by Dan Goldberg
29. Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 366.
30. Stillwell, The Golden Thirteen, xx.
31. Knox to Sen. David I. Walsh, May 21, 1942, GenRecsNav, box 37, folder 54-1.
32. Knox to Sen. William H. Smathers, February 7, 1942, GenRecsNav, box 37, folder 54-1.
33. Enoc Waters, “New Navy Policy No Gain for Race: Assail NAACP and NNC for Approving Jim Crow,” Chicago Defender, April 18, 1942, 1.
34. “Knox’s Pronouncement Insults 13,000,000 Colored Citizens,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 18, 1942, 4.
35. “The Navy: Where Do We Stand?,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 18, 1942, 6.
36. Alvin White, “Washington Leaders Ask Knox [to] Resign over New Navy Policy,” Cleveland Call and Post, April 18, 1942, 13.
37. “The Navy and the Negro,” Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life 20, no. 5 (May 1942): 130.
38. “The Navy: Where Do We Stand?,” 6.
39. “The Negro and the Navy,” New York Times, April 9, 1942, 18.
40. “The Navy: Where Do We Stand?,” 6.
41. Waters, “New Navy Policy No Gain for Race.”
42. Letter to Knox, May 24, 1942, GenRecsNav, 131-O, box 1.
43. Martin J. Keefe to Sen. Francis Maloney, April 8, 1942, and Knox to Maloney (undated), GenRecsNav, 131-O, box 1.
44. Knox to Algernon D. Black, April 23,1943, GenRecsNav, box 37, folder 54-1.
45. William H. Jernagin to Addison Walker, April 23, 1942, GenRecsNav, 131-O, box 1.
46. Trip File, OF 200, box 61, FDRL.
47. “First Negroes for Combat Duty at Great Lakes: They’ll Be Trained in New School,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 6, 1942, 21.
48. “The Negro in the Navy,” 54.
49. Nelson, The Integration of the Negro into the U.S. Navy, 103.
50. “9th Courier Poll Shows Citizens’ Disgust at Navy Discrimination,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 21, 1942, 4.
51. Nelson, The Integration of the Negro into the U.S. Navy, 135.
52. “Nashville Has a Fine Crack Boy Scout Group,” Atlanta Daily World, August 27, 1934, 2; “Origin of Negro Scouting in Nashville,” Baltimore Afro-American, December 7, 1935, 19; “Dennis Nelson Promoted to Lt. Commander,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, August 15, 1953, A1.
53. “Seven Knox Boys Join U.S. Navy,” Atlanta Daily World, September 1, 1943, 6.
54. “Navy Urged to Train Colored Officers,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 25, 1942, 12.
55. “Protest Exclusion of Negro College Students from Navy’s V-1 Program,” Cleveland Call and Post, July 11, 1943, 13.
56. “Students Excluded at Present: Land-Grant College Heads Confer with Navy Dept. Officials,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, July 11, 1942, A1.
57. “The Negro in the Navy,” 29–30.
58. John Wilhelm, “Negro Makes Quality Sailor, Navy Discovers: 1,000 Eager Recruits at Great Lakes,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 16, 1942, N1.
CHAPTER 7: “AS GOOD AS ANY FIGHTING MEN THE US NAVY HAS”
1. Reminiscences of Graham Edward Martin, interviewed by Paul Stillwell, October, 10, 1986, and July 19, 1988, NIOHP, 45–46.
2. Martin, NIOHP, 15.
3. Liebowitz, My Indiana. 189–90.
4. Hoose, Hoosiers, 57–58.
5. Bodenhamer and Barrows, The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, 7–9.
6. Martin, NIOHP, 79.
7. A. H. Maloney, “The Negro of Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Recorder, March 24, 1928, 1.
8. Martin, NIOHP, 79.
9. Martin, NIOHP, 8.
10. “‘Jim Crow’ School Is Legal: Indiana Supreme Court Places ‘OK’ on Segregated High School,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 10, 1926, 1.
