In early April, the Senate Armed Forces Committee held a hearing with a civil rights leader and spokesperson for the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service. A. Philip Randolph told the senators that unless the military ended segregation, he would urge Black men not to register and refuse to serve in the United States military. Senator Wayne Morse (R-OR) pointed out to Randolph that this was treason. Randolph agreed but insisted this would be the course of action unless “we get our democratic rights,” meaning abolishing segregation in the military.
Randolph testified at great lengths that day to the Senate Committee and told them, “If it (America) does not develop the democratic process at home, then it is not the type of country worth fighting for.”
The Senate Committee spoke of the consequences of what would happen if Black men refused to serve in a sudden war. Randolph also made it clear that civil rights leaders and Black Americans were aware of this, but unless segregation in the military ended, they would refuse to pick up arms[1].
The idea of Black men refusing to pick up arms for the military angered white America, and several articles were put out in America’s newspapers reminding Black people how far they had come since the Civil War. The Washington DC Star said that A. Philip Randolph did more harm to the Black cause than discrimination[2].
These words have been repeated throughout history and continue to be repeated today, “Black people who spoke out for equality do more harm to their cause than good.” In 2021, white Conservatives still echo that sentiment when Black communities ask for fair policing, equal voting rights, or racial justice.
Randolph also angered President Truman, who expressed resentfulness towards Randolph’s attitude[3].
The late 1940s was a time in America when civil rights were at the forefront of American society. In the first week of April, Charles Alexander from the Chicago Civil Rights Congress took a trip down to Atlanta, Georgia[4]. The reason he went down there was to attend the trial of Rosa Lee Ingram.
In November 1947, Rosa Lee Ingram, a sharecropper and single mother of 13 children, was working in the field when a white neighbor attacked her. He hit her in the head with the butt of a shotgun and attempted to rape her. Ingram’s 14 and 16-year-old sons caught him in the act and rushed to their mother’s defense. The white man was hit in the head with a hammer and died from his injuries. Rosa Lee Ingram and her two sons were all sentenced to the electric chair[5].
When Charles Alexander got to town, Georgia police arrested him three times. In one case, police in East Point, Georgia, police handcuffed him to a telephone pole outside of a white high school, left him there for three hours, and told him, “This is what happens to nigger Yankees who come to Georgia.”
The police robbed Alexander of his possessions and the $91 he had on him, then gave him a $17 ticket for disorderly conduct[6].
Also, in April, two women, both Black, were walking home together after their work shift when two white men accosted them in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The men called them racial slurs, and when the women returned insults, the white men beat them severely. The two men then approached another white man, who witnessed the entire event and asked to borrow his gun to shoot the woman. The man refused and threatened to shoot them if they didn’t leave. When other residents began to exit their homes, the two men fled the scene[7].
By April 6, Congress had received letters from the Southern governors asking them to establish regional education institutes on a segregated basis. A bipartisan opposition in Congress rejected the plan[8].
Then on April 7, Virginia Governor Tuck and Florida Governor Caldwell gave an evening radio address that blasted Truman’s civil rights program. Tuck questioned the constitutional, moral, and political justification of civil rights. He said, “Vote-chasing pseudo-Liberals who arouse feelings of discontent, distrust, and antagonism are the greatest enemy of the negro. They care nothing for the negro, North or South, except to use him as a vehicle of political preferment[9].”
History repeats itself on an endless loop, as we all witnessed in 2020 Conservatives told Black voters that Democrats were their enemy.
Governor Caldwell followed that up by saying, “Northern newspapers and magazines have never presented unbiased truth on Southern racial questions.” He also expressed how lynchings were a thing of the past and how no decent Southerners condoned lynching, bigotry, or brutality.
Caldwell told the radio listeners that an anti-lynching bill would set up a Washington Gestapo to police the internal affairs of several states[10].
Desegregating the military was a top priority for Black America, but keeping the military segregated was the top priority in white America. General Dwight D. Eisenhower testified before the Senate Armed Forces Committee that month when asked about his views on segregation in the military.
General Eisenhower said, “It has been the problem, of course, that has been with the Army ever since it has been with the country. We must never forget in the very the Army is merely one of the mirrors that hold up to our faces in the United States of America. It has never been able to solve because you have certain incontrovertible facts that you must walk right up to. One of them is that there is racial prejudice in this country. When you put in the same organizations and live together under the most intimate circumstances, men of different races sometimes have trouble. Therefore, there has been a sort of compromise made with this problem, right down through the years with the Army[11].”
By April 19, the Senate Armed Forces Committee wrote a new Draft Law, yet they shied away from banning racial segregation in the bill[12]. The Army Secretary, Kenneth C. Royall, stood his ground firmly behind segregation in the armed forces[13].
Royall’s stand was far from what civil rights leaders were demanding, A. Philip Randolph put out a statement saying that Congress was campaigning to have Black people boycott the Army. Refusal to desegregate led to Black Americans calling the Draft ‘the Jim Crow Draft[14].’
[1] Associated Press, “Threat to Refuse to Bear Arms is Treason, Morse Tells Negroes,” (March 31, 1948)
[2] Evening Star, “Invitation to Disaster,” (April 1, 1948)
[3] The Detroit Tribune, “Truman Angry at Attitude, Leader Says,” (April 4, 1948)
[4] The Daily Express, “NAACP to Appeal Death Sentence,” (February 24, 1948)
[5] Jackson Advocate, “Ga. Farm Mother Two Sons Sentenced to Death,” (February 14, 1948)
[6] The Chicago Star, “Civil Rights – Southern Fried,” (April 3, 1948)
[7] The Detroit Tribune, “Attackers Repulsed by Two Race Girls,” (April 17, 1948)
[8] Jackson Advocate, “NAACP Youth Oppose Universal Military Training and Regional Schools,” (April 10, 1948)
[9] Associated Press, “Tuck, Caldwell Blast Civil Rights Program, Question Justification,” (April 7, 1948)
[10] Associated Press, “Tuck, Caldwell Blast Civil Rights Program, Question Justification,” (April 7, 1948)
[11] The Detroit Tribune, “Eisenhower Tells Congress Army Could Form Mixed Units,” (April 17, 1948)
[12] Associated Press, “Committee Shies Racial Segregation in Draft Law,” The Nome Nugget, (April 17, 1948)
[13] Evening Star, “Defense Chiefs Silent on Refusal of Negroes to Advise on Policy,” (April 27, 1948)
[14] Louisiana Press Association, “Randolph Opposes Jim Crow Service,” Toledo Union Journal, (April 9, 1948)