Note (Back) — CHAPTER 24

Questions concerning the effect of law on social custom, and particularly the issue of whether government should force social change or await the popular will, are of continuing interest to the sociologist and the political scientist. In the case of the armed forces, a sector of society that habitually recognizes the primacy of authority and law, the answer was clear. Ordered to integrate, the members of both races adjusted, though sometimes reluctantly, to a new social relationship. The traditionalists' genuine fear that racial unrest would follow racial mixing proved unfounded. The performance of individual Negroes in the integrated units demonstrated that changed social relationships could also produce rapid improvement in individual and group achievement and thus increase military efficiency. Furthermore, the successful integration of military units in the 1950's so raised expectations in the black community that the civil rights leaders would use that success to support their successful campaign in the 1960's to convince the government that it must impose social change on the community at large.[24-3]