11. Hoose, Hoosiers, 59–61.
12. Martin, NIOHP, 21, 133.
13. Martin, NIOHP, 12. See, also, program for funeral of Dr. Russell Adrien Lane, May 1, 1986.
14. Martin, NIOHP, 13.
15. Martin, NIOHP, 29–40, 146.
16. Chief of Naval Personnel, “U.S. Naval Training Center, Great Lakes, Illinois” (hereafter cited as “Great Lakes”), 28.
17. Trip File, OF 200, box 61, FDRL.
18. John W. Fountain, “Men and Music of Another Time and Another War,” New York Times, April 9, 2003, A12.
19. Newton, Better Than Good, 17.
20. Reminiscences of William Sylvester White, interviewed by Paul Stillwell, October 6, 1986, and July 22, 1988, NIOHP, 24.
21. Reminiscences of Frank Ellis Sublett, interviewed by Paul Stillwell, October 8, 1986, and July 21, 1988, NIOHP, 14–16.
22. “The Negro in the Navy,” 62.
23. Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 298.
24. Reagan, NIOHP, 19, 27–31.
25. Hair, NIOHP, 136–38.
26. Hair, NIOHP, 136–38, 29.
27. Hair, NIOHP, 31–32.
28. Hare, NIOHP, 37.
29. Newton, Better Than Good, 12.
30. Stevenson, The Papers of Adlai Stevenson, 25.
31. Trip File, OF 200, box 61, FDRL.
32. “Great Lakes,” 28–33, 152.
33. “Great Lakes,” 33–34.
34. “Great Lakes,” 34.
35. “Naval Reservists Learning How to Become Seagoing Fighters at Great Lakes Naval Training Station,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, August 15, 1942, A11.
36. “Toughened Navy ‘Boots’ Now Ready for Action on Seas: Youths Gaining Weight, Begin Maturing Mentally,” Atlanta Daily World, September 25, 1942, 1; Lt. Comm. Daniel W. Armstrong, “The Navy Needs Men . . . Yes, Negro Men,” Chicago Defender, September 26, 1942, A16.
37. “Great Lakes,” 129–30.
38. Reminiscences of Paul Deming Richmond, interviewed by Paul Stillwell, January, 14, 1990, NIOHP, 5.
39. “Navy’s Colored Commandos Complete Tough Routine: Tough, Alert, Keen, Gallant Negro Naval Recruits First to Finish Commando Course at Great Lakes,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 8, 1942, 14. See, also, “Negro Makes Quality Sailor, Navy Discovers: 1,000 Eager Recruits at Great Lakes,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 16, 1942, N1.
40. Trip File, OF 200, box 61, FDRL.
41. “Negro Sailors Maintain Excellent Naval Record,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 1, 1942, 3.
42. “War Training Class at Howard U.,” Baltimore Afro-American, October 3, 1942, 8.
43. “Great Lakes,” 28–34, 80–81, 96, 150–52, 214.
44. Hair, NIOHP, 181.
45. Wilhelm, “Negro Makes Quality Sailor, Navy Discovers,” N1.
46. Newton, Better Than Good, 17.
47. Martin, NIOHP, 154.
48. Reminiscences of John Flint Dille, interviewed by Paul Stillwell, October, 9, 1986, and August 25, 1989, NIOHP, 16.
49. Richmond, NIOHP, 27.
50. Floyd, “The Great Lakes Experience: 1942–45,” 19–21.
51. Richmond, NIOHP, 8.
52. Hair, NIOHP, 41.
53. “Name Naval Camp in Honor of Negro Civil War Hero,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, August 15, 1942, 2.
54. Knox to Sexton, memo, March 7, 1942, GenRecsNav, box 37, folder 54-1.
55. Daniel W. Armstrong to Ralph A. Bard, March 4, 1942, GenRecsNav, 131-N, box 1.
56. Richmond, NIOHP, 12.
57. Martin, NIOHP, 91; see, also, Arbor, NIOHP, 119.
58. Nelson, The Integration of the Negro into the U.S. Navy, 97–98.
59. “Great Lakes,” 268.
