Executive Order 9981 was anexecutive order issued on July 26, 1948, byPresidentHarry S. Truman. It abolished discrimination "on the basis ofrace,color,religion ornational origin" in theUnited States Armed Forces. The Order led to there-integration of the services during the Korean War (1950–1953).[1] It was a crucial event in the post-World War IIcivil rights movement and a major achievement of Truman's presidency.[2][3]
For Truman, Executive Order 9981 was inspired, in part, by an attack onIsaac Woodard who was an American soldier andAfrican American World War II veteran. On February 12, 1946, hours after being honorably discharged from the United States Army, he was attacked while still in uniform by South Carolina police as he was taking a bus home. The attack left Woodard completely and permanently blind. President Harry S. Truman ordered a federal investigation. Truman also established thePresident's Committee on Civil Rights, whose report,To Secure These Rights, condemned the state of civil rights in the nation and recommended actions to correct these failures. He then made a historic speech to theNAACP and the nation in June 1947 in which he described civil rights as a moral imperative, submitted a comprehensive civil rights bill to Congress in February 1948, and issued Executive Orders 9980 and 9981 on July 26, 1948, desegregating the armed forces and promoting anti-discrimination throughout the federal government.
Black Americans in the military worked under different rules that delayed their entry into combat. They had to wait four years before they could begin combat training while a white American would begin training within months of being qualified. TheAir Corps was deliberately delaying the training of African Americans even though it needed more manpower (Survey and Recommendations[4]). TheWomen's Army Corps (WAC) reenlistment program was open to black women, but overseas assignments were not.[5]
Black soldiers who were stationed in Britain duringWorld War II learned that the US military attempted to imposeJim Crow segregation on them even though Britain did not practice theracism which was practiced in the US. According to authorAnthony Burgess, when pub owners inBamber Bridge were told to segregate their facilities by the US military, they installed signs that read "Black Troops Only". One soldier commented: "One thing I noticed here and which I don't like is the fact that the English don't draw any color line. The English must be pretty ignorant. I can't see how a white girl could associate with a negro."[6]
In a 1945 survey which was conducted among 250 white officers and sergeants who had a blackplatoon assigned to their company, the following results were collected: 77% of both officers and sergeants said that they had become more favorable towards black soldiers after a black platoon was assigned to their company (no cases were found in which someone said that their attitude towards blacks had turned less favorable), 84% of officers and 81% of sergeants thought that the black soldiers had performed very well in combat, only 5% of officers and only 4% of sergeants thought that black infantry soldiers were not as good as white infantry soldiers, and 73% of officers and 60% of sergeants thought that black soldiers and white soldiers got along very well when they were together.[7] According to this particular survey, there were no reasonable grounds forracial segregation in the armed forces.
In 1947, civil rights activistA. Philip Randolph, along with colleague Grant Reynolds, renewed efforts to end discrimination in the military, forming the Committee AgainstJim Crow in Military Service and Training, later renamed the League for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience Against Military Segregation.[8]Truman's Order expanded onExecutive Order 8802 by establishing equality of treatment and opportunity in the military for people of all races, religions, or national origins.
The order:
It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale.
The order also established a committee to investigate and make recommendations to the civilian leadership of the military to implement the policy.
Army Chief of Staff Gen.Omar Bradley disliked the order, commenting that “[t]he Army is not out to make any social reforms." Bradley was forced by president Truman to issue a public apology.[9]
The order eliminatedMontford Point as a segregated Marineboot camp. It became a satellite facility ofCamp Lejeune.[10]
Most of the actual enforcement of the order was accomplished by President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration (1953–1961), including the desegregation of military schools, hospitals, and bases. The last of theall-black units in the United States military was abolished in September 1954.[11]
Kenneth Claiborne Royall,Secretary of the Army since 1947, was forced into retirement in April 1949 for continuing to refuse to desegregate the army nearly a year after President Truman's Order.[12]
Fifteen years after Truman's order, on July 26, 1963,Secretary of DefenseRobert McNamara issuedDirective 5120.36 encouraging military commanders to employ their financial resources against facilities used by soldiers or their families that discriminated based upon sex or race.[13]
In contravention to Truman's executive order, the United States complied[when?] with a non-public request from the Icelandic government not to station black soldiers on theUS base in Keflavík, Iceland. The United States complied with the Icelandic request until the 1970s and 1980s when black soldiers began to be stationed in Iceland.[14]
Truman finally broke the logjam in July with the release of Executive Order 9981, which announced: It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, or religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Omar Bradley bucked the order, using language that already sounded antique. Bradley pronounced, "The Army is not out to make any social reforms. The Army will put men of different races in different companies. It will change that policy when the Nation as a whole changes it." Truman reiterated, however, that though the order called for gradual desegregation of the armed forces, the armed forces would desegregate. He forced Bradley to issue a public apology.
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