Note (Back) — CHAPTER 16

But how were these changes being accepted among the rank and file? Comments from official sources and civil rights groups alike showed the leaven of racial tolerance at work throughout the service.[16-105] Reporter Lee Nichols, interviewing members of all the services in 1953,[16-106] found that whites expected blacks to prove themselves in their assignments while blacks were skeptical that equal opportunities for assignment were really open to them. Yet the Nichols interviews reveal a strain of pride and wonderment in the servicemen at the profound changes they had witnessed.