Executive Order 9981
On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, calling for the end of racial discrimination in the US armed forces.
Early American laws barred African Americans from the military, but in times of war, white leaders recruited both slave and free blacks. The Continental Army had 5,000 African-Americans, and at least 216,000 black men served in the Union forces during the Civil War.
In that war, blacks suffered unequal pay, promotion, supplies, and services. “Jim Crow” discrimination in the military continued for decades after the Civil War.
Even so, large numbers of African-Americans still volunteered to fight for their country. One million African-Americans served in the military during World War II. Many black servicemen hoped their military service would earn them equal status in US society. When they returned home, they were impatient with continuing anti-Negro discrimination and violence.
In 1947, A. Philip Randolph and Grant Reynolds formed the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training to protest discrimination in the armed services. This group, later renamed the League for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience Against Military Segregation, as well as black leaders, pressed President Truman to end military segregation.
Truman was aware how important the black vote was to his Democratic Party. He knew that integration would also help America win Cold War allies among Third World countries. So on July 26, 1948, Truman signed Executive Order 9981 ordering “…equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.”
The order also called for the creation of a committee to research and recommend civilian leaders to put the policy into practice. Most of the changes under the order were completed during President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration. This included the desegregation of military schools, hospitals, and bases. The last all-black units were abolished in September 1954.
Click here to read the text of Executive Order 9981.
Click here to see what else happened on This Day in History.
Long overdue but at last achieved
So very sad that segregation of races in the military continued so long and, at the same time, so very gratefully happy that it no longer exists … at least officially and legally.
I was drafted in the fall of 1958. By that time, blacks were a significant and positive presence in the military. When I was shipped to the Rhine Land, I found myself bunking with an urban black on one side and a rural southern blacks on the other. For a working class white kid from Spokane, what a wonderful contrast. And of course, what a revelation, what with virtually no experience in living among different races. It’s too bad that universal conscription has not continued to this day.
Too little too late for a called democratic nation, as time pass we know how racism is an institutionalize in the United States society.
why can’t we all see the positives of the the Executive order rather than always focusing on the negatives, there was only 1 perfect person in the world, Jesus Christ, so let’s be grateful
You forgot Marilyn Monroe.