by Gerald Horne
This was not a minor matter. Jim Crow notwithstanding, by early 1942 in Birmingham, Alabama, a desperate U.S. military was hurriedly training Negro specialists of varying sorts, including 250 airplane mechanics, 4 aircraft machinists, 4 aircraft welders, 6 parachute riggers, 7 teletype operators, 4 weather observers, 20 aircraft armorers, 40 technical and administrative aviation clerks, and 30 radio operators. They were to be trained and graduated no later than 15 September 1942.47
Plans were afoot to train other Negroes—for example, 16 radar specialists in Boca Raton; 580 air mechanics at a Negro university; and 12 parachute riggers and 35 propeller specialists at Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois.48 Though this base was not in Dixie, Major General B. K. Yount expected that “disturbance and possibly riots will probably ensue both at Chanute Field and the nearby communities, if colored troops are sent to Chanute,” perhaps because of the relative proximity to the presumed bastions of pro-Tokyo Negroes in East St. Louis and Cairo. As for “establishing a school for colored mechanics,” Tuskegee was suggested.49 Hence, with all the racial roadblocks strewn about, by 1944, according to an official Air Force history, “a very small percentage of Negro airmen received flying training”; in 1944 “there were 1044 Negro flying personnel” in this potent force.50
As late as 1941, in the town made famous by Booker T. Washington, an observer described “serious objection to the location of the airport at the East End of Tuskegee,” necessary for training, “because of the fact it would partially be in Tuskegee [and] would cut off the expansion of Tuskegee in the only direction for white people to expand.” The “objections are so universal” that the writer, William Varner, felt compelled to “join the protest.”51 Attached was a petition from about five dozen eminent “whites” in Tuskegee who expressed “regard for the welfare of the white citizenship of Tuskegee and Macon County” and, therefore, were “protesting . . . against the location of a colored aviation camp on the East or Southeast boundary of Tuskegee,” which was “the only outlet of expansion for white citizens.”52
Fortunately for the United States, the now fabled Tuskegee Airmen were not barred from Macon County, but this did not end the travails of those “brown Americans” who sought to combat “brown” Japanese. Lieutenant Colonel William Maxwell “requested that no colored troops be assigned to Eglin” base in Valparaiso, Florida. “This is a very isolated section which is popular with vacationists during the summer months and there being no recreational facilities for colored people closer than Pensacola,” Eglin was out of the question. Anyway, he added, “colored personnel are very unpopular in the immediate vicinity. Very few Negroes have been allowed to remain in this section, and then only as servants living on the premises of their employers.” This negative view of Negroes transcended class boundaries in that “the attitude of the lower caste white population is that Negroes will not be permitted to live in this community.” This should be taken seriously, Maxwell proclaimed forthrightly, since “intimidation tactics by certain elements of the white population will sooner or later lead to serious conflicts and possible desertion of colored troops.” Pleadingly, he cautioned that it was neither “feasible nor practical” to send Negro personnel there because of the cafeteria problem, that is, the “necessity for using a full complement of white personnel for the preparation of food, which is a very undesirable factor.”53 How could white supremacy survive the abruptly unsettling role reversal of those defined as “white” preparing food for those who were Black?
