The Golden Thirteen
Page 27
I am thankful to John Sheppard, who handles public affairs at Great Lakes Naval Training Station, and Dr. Jennifer Searcy, director of the National Museum of the American Sailor, for directing me to archival material that helped me understand what life must have been like for the men at Camp Robert Smalls.
Dara Baker, at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, probably contributed more than she realizes. She pointed me in a dozen directions that I would not have thought of on my own, and they all proved useful.
David Tucker, a world-class editor; Patricia Cole, a world-class copyeditor; and Roosevelt “Rick” Wright Jr., PhD, Captain USNR (retired), offered advice and encouragement that kept me on track.
I never met any of the Golden Thirteen, but I was fortunate to speak with many of their friends, wives, children, and grandchildren. They were gracious with their time, corrected my errors, and provided loving details that helped bring these men to life.
My wife, Holly, was at my side for this and everything else. Her patience seems to have no limit. Her enthusiasm for this book matched my own, and she never appeared to tire of her husband droning on about another “Golden Thirteen” story. She forgave me the nights and weekends she gave up with me as I pursued this project, and offered countless helpful notes along the way. She is my best friend and my most loving critic.
Finally, this book is dedicated to the Golden Thirteen. This work has been my privilege and I have never for a moment lost sight of the special responsibility I have to these men, their times, and to do their story justice. It is my sincerest hope that I was equal to the task.
NOTES
CHAPTER 1: “WE‘RE SENDING YOU UP TO GREAT LAKES.”
1. Reminiscences of Jesse Walter Arbor, interviewed by Paul Stillwell, October 9, 1986, and July 20, 1988, US Naval Institute Oral History Program, Annapolis, Maryland (hereafter NIOHP), 5; see, also, Stillwell, The Golden Thirteen, 177.
2. Douglass Hall, “No Colored Sailors on Seagoing Vessels,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 3, 1943.
3. Kelly, Proudly We Served, 53.
4. Arbor, NIOHP, 58.
5. Arbor, NIOHP, 5–6.
6. Reminiscences of John Walter Reagan, interviewed by Paul Stillwell, January 15, 1987, and April 10, 1989, NIOHP, 28.
7. Reminiscences of James Edward Hair, interviewed by Paul Stillwell, November 12, 1986, and November 10, 1988, NIOHP, 54–56.
8. Reminiscences of Samuel E. Barnes, interviewed by Paul Stillwell, November 24, 1986, January 30, 1989, and May 12,1989, NIOHP, 37–38.
9. Stillwell, “Two Black Lives,” unpublished typescript.
CHAPTER 2: “DON‘T PUT YOUR TIME IN NEGROES.”
1. Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 44.
2. “Mess Attendants Write: ‘Don’t Join the Navy,’” Pittsburgh Courier, October 5, 1940, 1.
3. Maj. Gen. H. E. Ely, Commandant, The Use of Negro Manpower in War (US Army War College, November 10, 1925).
4. Lanning, The African-American Soldier, 139.
5. Bullard, Personalities and Reminiscences of the War, 295–98.
6. Selden, “Transforming Better Babies into Fitter Families.”
7. Mikkelsen, “Coming from Battle to Face a War,” 19–21; see, also, Chad Williams, “African-American Veterans Hoped Their Service in World War I Would Secure Their Rights at Home. It Didn’t,” Time, November 12, 2018.
8. Nalty and MacGregor, Blacks in the Military, 91.
9. Nalty, Strength for the Fight, 86.
10. Davis, “Many of Them Are Among My Best Men,” 1.
11. Miller, Messman Chronicles, 4–8.
12. Davis, “Many of Them Are Among My Best Men,” 187.
13. Davis, “Many of Them Are Among My Best Men,” 56.
14. Mallison, The Great Wildcatter, 403.
15. Robert Lee Vann, “This Year I See Millions of Negroes Turning the Picture of Abraham Lincoln to the Wall,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 17, 1932, 12.
16. Weber, Don’t Call Me Boss, 50–54.
17. Bunie, Robert L. Vann of the Pittsburgh Courier, 179–202.
18. Brewer, “Robert Lee Vann, Democrat or Republican.”
19. Gibson, Knocking Down Barriers, 5.
20. Myrdal, An American Dilemma, 909–15.
21. Logan and Winston, Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 614–16; Toppin, A Biographical History of Blacks in America Since 1528, 434.
22. Robert L. Vann, “Courier’s Letter to College Presidents,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 19, 1938, 14.
23. Robert L. Vann, “BECAUSE! Ten Cardinal Points in Courier’s Campaign for Army and Navy Equality,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 1, 1938, 1.
