ABSTRACT
When studying Harry Truman’s decision to racially desegregate the American military, we should not shortchange his social maturation, a process that began during his time as a senator, out of a desire to reach a desensitized and skeptical viewpoint that alludes solely to political rationales for his actions. 1 Conversely, we must certainly remain wary of relying solely on the hyperbolic interpretation of the president offered by Clark Clifford, one of Truman’s principal presidential advisors, who observed that “The wonderful, wonderful development in those years was Harry Truman’s capacity to grow.” When we wade into the morass of Truman’s messy and complex past, which was full of contradictions and revelations, it becomes clear that he lacked a neat and tidy solitary moment that explains, fundamentally and unequivocally, how and why he changed on the issue of race. The evidence suggests that his decision revolved around a copious array of justifications. It was certainly not an easy choice for him. Embracing a new outlook required him to abandon the social norms of his upbringing and the deep-seated beliefs of the southern wing of the Democratic Party. 2 And yet, it was a decision that Truman never regretted or recanted. In this chapter, I synthesize past historical studies of the president in order to offer a more nuanced examination of his decision, one reliant on political, personal, and Cold War rationales, to racially integrate the military by way of executive action. Executive Order 9981, though not always as swift or encompassing as many civil rights crusaders wished at the time, proved to be far more than the simple racial desegregation of combat forces, but the beginning of the transformation of the American military establishment, which as a by-product, contributed, in no small manner, to the larger Civil Rights Movement of the era. 3
Whether seeking election as a senator or later as president, Truman appreciated the growing power of the black vote. And though he felt that it was not possible to legislate equality, he believed in equality of opportunity. Indeed, during his 1940 senatorial reelection bid, he informed a Sedalia, Missouri, crowd that he believed “in the brotherhood of man, not merely the brotherhood of white men but the brotherhood of all men before the law.” “I believe,” he continued, “in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. In giving the Negroes the rights which are theirs we are only acting in accord with our own ideals of a true democracy.” His words proved more than the hokum of a political candidate seeking safe passage into office. Senator Truman remained true to his word. He later investigated incidents of racial prejudice toward African American soldiers at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, fought against the poll tax that disfranchised black voters, and battled the practice of lynching that intimidated and murdered
them. Though he achieved limited success, Truman’s championing of civil rights reform before he became president established a track record, though it did not always match their expectations, with African American voters. 4
Still, the president’s maturation process on the issue proved less than charming, and it often dipped into the horrifically insensitive language of his region. “Harry is no more for nigger equality than any of us,” his younger sister, Mary Jane, boastfully declared to biographer and former Truman staffer, Jonathan Daniels. She had not misread him; Mary Jane viewed her older brother, much as she did herself and others, as a willing disciple of the racial zeitgeist of their hometown of Independence, Missouri, where African American citizens faced the gross and often harsh realities of Jim Crow racial segregation. For a time, Truman differed little from others in the region as he displayed a great propensity for, and willingness to use, the colloquial, albeit terribly racist, terms of the day to express his personal misgivings about racial groups. “I think one man is as good as another so long as he’s honest and decent and not a nigger or a Chinaman,” a young Truman once flatly remarked to his wife, Bess, during their courtship. 5
Biographer Alonzo Hamby, however, detected a change in Truman on the issue of race around the time of the Second World War. For Hamby, it was a matter of “sensitivity.” On a minute level, Truman began to use the socially accepted term “negroes” to refer to black constituents, and as observed, he became an active advocate in his era for civil rights and often tied them to the responsibilities and requirements of a democratic society. It is also plausible that he acted on the issue because of his appreciation of their military service to the nation. During the Great War, Capt. Harry S. Truman of the Missouri National Guard experienced firsthand the blood and mud of the Western Front. The experience made him more sensitive to the loss of life that accompanied warfare and developed within him a great appreciation for those that served their country. In the fall of 1946, Walter White, head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); representatives from the American Federation of Labor (AFL); the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO); and various religious groups met with Truman. Deluged with several stories