After Pearl Harbor, Dr. Lawrence Kubie, who studied this Jim Crow setup, advised that training all-Negro units—be they pilots or medics or cooks—made overall cohesion of the U.S. military problematic for those not subjected to Jim Crow, who looked skeptically on those who were. This skepticism metastasized and became one of a number of “weak points in the common front, comparable to the weak spots presented to the enemy in the last war at points of juncture between French and British troops.” Though “initial problems are lessened by creating separate Negro units”—thus appeasing the racist appetites of countless Euro-Americans—“more important long-run goals may be endangered.” Kubie did not mention Japan’s incessant propagandizing over the decades and the impact on unit cohesion; instead, he reported that “every Negro aviator and doctor with whom I spoke believes that race riots in the armed forces,” which were hardly infrequent, “have been a direct and inevitable consequence of the policy of creating separate Negro units.” He concluded that “units built on color lines inevitably breed friction.” Yet he had visited Selfridge Field and Oscoda Field; in the latter, there was more intense segregation, and yet the Negroes were happier. When there was “race” mixing in the context of Jim Crow, as opposed to less mixing, there was more pressure on Euro-Americans to conform to Dixie standards, he said, which created a panoply of problems.54
An additional salient factor should not be ignored. After the war, the military’s highest-ranking Negro, General Benjamin O. Davis, conceded that many Negroes in the military were not eager for integration due to the “relative comfort” of Jim Crow units and the “hostile environment” perpetrated by their white counterparts.55 General Davis knew of what he spoke in that he was tasked to investigate yet another fracas between Negro and white military men, this time in Bristol, U.K.56
Selfridge, though sited in Michigan, was a seething cauldron of racial tension, raising the question as to whether Negro soldiers were more interested in fighting Jim Crow than the Pacific foe. Negro pilots, including those of high rank, had demanded access to the officers’ club.57 A leader of the Negroes was Lieutenant Milton Henry, who went on to become a leader of the “Republic of New Africa,” which sought to establish a Black republic on the existing land of what is now the United States and campaigned globally for this goal. At Selfridge Negroes outnumbered those who were white by a four-to-one ratio; thus, in February 1944, Lieutenant Henry and his comrades walked brazenly into the club from which they were barred, leading to his court-martial—and radicalization. He was quoted as saying that he was “not fighting for democracy because this country in its racial attitude was not democratic.”58 Predictably, the Associated Negro Press found that morale among Negro pilots training in South Carolina—sent from Selfridge—was “shot.”59
The manifest problems of Selfridge seemed to be dwarfed by those in Camp Claiborne, Louisiana. A volcanic eruption there involved numerous Negroes who mutinied, beat their white officers, broke into the arms lockers, and wreaked havoc generally.60 Lee Archer, one of the Tuskegee pilots—he was part of “169 missions,” he recalled—noted subsequently that “after the Civil War, the military became southern. They lost the war. They were planning a big battle which isn’t here yet,” hence the disproportionate number of bases in Dixie—intentionally sited there, he thought—and the resultant racial confrontations.61
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Unfortunately for the United States, these problems did not disappear after troops were posted overseas, particularly in Europe, where African Americans could contrast the racial rigidity at home with the relative fluidity encountered abroad. In a “personal and confidential” report, British allies lamented the “difficult situations owing to the differences of outlook between the white American personnel and the British personnel as to the relationship between black and white people,” with the former insisting on strict Jim Crow standards, to the consternation of the latter. This correspondent was baffled and was “try[ing] to understand why it [inter-racialism] is different from the attitude of most people in this country”; he further objected to the notion that “British soldiers and auxiliaries should adopt the American attitude.” The British were instructed to—at best—be “friendly and sympathetic towards coloured American troops but remember that they are not accustomed in their own country to close and intimate relationship with white people.” Perhaps with an eye cocked to Tokyo, it was stressed that “it is probable that enemy propaganda will make every effort to use the colour question to stir up bad feelings between
people in this country and the coloured troops and between American white and coloured troops.”62
This report was filed as yet another “race riot” was unfolding between Black and white troops—except this was on British soil, which was bound to be worrisome to London, which had its hands full already without having to sort through U.S. problems. U.S. Major General Henry Miller admitted in June 1943 that there had been a “mutiny at Bamber Bridge” in Britain, directed by “colored troops” who “had taken possession of their rifles and ammunition,” inflicting casualties. “Southern Negros [tend] to have in general a better attitude than those from the North,” it was noted by way of consolation, but this was hardly comforting as the blood began to flow.