60. Hatch and Hill, A History of African American Theatre, 337; “Owen Dodson to Sign for Navy; Leaves Hampton: Young Playwright Formerly Taught at Spelman College,” Atlanta Daily World, November 5, 1942, 2.
61. Arbor, NIOHP, 121.
62. Wilhelm, “Negro Makes Quality Sailor, Navy Discovers,” N1.
63. Nelson, The Integration of the Negro into the U.S. Navy, 102.
64. MacGregor, Integration of the Armed Forces, 67.
65. Van Ness, NIOHP, 7–9.
66. For a look at discipline, see Newton, Better Than Good, 16; “Great Lakes,” 264–65; “The Negro in t
he Navy,” 63.
67. Dille, NIOHP. See, also, “Great Lakes,” 273.
68. Van Ness, NIOHP, 11–12.
69. Wilhelm, “Negro Makes Quality Sailor, Navy Discovers.”
70. “Great Lakes,” 263.
71. “Black Sailors,” Time, August 17, 1942, 56.
72. Arbor, NIOHP, 1.
73. Trip File, OF 200, box 61, FDRL.
74. Medical report in “Arbor, Jesse Walter” (military personnel file).
75. Arbor, NIOHP, 53–54.
76. “Great Lakes,” 136.
77. Trip File, OF 200, box 61, FDRL.
78. Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 366; Trip File, OF 200, box 61, FDRL.
79. “First Sailors End Basic Navy Training,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 15, 1942, 4.
80. US Copyright Office, Catalog of Copyright Entries, 1942, 41905.
81. Grace Tully Papers, box 7, logs of the President’s trips, 10 FDRL.
82. Newton, Better Than Good, 18–19.
83. “The Negro in the Navy,” 36.
84. Richmond, NIOHP, 13.
85. For a discussion on the literacy program at Camp Robert Smalls, see “The Negro in the Navy,” 88–89; Martin, NIOHP, 50.
86. Martin, NIOHP, 1–5, 55.
87. Martin, NIOHP, 49–50.
88. Martin, NIOHP, 53–54.
89. Richmond, NIOHP, 21–22.
90. Richmond, NIOHP, 30.
CHAPTER 8: “YOU ARE NOW MEN OF HAMPTON.”
1. “Lt. Commander Downes and Staff Welcome First of Naval Selectees,” Chicago Defender, September 19, 1942, 12.
2. On the arrival of the first class at Hampton, see Bernard P. Young Jr., “A Report on History in Making: First Recruits Open Navy School,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, September 19, 1942, 1; John Jordan, “The Ghosts of Great Naval Heroes Smiled on Hampton,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, September 19, 1942, A12; “Hampton Base Gets First Apprentice Seamen: 128 Selectees Start Training for U.S. Navy,” Chicago Defender, September 19, 1942, 12; “128 Seamen Begin Training at Hampton,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 19, 1942, 3; “Commander Dubs Navy Seamen ‘Men of Hampton,’” Baltimore Afro-American, September 19, 1942, 3.
3. “Hampton Ready to Receive Advanced Naval Recruits,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 29, 1942, 5.
4. L. Baynard Whitney, “Who’s Nutty Now?” Philadelphia Tribune, December 5, 1940, 4.
5. Walter White, “Why MacLean Resigned,” Chicago Defender, January 23, 1943, 1.
6. Shetterly, Hidden Figures, 45–46.
7. Vic Stone, letter, Oberlin Alumni Magazine (Winter 1998), http://www2.oberlin.edu/alummag/oampast/oam_winter/Letters/oamwinter98_letters.html.
8. Clarence Toliver, “The Point Is This,” Baltimore Afro-American, August 8, 1942, 5.
9. Sublett, NIOHP, 111.
10. “Efficiency Is Objective of Hampton Naval School: First Class to Graduate in January Commander Cites Aptitude of Men Now in Training,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, November 21, 1942, A5.
