Note (Back) — CHAPTER 23

The action taken by base commanders under this responsibility might alter patterns of segregated education in some areas, but in the long run any attempt to integrate schools through a program of voluntary compliance appeared futile. At the end of the 1964 school year more than 76,300 military dependents, including 6,177 black children, at forty-nine installations attended segregated schools. Another 14,390 children on these same bases attended integrated schools, usually grade school, on the military base itself.[23-63] Because of the restrictions against base closings and off-limits sanctions, there was little hope that base commanders could produce any substantial improvement in this record. Fitt admitted that the Department of Defense could not compel the integration of a school district. He recognized that it was impossible to establish an accredited twelve-grade system at the forty-nine installations, yet at the same time he considered it "incompatible with military requirements" to assign black servicemen with children to areas where only integrated schools were available. Even the threat to deny impacted-area aid was limited because in many communities the services' contracts with local school districts to educate dependent children was contingent on continuous federal aid. If the aid was stopped the schools would be closed, leaving service children with no schools to attend.[23-64]