24. Robert L. Vann to FDR, January 19, 1939, Office File (hereafter OF) 93A, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum (hereafter FDRL).
25. Hair, NIOHP, 7.
26. For Alfred’s age and race, listed as mulatto, see US Census Bureau, 1920 Census for Blackville, SC, Enumeration District 52, line 18.
27. Hair, NIOHP, 14–16.
28. Hair, NIOHP, 19–21.
CHAPTER 3: “I JUST DON’T BELIEVE YOU CAN DO THE JOB.”
1. Remnick, The Bridge, 143–44.
2. Gibson, Knocking Down Barriers, 31–32.
3. Arbor, NIOHP, 8, 32–40.
4. For Arbor’s résumé and college transcript, see Arbor, Jesse Walter, National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis Office of Military Personnel Files (hereafter NPRC St. Louis).
5. Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 165; Garfinkle, When Negroes March, 20–21.
6. “Lynching and Liberty,” Crisis, July 1940, 209.
7. Finkle, “Conservative Aims of Militant Rhetoric,” 697.
8. Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops, 74.
9. “The U.S. Navy Is for White Men,” editorial, Crisis, September 1940, 5.
10. O’Farrell, She Was One of Us, 80.
11. “Mayor Says Labor Backs Roosevelt,” New York Times, September 17, 1940, 23.
12. Alfred A. Duckett, “Porter’s Banquet Addressed by Eleanor Roosevelt,” New York Age, September 21, 1940, 1.
13. Scott and Womack, Double V, 123–24.
14. Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 167–68.
15. “The Choice of a Candidate,” New York Times, September 19, 1940, 20.
16. Gibson, Knocking Down Barriers, 87.
17. Knox to Rear Admiral Randall Jacobs, memo, December 29, 1942, General Records of the Department of the Navy (hereafter GenRecsNav), box 37, folder 54-1.
18. Doyle, Inside the Oval Office, 12. The University of Virginia’s Miller Center has an audio recording of the conversation.
19. Eiler, Mobilizing America, 132.
20. Reddick, “The Negro in the United States Navy during World War II,” 202.
21. MacGregor, Integration of the Armed Forces, 59–60.
22. “End of a Strenuous Life,” Time, May 8, 1944, 12.
23. “U.S. at War,” Time, September 7, 1942, 25.
24. Lobdell, “Frank Knox,” 682.
25. Jack Alexander, “Secretary Knox,” Life, March 10, 1941, 60.
26. For a description of Knox, see “In Line of Duty,” Newsweek, May 8, 1944, 31, and Stevenson, The Papers of Adlai Stevenson, 77.
27. “U.S. at War,” 25.
28. Beasley, Frank Knox, American, 153.
29. For a description of Charles Edison, see Ickes, Lowering Clouds, 1939–1941, 202.
30. Alexander, “Secretary Knox,” 63.
31. Knox to Robert G. Simmons, September 16, 1942, Frank Knox Papers, box 4, Library of Congress (hereafter cited as Knox Papers).
32. Ketchum, The Borrowed Years, 725.
33. Alexander, “Secretary Knox,” 58.
34. Knox to FDR, December 15, 1939, President’s Secretary’s Files, box 62, FDRL.
35. Tully, FDR: My Boss, 243.
36. Lobdell, “Frank Knox,” 692.
37. Lobdell, “Frank Knox,” 687.
38. Reminiscences of George Clinton Cooper, intervie
wed by Paul Stillwell, October, 15, 1986, and July 18, 1988, NIOHP, 14–17.
39. Cooper, NIOHP, 88.
40. Loy and Worthy, Washington and the Pamlico, 86, 474.
41. Peggy Cooper Davis, interview with author, February 6, 2019.
42. Cooper, NIOHP, 80.
43. Cooper, NIOHP, 74.
44. Cooper, NIOHP, 90.
45. Peggy Cooper Davis, interviewed by author, March 11, 2019.
46. Cooper, NIOHP, 102.
47. Finkle, “The Conservative Aims of Militant Rhetoric,” 694.
48. Miller, The Messman Chronicles, 121–22.
49. Logan and Winston, Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 616.
50. “Mess Attendants Write: ‘Don’t Join the Navy.’”
51. “Those Brave Colored Sailors,” Pittsburgh Courier, October 12, 1940, 6.
52. Weiss, Farewell to the Party of Lincoln, 282.
53. “The Negro Vote,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 2, 1940, 3.
54. George Schuyler, “Views and Reviews,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 21, 1940, 6.
55. “Navy Messmen, in Prison, Cry Out for Help from Readers,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 9, 1940, 1.
56. “Navy Messmen, in Prison, Cry Out for Help from Readers.”
57. “Navy Fires Mess Attendants,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 7, 1940, 1.