about the racist treatment that American minorities faced, it had been black World War II veteran Isaac Woodard’s sad tale that most deeply affected the president. After three years of service including a fifteen-month stint in the South Pacific where some of the most brutal fighting of the war took place, Sergeant Woodard, recently discharged, boarded a bus bound for home. While on his journey, a white bus driver who had harassed the black veteran throughout the trip informed the police chief of Batesburg, South Carolina, Lynwood Lanier Shull, that Woodard had been “drunk and disorderly.” Upon hearing the news, Shull promptly arrested Woodard, who vigorously pleaded that he had not been drinking. In response, the police chief savagely beat, blinded, and incarcerated the veteran. Startled by the account, Truman exclaimed: “My God! I had no idea it was as terrible as that! We’ve got to do something!” Soon after, he dispatched a memo to Attorney General Tom Clark. In it, the president observed, “I have been very much alarmed at the increased racial feeling all over the country and I am wondering if it wouldn’t be well to appoint a commission to analyze the situation and have a remedy to present to the next Congress-something similar to the Wickersham Commission on Prohibition.” He also supported the Attorney General’s decision to prosecute Shull. Though a noble effort, the Justice Department’s effort failed to sway the all-white jury in Columbia, South Carolina, who subsequently exonerated Batesburg’s chief of police in less than half an hour. 6
Though not the most sonorous voice of his era, the president’s desire to address civil rights proved to be more than simply a politician pandering to black voters out of his own personal pursuit of political glory. In the wake of the failed prosecution of Shull, Truman decided that he had to go further. That decision partly relied on his personal convictions about military service: “But my very stomach turned over when I learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being
dumped out of army trucks in Mississippi and beaten. Whatever my inclinations as a native of Missouri might have been, as President I know this is bad. I shall fight to end evils like this.” Understanding that he faced stiff resistance from a conservative Congress, the president opted instead for executive action, a decision that he would later be forced to repeat. On December 5, 1946, he issued Executive Order 9808, which established the President’s Committee on Civil Rights. The president believed it was the intrinsic duty of the federal government to protect the rights of all of its citizens, and during the first meeting of the group, he demanded action: “I want our Bill of Rights implemented in fact. We have been trying to do this for 150 years. We are making progress,” Truman recognized, “but we are not making progress fast enough. This country could very easily be faced with a situation similar to the one with which it was faced in 1922.” The president was referring to the second-coming of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in the 1920s. Composed of millions of Protestant middle class white men, the Klan targeted those groups, African Americans, Catholics, Jews, and elites, they believed responsible for threatening their racist weltanschauung. In their warped view, their enemies’ deliberate challenge to the dominance of white men was at the root of the world’s problems. It was the president’s belief that the 1920’s KKK, the actions of Lynwood Lanier Shull toward Isaac Woodard, and those who later led the communist witch-hunts in America had all been cut from the same cloth. They all trampled on the Bill of Rights. 7
As the Committee on Civil Rights worked in the backdrop, Truman, in a speech that smacked of racial liberalism from a southern Democrat, an unexpected development given his heritage, became the first American president to address the NAACP. The chief executive explained that he sought to transform the government into an active defender of civil rights: “The extension of civil rights today means, not protection of the people against the Government, but protection of the people by the Government. We must make the Federal Government a friendly, vigilant defender of the rights and equalities of all Americans.” Politically, it is clear that the president had to act. To do so required Truman to disregard racist rhetoric from many old friends and supporters. Indeed, had he taken the advice of his longtime friend Ernie Roberts of the Faultless Starch Company to “let the South take care of the Niggers, which they have done, and if the Niggers do not like the Southern treatment, let them come to Mrs. Roosevelt,” it would have led to his political ruin in 1948 against Thomas Dewey. Truman needed to secure African American support from Dewey while also purloining any momentum reaped by former Vice President Henry Wallace, whose liberalism far exceeded the president’s. While critical to his fortunes, getting the black vote was not, however, the sole reason he acted. In a private moment with his sister before the speech, Truman, though some hesitation still lingered, understood the gesture before the NAACP to be the right path for himself and the nation: “I’ve got to make a speech to the Society for the Advancement of Colored People tomorrow and I wish I didn’t have to make it . . . Mamma won’t like what I say because I wind up quoting old Abe. But I believe what I say and I’m hopeful we may implement it.” 8
