Equality in the Forces

Last Wednesday Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson announced a new policy for the National Military Establishment which, if properly carried out, will greatly increase the chances for interesting and skilled jobs for Negroes in the armed forces, thus correcting one of the most flagrant faults of military policy. Heretofore, Negro troops have been assigned to all-Negro units or to lowly service jobs in organizations attached to white units. While Negro units will be retained, qualified colored personnel will presumably be assigned to duties in other organizations.

According to the "Army and Navy Journal," the Air Force is planning to go even farther. The Air Force's plan, still being studied by Pentagon brass, calls for complete elimination of segregation. All Negro units, including the 332nd Fighter Wing, are to be deactivated, and their rated personnel assigned to other Air Force units all over the world. The non-rated but promising men would be sent to service schools for more training, and the "men of no promise" separated from the Air Force.

Since all the services have up to now maintained the strictest color line in regard to assignments, this switch in policy creates an extremely delicate situation. If the re-assignment of colored troops is bungled, countless unpleasant incidents will occur inside the National Military Establishment. Such failures would give ammunition to the many opponents of racial equality, in and out of the services.

If carried out diplomatically and efficiently, the policy will help to cure the services of one of their most serious ills. The Jim Crow policy of all the Armed Forces, plus the fact that many Negroes are, through no fault of their own, far below the educational standards for all but the most menial jobs, caused thousands of perfectly capable men to be lumped into miserable duties as stevedores and road-builders.

Mr. Johnson's edict will not only give the services a new supply of skilled officers and enlisted men which they need, it will help to correct a situation which has made the United States a hypocrite in the eyes of the world. While listening to sales-talk about the American Way of Life and the Superiority of American Democracy, they have seen American soldiers rigorously divided into castes of color. The new policy will help put into practice what our orators have been preaching to the world for a long time.