11. Newton, Better Than Good, 24–25.
12. S. A. Haynes, “Navy School Building Men of Skills and Character,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, September 25, 1943, A16.
13. Reagan, NIOHP, 164–65.
14. Newton, Better Than Good, 25–26.
15. Sublett, Frank Ellis, NPRC St. Louis.
16. Sublett, NIOHP, 11–17, 84–92.
17. On Reagan and Sublett working together, see Reagan, NIOHP, 31, 56, 144; “Naval Cadets Work Out with Hampton,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, October 3, 1942. 14; “Back to Hampton in Navy Togs,” Chicago Defender, October 31, 1942, 24.
18. Reagan, NIOHP, 169.
19. S. A. Haynes, “Navy Officials Praise Work at Hampton Naval Training Station, First of Its Kind,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, September 11, 1943, B6.
20. Marion L. Starkey, “Contralto Is Fine Trooper as Well as Talented Artist,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, October 24, 1942. 13.
21. Sublett, NIOHP, 26.
22. Sublett, NIOHP, 114.
23. “The Negro in the Navy,” 74.
24. Haynes, “Navy Officials Praise Work at Hampton Naval Training Station.”
25. Frank Sublett, NIOHP, 116.
26. Young, “A Report on History in Making”; “There’s Plenty of Evidence That Negroes Are ‘Doing Fine’ in Navy,” Cleveland Call and Post, July 24, 1943, 10.
27. Cooper, NIOHP, 5, 17–18, 111.
28. “Strike Mars Hampton Graduation,” Chicago Defender, June 3, 1939, 1; “Howe Quits at Hampton,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 2, 1940, 1.
29. “Hampton Students Protest Effects of Economy Program: Commencement Comes Off as Scheduled,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, June 3, 1939, 1; “Hampton Goes ‘Radical’—Students Strike,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 3, 1939, 1.
30. “Hampton Seeks a New President,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 2, 1940, 1.
31. “Strike Mars Hampton Graduation”; “Hampton Students Protest Effects of Economy Program.”
32. Peggy Cooper Davis, interview with author, January 19, 2019.
33. For the Coopers’ wedding and marriage, see Cooper, NIOHP, 55; “Ohio Beauty to Wed,” Chicago Defender, December 9, 1939, 18.
34. Cooper, NIOHP, 100; Peggy Cooper Davis, interviewed by author, May 11, 2012; Stillwell, “The Navy Years.”
35. Reagan, NIOHP, 167.
36. Frank E. Bolden, “Democracy in Command Performance at Hampton,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 13, 1944, 7.
37. Sublett, NIOHP, 117.
38. Kelly, Proudly We Served, 45; Astor, The Right to Fight, 215.
39. Reagan, NIOHP, 168.
40. Reagan, NIOHP, 114.
41. Reagan, NIOHP, 169–70.
42. Sitkoff, “Racial Militancy and Interracial Violence in the Second World War,” 667.
43. Klinkner, The Unsteady March, 171.
44. Marjorie McKenzie, “Pursuit of Democracy: Army Unable to Protect Soldiers in South Because of Inadequate U.S. Laws,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 19, 1942, 7.
45. “Negro Soldiers Shot, Beaten in Louisiana Riot,” New York Herald Tribune, January 12, 1942, 13; Klinkner, The Unsteady March, 166–71.
46. McGuire, Taps for a Jim Crow Army, 11.
47. “Lynch Victim’s Body Burned in Mo. Street,” Baltimore Afro-American, January 31, 1942, 1; Capeci, “The Lynching of Cleo Wright,” 863.
48. Gibson, Knocking Down Barriers, 11.
49. Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son, 101.