As explained by Major General Miller, the bridge in question was strategically located “four (4) miles from the city of Preston, in Lancashire.” He conceded that “the race problem was the primary factor in the alleged mutiny,” for “instead of there being a ratio of approximately ten whites to one Negro, as in the United States, there is a numerical ratio in this Theater of many times that amount, in favor of the whites. This causes the Negro soldier to ‘stand out’ . . . far more than in the United States,” to his detriment. Again, complicating matters immeasurably was the fact that a “substantial number of the British military and civil population treat the Negro soldier on the basis of social equality,” the women not least, which was blindingly infuriating to many Euro-Americans. The gap between the British and Euro-Americans helped to exacerbate interracial tension; it “obviously created conflicts.” For “the white American soldier resents seeing a colored soldier with white women in public places,” while “colored soldiers have deliberately picked fights with white American soldiers on the streets” and “‘take the law into their own hands’ on numerous occasions.” Typically, the Negro press was fingered as an instigator—the People’s Voice of Harlem in this instance. Emphasized nervously was that “no evidence of any enemy subversive effort in any way [was] involved”—but this episode was no less frightening since “men were seen to be crying, shrieking, and giving vent to their emotions.” The “storerooms” containing “arms and ammunition were reasonably safeguarded,” but the bold and angry Negroes—the “mutineers”—“gained access by force.”63
How could “brown Americans” be enlisted to confront “brown Japanese” when they were so busy fighting their “white” counterparts?
The problems faced by Negro forces in Europe were of a different character though no less poisonous than those in Dixie. In Western Europe a repetitive flashpoint seemed to be intimate fraternizing between Negro men and European women, which was unacceptable to many Euro-Americans. In November 1944 the ANP correspondent Rudolph Dunbar was in France “talking to a French man” who said that “when France was liberated his wife told him that she must kiss an American. He told her that he would agree to her request under one condition: . . . she must kiss an American Negro soldier because he is the only true American.”64
London had its own problems in this sphere. Dunbar had reported earlier that there was a “parallel between the Royal Air Force in England in comparison with their Colonial subjects and the method . . . employed by the American Air Force,” that is, a replica of the “Air Force Unit for Negroes.”65 Dunbar was as close to the action as any war correspondent extant, having sent a note to ANP headquarters on the stationery of Adolf Hitler himself, which he had purloined after the erstwhile chancellor was routed in the Reich Chancellery.66
In any case, after Tuskegee leaped hurdles and was established as an aviation center, a British official hastened to assure that “there is no intention of setting up a training school for British cadets in Tuskegee, Alabama.”67 Still, one U.S. military official complained in October 1944 about the unjust and often brutal treatment of the Negro forces there by white police officers in nearby towns.68
Retrospectively, it is remarkable how U.S. brass seemed willing to accept setbacks—perhaps even defeat—in the war rather than alter mossback racial practices. This was even more conspicuous and glaring since a principal foe had made it clear that it intended to capitalize upon this very same praxis. It is easy to infer that preserving Jim Crow was deemed more important than unit cohesion, perhaps even victory. Still, the U.S. military was told to avoid “the use of any epithet deemed insult to a racial group”; but the fact that this message was distributed globally leads to the supposition that it was intended more for indigenes overseas in places like Burma rather than internally. Moreover, this communication was distributed as Singapore was falling—a real turning point in terms of the perception of the impact of Japan’s racial propaganda—and may have been a reflection of an ephemeral sensitivity more than anything else.69 What should be considered is this: to what extent did desegregation of the armed forces represent a bending toward attitudes of allies nervous about importing peculiar U.S. folkways to their soil with all the attendant tensions and conflicts?
