Note (Back) — CHAPTER 17

Not that demands for integration ever really ceased. Civil rights organizations and progressive lawmakers continued to press the Army, and the Selective Service System itself complained that black draftees were being discriminated against even before induction.[17-19] Because so many protests had focused on the induction process, James Evans, the Civilian Aide to the Secretary of Defense, recommended that the traditional segregation be abandoned, at least during the period between induction and first assignment.[17-20] Congressman Jacob Javits, always a critic of the Army's segregation policy, was particularly disturbed by the segregation of black trainees at Fort Dix, New Jersey. His request that training units be integrated was politely rejected in the fall of 1950 by General Marshall, who implied that the subject was an unnecessary intrusion, an attitude characteristic of the Defense Department's war-distracted feelings toward integration.[17-21]