50. Enoc Waters, “One Man’s Journal,” Chicago Defender, September 26, 1942, 14.
51. Lloyd L. Brown, “Brown v. Salina, Kansas,” New York Times, February 26, 1973, 31.
52. Flynn, “Selective Service and American Blacks During World War II,” 19.
53. Sidney Walker, “Navy Abolishes Messman Branch; May Enlist Negro,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 20, 1943, 1.
54. Nalty and MacGregor, Blacks in the Military, 145.
55. FDR to Knox, memo, February 22, 1943, President’s Secretary’s Files, box 7, FDRL.
56. “The Negro in the Navy,” 13.
57. Lanning, The African-American Soldier, 200–201.
58. Walker, “Navy Abolishes Messman Branch; May Enlist Negro,” 1.
59. FDR to Knox, memo, February 22, 1943.
60. “The Negro in the Navy,” 32.
61. Johnston, “And One Was a Priest, 63.
62. Lanning, The African-American Soldier, 207–8.
63. “Navy Jim Crow Irks Hampton Institute,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 10, 1943, 1.
64. Davis, “The Negro in the United States Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard,” 347.
65. “Hampton Institute and the Navy during the Second World War, Part II: The Compromise.”
66. Baugh, Dalton Louis, NPRC St. Louis.
67. Cooper, NIOHP, 19, 133.
CHAPTER 9: “I FEEL VERY EMPHATICALLY THAT WE SHOULD COMMISSION A FEW NEGROES.”
1. Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 54.
2. Olga La
sh Barnes, interviewed by author, August 7, 2012.
3. Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 33.
4. Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 16–17.
5. Davis, “The Negro in the United States Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard,” 347.
6. See Sam Barnes, NIOHP, 8, 33–35, 54, 257, 291–98.
7. Klinkner, The Unsteady March, 171.
8. Reynolds, From World War to Cold War, 301.
9. Willkie, One World, 191.
10. “Sailors Protest Chores at Base,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 29, 1943, 1.
11. Douglass Hall, “No Colored Sailors on Seagoing Vessels,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 3, 1943, 1.
12. Nelson, The Integration of the Negro into the U.S. Navy, 99.
13. “Hampton Naval Trainees Say Skills Wasted on Menial Jobs,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 24, 1939, 9.
14. “Hawaii Hate! Navy Braid Messes Knox Policy on Race Sailors,” Chicago Defender, January 9, 1943, 1.
15. “Army Race Riots Grow!,” Chicago Defender, June 19, 1943, 1.
16. Burran, “Racial Violence in the South during World War II,” 161.
17. Bergman, The Chronological History of the Negro in America, 114.
18. Burran, “Racial Violence in the South during World War II,” 133.
19. Perni, A Heritage of Hypocrisy, 65. The sergeant and a local sheriff later testified that Walker had started the scuffle.
20. “3 Slain at Miss. Camp,” Chicago Defender, June 12, 1943, 1.
21. Burran, “Racial Violence in the South during World War II,” 136.
22. “3 Slain at Miss. Camp.”
23. Blum, V Was for Victory, 191; Burran, “Racial Violence in the South during World War II,” 165.
24. Johnson, “Gender, Race, and Rumours,” 258.
25. For the story of the Beaumont riot, see Burran, “Racial Violence in the South during World War II,” 170–76; “Beaumont Race Riot Put Down, Austin Statesman, June 16, 1943, 1; “Court of Inquiry Begins Hearings on Race Rioting,” Austin Statesman, June 17, 1943, 1.
26. Burran, “Racial Violence in the South during World War II,” 184–85.
27. Bergman, The Chronological History of the Negro in America, 500.
28. Johnson, “Gender, Race, and Rumours,” 264.
29. On the Detroit riots, see John H. Witherspoon, commissioner of police, report, June 28, 1943, and FBI to Attorney General, memo, July 8, 1943, both in Office File 93C, “Colored Matters,” Container 8, “Detroit Race Riots, 1943–45,” FDRL (henceforth cited as “Detroit Race Riots, 1943–45”). See, also, Blum, V Was for Victory, 203.
