Note (Back) — CHAPTER 23

The combination of voluntary compliance techniques and economic sanctions, in tandem with the historic civil rights legislation of the mid-1960's, succeeded in eliminating most of the off-base discrimination faced by black servicemen. Ironically, in view of its unquestioned control in the area, the Department of Defense failed to achieve an equal success against discrimination within the military establishment itself. Complaints concerning the number, promotion, assignment, and punishment of black servicemen, a limited problem in the mid-1960's, went mostly unrecognized. Relatively speaking, they were ignored by the Gesell Committee and the civil rights organizations in the face of the more pressing off-base problems and only summarily treated by the services, which remained largely silent about on-base and in-house discrimination. Long after off-base discrimination had disappeared as a specific military problem, this neglected on-base discrimination would rise up again to trouble the armed forces in more militant times.[23-101]