief that we must wipe out racial inequalities if we are to have peace in the little world we shall have after this war. Unhappily, there are few signs that the directors of the mighty forces that have stood adamant for the status quo, have come to this view in any great number.

The continuing task, therefore, for those whose in church, labor and liberal-minded peoples of the earth is to remain alert, critical, and vocal; and to attempt to coordinate their efforts toward the desired end. The wiping out of inequalities based upon color and race is not by any means the only problem, but it is certainly the most obvious and dramatic.

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*General Benjamin O. Davis was born in Washington, D. C. on Dec. 18, 1912 and went to college at West Point in 1932. Davis became one of only two black line-officers in the United States Army when he was promoted to brigadier general.

Source: Interracial Review, May 1943