Note (Back) — CHAPTER 4

The General Board was overruled, and the Coast Guard proceeded to recruit its first group of 150 black volunteers, sending them to Manhattan Beach for basic training in the spring of 1942. The small size of the black general service program precluded the establishment of a separate training station, but the Negroes were formed into a separate training company at Manhattan Beach. While training classes and other duty activities were integrated, sleeping and messing facilities were segregated. Although not geographically separated as were the black sailors at Camp Smalls or the marines at Montford Point, the black recruits of the separate training company at Manhattan Beach were effectively impressed with the reality of segregation in the armed forces.[4-43]