Harry Truman and Executive Order 9981
On July 26, 1948 (64 years ago today) in the midst of an election campaign, President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9981, a Presidential directive which abolished racial discrimination in the armed forces and eventually led to the end of segregation in the services.
Just two weeks earlier, on July 12, the Democratic National Convention began in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Spirits were low in the party. The Republicans had taken control of both houses of the United States Congress and a majority of state governorships during the 1946 midterm elections and public-opinion polls showed Truman trailing Republican nominee Thomas Dewey, sometimes by double digits. Some liberal Democrats had joined Henry A. Wallace's new Progressive Party, and party leaders feared that Wallace would take enough votes from Truman to give the large Northern and Midwestern states to the Republicans. Conservatives dominated the party in the South, and they were angered by Truman's appointment of a liberal civil rights commission.
A group of northern liberals, led by Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey, successfully pushed through a platform, against vigorous Southern opposition, that promoted civil rights for African-Americans. In his speech promoting the civil rights platform, Humphrey orated that "the time has come for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!"
Truman was said to be ambivalent about supporting the civil rights plank, but the platform received strong support from many of the big-city party bosses, most of whom felt that the civil rights platform would encourage the growing African-American population in their cities to vote for the Democrats. The passage of the civil rights platform caused some three dozen southern delegates, led by South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, to walk out of the convention. (Thurmond would later run against Truman as the candidate for the States Rights Democratic Party.) The southern delegates who remained nominated Senator Richard Russell, Jr. of Georgia for the Democratic nomination as a rebuke to Truman.
Strategically, Truman believed that he had lost any hope of winning southern states and embarked on a strategy to win African-American votes and to bring back liberals in the party who had momentarily jumped on the Wallace bandwagon. Truman followed up on efforts began in 1947, when A. Philip Randolph and Grant Reynolds, renewed efforts to end discrimination in the armed services, by forming the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training, later renamed the League for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience Against Military Segregation.
Truman's Order expanded on Executive Order 8802, also known as the Fair Employment Act, which was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25, 1941, and which prohibited racial discrimination in the national defense industry. Executive order 9981 called for equality of treatment and opportunity in the Armed Services for people of all races, religions, or national origins.
The Order's reads in part as follows:
"It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale."
The order also established a committee to investigate and make recommendations to the civilian leadership of the military to implement the policy. It also eliminated Montford Point as a segregated Marine boot camp. The last of the "all-black" units in the United States military was finally abolished in September 1954.
Kenneth Claiborne Royall, Secretary of the Army since 1947, was forced into retirement in April 1949 for continuing to refuse to desegregate the Army nearly a year after President Truman's Order.
As we all know, Truman beat the odds and was elected as President in his own right in the subsequent election on November 2, 1948. The media had predicted a Dewey victory and the Chicago Daily Tribune, a pro-Republican newspaper, was so sure of Dewey's victory that on Tuesday afternoon, before any polls closed, it printed “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN” as its headline for the following day. It is trite to say that they got it wrong. Truman got 49.6% of the popular vote (compared to 45.1 for Dewey) and he won 28 states for a total of 303 electoral votes (compared to 16 states with 189 electoral votes for Dewey and 4 states with 39 electoral votes for Strom Thurmond.)
Just two weeks earlier, on July 12, the Democratic National Convention began in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Spirits were low in the party. The Republicans had taken control of both houses of the United States Congress and a majority of state governorships during the 1946 midterm elections and public-opinion polls showed Truman trailing Republican nominee Thomas Dewey, sometimes by double digits. Some liberal Democrats had joined Henry A. Wallace's new Progressive Party, and party leaders feared that Wallace would take enough votes from Truman to give the large Northern and Midwestern states to the Republicans. Conservatives dominated the party in the South, and they were angered by Truman's appointment of a liberal civil rights commission.
A group of northern liberals, led by Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey, successfully pushed through a platform, against vigorous Southern opposition, that promoted civil rights for African-Americans. In his speech promoting the civil rights platform, Humphrey orated that "the time has come for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!"
Truman was said to be ambivalent about supporting the civil rights plank, but the platform received strong support from many of the big-city party bosses, most of whom felt that the civil rights platform would encourage the growing African-American population in their cities to vote for the Democrats. The passage of the civil rights platform caused some three dozen southern delegates, led by South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, to walk out of the convention. (Thurmond would later run against Truman as the candidate for the States Rights Democratic Party.) The southern delegates who remained nominated Senator Richard Russell, Jr. of Georgia for the Democratic nomination as a rebuke to Truman.
Strategically, Truman believed that he had lost any hope of winning southern states and embarked on a strategy to win African-American votes and to bring back liberals in the party who had momentarily jumped on the Wallace bandwagon. Truman followed up on efforts began in 1947, when A. Philip Randolph and Grant Reynolds, renewed efforts to end discrimination in the armed services, by forming the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training, later renamed the League for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience Against Military Segregation.
Truman's Order expanded on Executive Order 8802, also known as the Fair Employment Act, which was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25, 1941, and which prohibited racial discrimination in the national defense industry. Executive order 9981 called for equality of treatment and opportunity in the Armed Services for people of all races, religions, or national origins.
The Order's reads in part as follows:
"It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale."
The order also established a committee to investigate and make recommendations to the civilian leadership of the military to implement the policy. It also eliminated Montford Point as a segregated Marine boot camp. The last of the "all-black" units in the United States military was finally abolished in September 1954.
Kenneth Claiborne Royall, Secretary of the Army since 1947, was forced into retirement in April 1949 for continuing to refuse to desegregate the Army nearly a year after President Truman's Order.
As we all know, Truman beat the odds and was elected as President in his own right in the subsequent election on November 2, 1948. The media had predicted a Dewey victory and the Chicago Daily Tribune, a pro-Republican newspaper, was so sure of Dewey's victory that on Tuesday afternoon, before any polls closed, it printed “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN” as its headline for the following day. It is trite to say that they got it wrong. Truman got 49.6% of the popular vote (compared to 45.1 for Dewey) and he won 28 states for a total of 303 electoral votes (compared to 16 states with 189 electoral votes for Dewey and 4 states with 39 electoral votes for Strom Thurmond.)