As historian Mary Dudziak has observed, the pervasive nature of the early Cold War also compelled Truman to consider the disastrous outcome that American racism had on the image of the republic. Throughout the contest’s entirety, the Soviet Union effectively utilized racial injustice in America as a way to curry the favor of the non-white citizens of the developing world. In an interview with Jonathan Daniels for The Man of Independence , the president, in his own colloquial way, recognized the detrimental effect non-action had on the nation: “The Top Dog in a world which is over half colored ought to clean his own house.” In a speech before the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC), then acting Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, echoed the sentiments of his chief, “we are reminded over and over by some foreign newspapers and spokesman, that our treatment of various minorities leaves much to be desired.” “I think it is quite obvious . . .”, he added, “that the existence of discriminations against minority groups in the United States is a handicap in
our relations with other countries.” The message emanating from the West Wing during the president’s NAACP address was that civil rights reform had remained important but not solely for the social well-being of the African American community. But instead because the president believed it was also a powerful ideological statement, and therefore a weapon in America’s war to halt the spread of global communism. “In order to earn the support of the downtrodden of the globe,” the president had told his NAACP audience, “our case for democracy should be as strong as we can make it. It should rest on practical evidence that we have been able to put our own house in order.” 9
Composed of a collection of white and black professionals, The President’s Committee on Civil Rights produced To Secure These Rights . The work was a comprehensive examination of American race relations that emphasized that the federal government possessed the power to redress rampant discrimination against all minorities. It outlined four fundamental rights that all Americans possessed: “the right to safety and security of the person . . . the right of citizenship and its privileges . . . the right to freedom of conscience and expression . . . and the right to equality of opportunity.” During their review of American society, they paid particular attention to the military, which in their opinion had historically served as a bastion of racism that perpetually humiliated the African American community. A recent precedent, though, offered a promising alternative. Desperate for manpower, Army leadership during the Battle of the Bulge created partially integrated companies made up of all black platoons who served next to all white ones; ultimately, these group intermingled and intertwined as a result of the tide of battle. It proved to be a positive social experiment with little racial animosity or incidents between the participants. Intrigued, the Army petitioned the opinions of those white officers and enlisted men involved. Their findings appeared in ETO-82. The report indicated that practical experience trumped past racial concerns on the combat abilities of African American soldiers. As one white southern sergeant involved recalled: “When I heard about it I said I’d be damned if I’d wear the same shoulder patch they did. After that first day when we saw how they fought I changed my mind. They’re just like any of the other boys to us.” Eager for a broader sampling, the Army solicited the opinions of 1,710 non-commissioned whites not involved with the creation of the integrated force. They discovered that the more isolated whites were from blacks, the less they trusted or wanted to work with them. These results challenged a system that relied upon the notion that black and white soldiers could not fight efficiently together. Some within the Army embraced its potential as a catalyst for reform, while others remained politically wary of it, and sought to bury its findings rather than release them. A later group, known as the Gillem Board, plunged into the issue further, and while proving appreciative of the value of African American soldiers, they maintained the prevailing milieu of racial segregation. Siding with tradition and conservatism, Secretary of the Army, General George C. Marshall buried ETO-82. 10
When the President’s Committee politically exhumed ETO-82, they used the controversial report to support their findings in To Secure These Rights. Most importantly, the committee noted that the military had served as a social laboratory that offered the promise of an integrated future:
During the last war we and our allies, with varying but undeniable success, found that the military services can be used to educate citizens on a broad range of social and political problems. The war experiences brought to our attention a laboratory in which we may prove that the majority and minorities of our population can train and work and fight side by side in cooperation and harmony. We should not hesitate to take full advantage of this opportunity.
