MONTHLY REPORT OF WASHINGTON BUREAU
April 4, 1951
Armed Services
As this report is written, there is a strong indication that as a matter of policy the Republican Party will vote to retain the Winstead amendment in the current Draft and Universal Military Training legislation. The Winstead amendment provides for segregation in the Armed Services.1
Congressman Melvin Price of Illinois has agreed to introduce an amendment striking out the Winstead proposal. Congressman Franck Havenner of California has agreed to introduce an amendment which would make assaults on members of the Armed Services a Federal offense. Congressman Jacob Javits of New York has a general amendment against segregation which he will propose from the floor.2
On the anti-violence amendment, we have the additional handicap of a letter from General G. C. Marshall which states that the Department of Defense believes that members of the Armed Services need legislative protection against violence but not in the pending legislation.3
Meanwhile, on the general question of integration in the Armed Services, the Director has had a meeting with [Brig. Gen.] General B. M. McFadyen [Fayden], Chief of Military Personnel Division. This meeting was arranged by Mrs. Anna Rosenberg, Assistant Secretary of Defense. A detailed report on this meeting is available.4 So far as integration is concerned, there is very little of it in the ground forces. The following two paragraphs taken from our letter to Mrs. Rosenberg on results of the conference should be noted.
“The conference revealed that the Army has shown a few colored troops the promised land of integration in basic training units and some specialties. However, the vast majority of ground troops are still in the bondage of segregation.
“There is integration during basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey; Riley, Kansas; Knox, Kentucky; Jackson, South Carolina; Breckenridge, Kentucky; Ord, California; Roberts, California; Wood, Missouri, and Chaffee, Arkansas. However, our discussion at the meeting revealed that most of the colored people entering the Army are sent to existing colored units as replacements. Even those who are integrated during the period of basic training are sent to segregated units when they have completed their training.”5
Defense Housing Legislation
S.349, the Senate Defense Housing Bill, has been reported out of committee. Senator Douglas and Senator Ives sought unsuccessfully to get NAACP proposals into the bill.6 These proposals would have eliminated segregation in housing and community facilities provided under the bill.
The committee did agree to one brief statement on the subject of racial problems in housing. This appears on page 41 of the report from the Committee on Banking and Currency. The statement is as follows: “Your committee expects that in the provision of housing by the Federal Government under this title and in the provision, or operation and maintenance, of community facilities and services assisted by this title there shall be equality of treatment of persons of all races, religions, and national origins who are to be served by them.”7
We shall continue our efforts to get an amendment on the floor.
Note: In view of the pressure of work in Washington at this time, this report is necessarily brief. An effort will be made to include what has been left out in the report submitted next month.
MS: NAACP II: A670, DLC.
[1] On March 15, 1951, the House Armed Services Committee wrote in an amendment to the UMT bill giving draftees a choice of serving in racially segregated or nonsegregated units. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 3/16/51, 411. See also, among others, 3/5/51; in appendix 1, this vol., 4/24/51. See also Report of the Secretary to the Board on “Washington Activities,” 2/16–3/16/51, NAACP II: A-655, DLC; Mitchell, “Status of Racial Integration in the Armed Services,” 205–7; and Watson, Lion in the Lobby 206–7.
[2] See 3/5 and 12/28/51 for related activities.
[3] This was the NAACP amendment to S. 1, the pending UMT legislation. See 1/24/51, Hearings 861–73; 1/31, 2/2, 3/5, 4/4, 5/3, 6/4, and 8/31/51; in appendix 1, this vol., 7/21/51.
[4] The meeting with MacFayden (Mitchell’s spelling here) was held on March 15, 1951. In a follow- up meeting on May 1, 1951, in the office of Peter Seitz, assistant to Anna Rosenberg, Maj. Steve Davis provided a detailed report on behalf of MacFayden on the following six topics: the question of increasing the number of African Americans from nonsegregated National Guard units that had been called to active duty; the continuing study of the use of military installations for housing and feeding draftees in order to avoid the use of segregated facilities; the continuing study of the question of racial designation; the number of African Amerians who were sent to all-black units instead of integrated basic training centers when they entered the army; problems of segregation in facilities and other aspects of camp life; and the role of DOD in seeking legislation to protect members of the armed services against assault and physical violence. James C. Evans also attended this meeting. Mitchell memorandum to Walter White, 5/17/51, NAACP II: A-655, DLC.