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“Brown American” pilots did not drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but Negro opinion molders were hardly quiet as this holocaust was unwinding.70 In a Sunday sermon in August 1945, the Reverend J. E. Elliot, pastor of St. Luke Chapel in Washington, D.C., excoriated the bombing and claimed that racism was a driving force behind it. “I have seen the course of discrimination throughout the war,” he said despondently, “and the fact that Japan is of a darker race is no excuse for resorting to such an atrocity.”71 Langston Hughes agreed.72 Again, George Schuyler, the leading Negro conservative, was more acerbic than most, proclaiming that “controlling this tremendous power” of nuclear weaponry “for evil are second-rate and small-minded men filled with racial arrogance such as Truman, Tom Connally, Jimmy Byrnes, Stimson, Bilbo and our military officers clique, who believe in racial segregation.”73 If mass murder could be inflicted upon Japanese civilians, what did this portend for U.S. Negroes?
An ironic confirmation of Schuyler’s dyspepsia was provided by U.S. General Joseph Stilwell, who ghoulishly said, “When I think of how these bowlegged cockroaches have ruined our calm lives it makes me want to wrap Japan guts around every lamppost in Asia.”74 U.S. serviceman Robert L. Bennett was not as coruscating in his remarks but just as skeptical of Tokyo’s seemingly evaporated objectives. Writing from Japan in August 1945 as the embers of war still glowed, he remained “doubtful” of the vanquished foe’s intentions because of “the way the Japs are acting!!” “Although the war is over,” he added worriedly, “I think our work has just started” in bringing Tokyo to heel.75
Viewing the first and only atomic bombing through a racial lens was, in a sense, a lingering legacy among African Americans. In 1949 the moderate Gordon Hancock celebrated Moscow’s acquisition of the atom bomb since “it will contribute to the peace of the world,” a view unrestrainedly at odds with Washington’s view. “The tragic mistake was made,” he continued, “when atomic fury was ‘practiced’ against hapless Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This was the tragedy of tragedies.” Worse, he noted, “the fact that the bomb was tried out on a darker people has double significance. If the bomb was to be pressed into service, why was it used on the Japanese instead of the Germans who were in the midst of slaughtering millions of luckless Jews?” The “sordid fact remains that the pouring out of the vial of wrath upon Japan was a part of the white supremacy picture.” But contradictions had emerged, he said, since “to all intents and purposes the atomic bomb as an instrument of human destruction for the externalization of white supremacy is working in reverse and herein lies the hope of mankind.” What he seemed to be suggesting was that Moscow getting the bomb meant that the “so-called white nations are divided among themselves.” That is, “when white threatens white maybe Christ and Peace have a chance.”76
Hancock found it strategically significant that now it was Moscow that was seen as the primary threat to “white supremacy.” “Churchill and Bilbo and Rankin,” the latter two being prominent Mississippi lawmakers, “know that the onl
y threat to white supremacy ideology is the Communistic ideology of Russia.”77 Ultimately it would be realized that as one powerful antagonist after another confronted Washington on the mine-laden battlefield of “race,” U.S. leaders would have to seriously consider whether this ideology was worth the debility it so clearly wrought.
In 1954 an ANP correspondent observed that “what we are witnessing today is a color war: [the] U.S.A. would never have used the A-bombs on Germany but a colored nation did not count, so they tried them out on Japan. Japanese have never forgiven Americans for that.”78 Also in 1954 the Negro publisher Claude A. Barnett, who previously had viewed the internment as an opportunity for Negroes, now more soberly concluded that “when the Japanese were driven out of California and put in concentration camps, the only people who succored them, or the principal people who did, were colored folk. They visited the camps, took them food and did errands for them.”79 Perhaps he was looking ahead and gathering chits for a day when the roles would be reversed and Negroes would need aid in internment camps.
U.S. Negroes found it hard to forget the racial chauvinism that they had endured, even after it was declared officially verboten in the wake of the 1954 landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. Sharp note was taken of the verbal miscue by Senator Styles Bridges, who on national television said that no “white soldiers” would be used in an invasion of China. “I mean American soldiers would never be used,” he clarified, though his initial words betrayed a continuing widespread belief that to be “American” was the equivalent of being “white.”80 Negro apprehension was not assuaged when Sherman Adams, a top White House aide, said on television the next year that the “white race” was going to “hang together” in world affairs.81