Note (Back) — CHAPTER 10

The commander of the McAlester ammunition depot endorsed this recommendation, adding that Oklahoma was a "border" state where the Negro was not accepted as in the north nor understood and tolerated as in the south. This argument moved the Director of Plans and Policies to recommend that McAlester be dropped and the black unit sent instead to Port Chicago, California.[10-36] With the approval of the commandant and the Chief of Naval Operations, plans for the assignment were well under way in June 1947 when the commandant of the Twelfth Naval District intervened.[10-37] The presence of a black unit, he declared, was undesirable in a predominantly white area that was experiencing almost constant labor turmoil. The possibility of clashes between white pickets and black guards would invite racial conflict. His warnings carried the day, and Port Chicago was dropped in favor of the Marine Barracks, Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, New York, with station at Bayonne, New Jersey. At the same time, because of opposition from naval officials, the plan for assigning Negroes to Earle, New Jersey, was also dropped, and the commandant launched inquiries about the depots at Hingham, Massachusetts, and Fort Mifflin, Pennsylvania.[10-38]