The May 1, 1951, conference produced “some changes” in the Department of the Army’s racial policies, and Mitchell had learned that “further consideration” was being given to additional changes. Mitchell’s letter to Seitz, 8/6/51, NAACP WB-133, DLC.
MacGregor explains that “Departmental interest in racial affairs quickened noticeably” when” Gen. George C. Marshall, who succeeded Louis A. Johnson as secretary of defense, “appointed the brilliant labor relations and manpower expert Anna M. Rosenberg as the first Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Personnel.” MacGregor cites a letter from Rosenberg to him, 9/23/71; see also his interview with James C. Evans, 13/9/71, both of which are in CMH Files. MacGregor, Integration of the Armed Forces 392n50. Borklund, Men of the Pentagon 121–24.
[5] Mitchell’s letter to Rosenberg, 3/26/51. Helping Mitchell considerably in this struggle were Sen. Hubert Humphrey, who was on a first-name basis with Rosenberg, and Rep. Jacob Javits (R-N.Y.), who pressed the struggle to end segregation at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Mitchell’s letter to Rosenberg and related correspondence from Humphrey and Javits, as well as reports, such as “Summary of Advances in the Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army,” 3/7/51, are in Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 291.2, Central Decimal File 1951, 190/25/34/7, RG 330, NARA, College Park, Md.
[6] See 3/5, 8/31, 12/5, and 12/28/51.
[7] On February 27, 1951, the House Committee on Banking and Currency approved the administration’s $3 billion defense housing program. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 3/2/51, 314.
On March 20, 1951, the Senate Banking Committee approved S. 349 to encourage housing construction in defense areas. A similar bill, H.R. 2988, calling for mortgage insurance up to $3 billion, remained pending on the House calendar after the House voted on March 14 not to take up the measure for the time being; Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 3/16/51, 406. Then, on April 5, the Senate opened debate on S. 349. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 4/6/51, 518.
As debate in the Senate loomed, Senators Paul Douglas (D-Ill.) and Irving Ives (R-N.Y.), at the NAACP’s request, sought to get antisegregation language into the bill. Mitchell feared that under the proposed defense housing program, vast sums would be spent or insured by the federal government for housing and community facilities where the population was increasing because of defense activities.
Without the protective language, he said, southern whites intended to use the federal largesse to extend segregation “on a handsome scale.” As an example, he cited a statement by Sarah Busch of the Aiken, South Carolina, Chamber of Commerce that her community needed a “municipal building to incorporate . . . police chief ’s office, white and colored police cells, playgrounds, one each white and colored; swimming pools, one each white and colored.” Mitchell noted that “Mrs. Busch even asked for two parks costing $20,000 each. One for white and the other for colored,” and he said similar ideas were “lurking in the minds of many other planners in Dixie.” He therefore urged NAACP branches and other supporters to let their representatives and senators know that they wanted safeguards against segregation in S. 349 and H.R. 2988; otherwise, they would wake up one day and find that their tax dollars were “being spent to fasten an incredible system of segregation on new industrial areas of the South.” Newsletter, 3/21/51, NAACP II: A-655, DLC. Defense Housing and Community Facilities Development Act of 1951, S. 349, Report of the Committee on Banking and Currency, 3/21/51, 82nd Cong., 1st sess. v. 2, no. 187–403, CIS Serial Set, Fiche 1, p. 41.
But on August 15, 1951, the House approved S. 349, the Defense Housing Bill, to authorize government aid to home construction in defense areas. The measure authorized $1,635,000,000 for the program. The Senate approved the final compromise version on August 20, 1951, and the House followed suit on August 22. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 8/17/51, 1231, and 8/24/51, 1268.
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NAACP II: A-670, DLC.