58. “Judge William H. Hastie, Oral History Interview,” interviewed by Jerry N. Hess, January 5, 1972, transcript, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Independence, MO, https://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/hastie.htm#note.
CHAPTER 4: “WE ARE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST IN EVERY WAY.”
1. Grossman, Keating, and Reiff, Encyclopedia of Chicago, 269.
2. W. E. B. Du Bois, “Close Ranks,” Crisis, July 1918.
3. “Prep Mat Champion Johnny Reagan Graduates in June,” Chicago Defender, March 25, 1939, 8. See, also, “Enrolled at Montana U.,” Chicago Defender, December 2, 1939, 2.
4. Reagan, NIOHP, 3–25, 92–125.
5. “A Montana Grizzly,” Pittsburgh Courier, October 19, 1940, 18.
6. John T. Campbell, “Reagan Is First the Goat, Then Real Hero,” Chicago Defender, November 9, 1940, 24.
7. Moye, “The Tuskegee Airmen Oral History Project.”
8. Gibson, Knocking Down Barriers, 7.
9. Perry, “It’s Time to Force a Change.”
10. Gibson, Knocking Down Barriers, 80.
11. Sullivan, Days of Hope, 136.
12. Alexa Mills, “A Lynching Kept Out of Sight,” Washington Post, September 2, 2016, A1.
13. Gibson, Knocking Down Barriers, 80–84.
14. Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops, 141.
15. Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops, 142.
16. Dalfiume, “The ‘Forgotten Years’ of the Negro Revolution,” 90–106.
17. “Now Is the Time Not to Be Silent,” editorial, Crisis, January 1942, 7.
18. “The Negro in the United States Army,” Crisis, February 1942, 47.
19. Finkle, Forum for Protest, 102–3.
20. Edward T. Folliard, “All Fleet Flags at Half-Staff; Full Military Rites to Be Held Monday,” Washington Post, April 29, 1944, 1.
21. US Navy, Bureau of Naval Personnel, “The Negro in the Navy in World War II (1947)” (hereafter cited as “The Negro in the Navy”), 3.
22. Addison Walker, memo, December 6, 1941, GenRecsNav, 131-N, box 1.
23. “FDR Is Asked for Order on Navy Bias,” Chicago Defender, December 27, 1941, 2.
24. “Mark F. Ethridge, Journalist, Dies at 84,” New York Times, April 7, 1981, B1.
25. Schneller, Breaking the Color Barrier, 142.
26. Marie Baker to Lieut. Edward Hayes, January 4, 1942; Hayes to Baker, January 7, 1942, GenRecsNav, box 37, folder 54-1.
27. James E. Boyack, “Army Gets World’s Most Famous Bomber,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 24, 1942, 16.
28. Ernest E. Johnson, “Leaders Discuss Momentous War Problems: Correction of Evils Is Aim,” Associated Negro Press, January 14, 1942.
29. “Judge William Hastie, 71, of Federal Court, Dies,” New York Times, April 15, 1976, 36.
30. “Race Support of War Effort Is Lukewarm Say Conferees,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 17, 1942, 1.
31. “Reveal Race War Apathy,” New York Amsterdam News, January 17, 1942, 1.
32. “Judge Hastie Takes Message to ‘Garcia,’“ Chicago Defender, January 24, 1942, 14; “Leaders Find Negroes’ War Effort Wanting,” New York Herald Tribune, January 11, 1942, 23; “Reveal Race War Apathy.”
33. “Attack Query on Loyalty of U.S. Negroes,” Chicago Defender, January 31, 1942, 3.
34. “Mrs. Roosevelt Scores Prejudice as Obstacle to Country’s Defense,” New York Amsterdam News, January 17, 1942, 2; “Mrs. Roosevelt Warns Group Against Prejudice,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 17, 1942, 8.
35. Sitkoff, Toward Freedom Land, 34.
36. Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 328.
37. “Negroes Learn Navy Cannot Take Them Yet,” New York Herald Tribune, April 9, 1942, 10.
38. Reddick, “The Negro in the United States Navy During World War II,” 207.
39. FDR to Knox, January 9, 1942, President’s Secretary’s Files, box 7, FDRL; “The Negro in the Navy,” 4–5.
40. MacGregor, Integration of the Armed Forces, 63–64.
41. Leonard L. Farber to Knox, January 19, 1942, and Knox to Farber, January 23, 1942, both GenRecsNav, box 37, folder 54-1.
CHAPTER 5: “WOULD IT BE DEMANDING TOO MUCH TO DEMAND FULL CITIZENSHIP?”
1. Douglas Martin, “Doris E. Travis, Last of the Ziegfeld Girls, Dies at 106,” New York Times, May 12, 2010, B12.
2. “Glorified by Ziegfeld,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, July 25, 1931, 12.
