Note (Back) — CHAPTER 10

Yet neither the relatively small size of the Marine Corps nor the fact that few black marines were enrolled could conceal the inefficiency of segregation. Over the next three years the personnel planning staff tried to find a solution to the problem of what it considered to be too many Negroes in the general service. First it began to reduce gradually the number of black units accommodated in the Operating Force Plan, absorbing the excess black marines by increasing the number of stewards. This course was not without obvious public relations disadvantages, but they were offset somewhat by the fact that the Marine Corps, unlike the Navy, never employed a majority of its black recruits as stewards. In May 1948 the commandant approved new plans for a 10 percent decrease in the number of general duty assignments and a corresponding increase in spaces for stewards.[10-8] The trend away from assigning Negroes to general service duty continued until the Korean War, and in October 1949 a statistical high point was reached when some 33 percent of all black marines were serving as stewards. The doctrine that all marines were potential infantrymen stood, but it was small comfort to civil rights activists who feared that what at best was a nominal black representation in the corps was being pushed into the kitchen.