3. “Deny Marital Troubles,” New York Amsterdam News, October 14, 1939, 1.
4. “Emmita Due Back without Her Reginald,” New York Amsterdam News, May 30, 1942, 1.
5. Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 165.
6. Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 21.
7. Olga Lash Barnes, interview with author, August 12, 2012.
8. Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 21, 149.
9. Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 196.
10. Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 164.
11. Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 6.
12. Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 171.
13. Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 9–10, 158.
14. Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 14–15, 27.
15. Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 133–34.
16. “Sunny Jim Barnes, Va. State Coach, Dies Suddenly,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 6, 1935, 21.
17. Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 300.
18. Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 149–50.
19. William G. Nunn, “Race Leaders Demand Government End Discrimination At OFF Meet,” Pittsburgh Courier March 28, 1942, 1; “U.S. Asked to Take Firm Stand,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, March 28, 1942, 1; “Leaders Demand that U.S. Clean Own House,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 28, 1942, 1; Roy Wilkins, “The Watchtower,” New York Amsterdam News, March 28, 1942, 7.
20. Dalfiume, Desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces, 126.
21. James G. Thompson, “Should I Sacrifice to Live ‘Half-American’?,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 31, 1942, 3.
22. “Enlistment of Men of Colored Race in Other Than the Messman Branch,” February 3, 1942, President’s Secretary’s Files, box 7, FDRL.
23. Knox to FDR, February 5, 1942, President’s Secretary’s Files, box 7, FDRL.
24. FDR to Knox, February 9, 1942, President’s Secretary’s Files, box 7, FDRL.
25. Knox to FDR, December 19, 1941, President’s Secretary’s Files, box 62, FDRL.
26. Nalty, Strength for the Fight, 187; Nalty and MacGregor, Blacks in the Military, 138.
27. Gifford Pinchot to Knox, January 17, 1942; Knox to Pinchot, January 19; Pinchot to Knox, January 22, 1942, all in GenRecsNav, box 37, folder 54-1.
CHAPTER 6: “A CORDIAL SPIRIT OF EXPERIMENTATION”
1. Washburn, “Pittsburgh Courier’s Double V Campaign
in 1942,” 5.
2. Johnson, To Stem This Tide, 102.
3. “‘Double V’ Clubs Unite, Fight for Abolition of Poll-Tax,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 18, 1942, 15.
4. Washburn, A Question of Sedition, 107.
5. Finkle, “The Conservative Aims of Militant Rhetoric,” 696.
6. Reed, Seedtime for the Modern Civil Rights Movement, 95.
7. Johnson, To Stem This Tide, 71.
8. Johnson, To Stem This Tide, 66.
9. Blum, V Was for Victory, 193–94.
10. Westbrook Pegler, “Fair Enough,” Atlanta Constitution, April 29, 1942, 8. Pegler’s syndicated column ran in many papers.
11. “Westbrook Pegler,” Chicago Defender May 23, 1942, 14.
12. Washburn, A Question of Sedition, 115.
13. Washburn, “Pittsburgh Courier’s Double V Campaign in 1942,” 22–23.
14. Washburn, A Question of Sedition, 89–90.
15. J. E. Branham to Sen. Robert Taft, March 27, 1942, GenRecsNav, 131-N, box 1, folder B.
16. Martin L. Sweeney to Frank Knox, March 27, 1942; Addison Walker to Sweeney, March 30, 1942, GenRecsNav, 131-N, box 1.
17. Lorna R. F. Birtwell to FDR, March 31, 1942, GenRecsNav, 131-O, box 1.
18. Lobdell, “Frank Knox,” 712.
19. “Along the NAACP Battlefront,” Crisis, April, 1942, 139.
20. “Willkie Says Navy Jim Crow Is Mockery of Fine Words,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 28, 1942, 3.
21. Ollie Stewart, “Willkie Says He’d End Navy Jim Crow: Roosevelt or Secretary Knox Could Dispose of Question with Snap of the Finger,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 4, 1942, 1.
22. Knox to Paul Scott Mowrer, May 1, 1942, Knox Papers, box 4.
23. For “least disadvantages: “Enlistment of Men of the Colored Race in Other Than the Messman Branch”; for “unwise”: The Negro in the Navy,” 90.
24. “Enlistment of Men of the Colored Race in Other Than the Messman Branch.”
25. FDR to Knox, March 31, 1942, President’s Secretary’s Files, box 7, FDRL.
26. “The Negro in the Navy,” 7.
27. Buell, Master of Sea Power, 343.
28. “Enlistment of Men of the Colored Race in Other Than the Messman Branch.”