At the time they started investigating whether to integrate or not, I was in Mannheim, Germany, commanding an all-black truck company. We got word about a report, [from the Gillem Board] about this so-called integration, but we didn’t have any part of that at all. We had practically all black troops there, all service companies—quartermaster truck, quartermaster service, the honorary guard for the general, all black. At the same time as this report, they gave us some information about VD [venereal disease] to pass on to the men, and we did that, but they gave us nothing about integration to pass on.

Then they shipped me off to another truck battalion and those men were all black except the white officers and the HQ [headquarter] company. They moved me once again, to take over another truck company that was in one hell of a mess. They were having trouble with it. I wasn’t supposed to get a new assignment because I had been in the theater for as long as you’re authorized to stay, but the Colonel picked up the phone and called the General—Jumpin’ Jim Gavin—and they discussed everything and I was “asked” to stay. You see how the Army does with the rules?

Anyway, by this time, it was in the spring of 1952 and I was told we were going to integrate the battalion. We had four or five companies from the battalion. And only one company, mine, had all the black officers and enlisted men. So, I was called in and we were told that the companies would be broken up. The new integrated companies were going to be ten percent black and they were bringing in white fellows from all around to form this mixed company. They would move out ten percent of the white boys out of a company and move in ten percent of a black company. Well, there was no problem as long as they had ten percent of privates or corporals. But where the problem started was with your black First Sergeants and Master Sergeants and Lieutenants, of course.

I got moved to headquarters—that was all white guys from Lubbock, Texas. The Sergeant Major owned a store in Lubbock and everybody in HQ had worked with him back home. But it ended up I was pretty well running things. Our first inspection was a mess, though. Some white replacements had come in from Mississippi and Georgia and then we had about six or seven black soldiers integrated in to the unit. Our guys were mostly cooks and others working in the motor pool, no black non-commissioned officers.

For the first inspection, the white soldiers had taken big sheets of white paper and drawn flags on them. There was a Confederate flag, and on the other wall, there was that old flag with the curled snake that said, “Don’t Tread on Me.” And they were all standing there when I walked in to inspect the area. I didn’t say a word, just started inspecting the stuff in the lockers. I cited them for scuffed shoes and stuff not hung properly, but I did not say anything about those flags. I went into the next room and it was the same thing—the same two flags—a Confederate and a Rattlesnake flag. The third room was like that too. The fourth room was not, and I said, “Where’s all your flags?” and they said, “Sir, we are Yankees.” So I didn’t question them, I just moved on. But the next room had flags. When I got to the last room, I found my colored cooks, colored mechanics, and so forth. I asked one man, “Why aren’t you in the room with the mechanics?” But the [white] First Sergeant started stammering and told me there was not enough room for all of the mechanics to be together in the mechanics area. And I said, “Well, god dammit, you better find some room. You’ve got six stripes on your arm and I can take them away.” He tried to tell me I could not understand him because colored people were Protestants and he was Catholic, but I told him, “Hey, I’m a Catholic, too.” I had a reputation of being one hard man, and mostly I lived up to my reputation. So, I told the sergeant to get his men assembled around the steps of the building. They all came running and they had this grin on their faces, like oh, yeah, he’s gonna be raising hell about our flags.

“Soldiers,” I said, “we have a problem in our company. I see we have a very patriotic company that loves flags. But, I’m mad as hell because I did not see a United States flag up there. We’ve got a German flag, a Confederate flag, a don’t-tread-on-me-Revolutionary-War flag, but I don’t see the flag of our country. So starting at the front door and into every room, we are going to have all four flags—the American flag, and then those other three that you want. Which means we are going to have to get the stands and enough flags for every room. Now in your footlockers, you’re going to have to take down your mama’s pictures and your girlfriend’s, and put those flags in there, too. I can’t force you to buy the flags, but we’ll just proportion the cost across everyone here. I think it will cost about $500.00. So all the men who do not want to pay for the flags, just step over here to my left.” Well, that left about 15 guys to my right, and they were looking at me like I was crazy. So, I told them that they had about three hours to raise the money. When we met again in three hours, of course those men did not have the money. But they could tell I wasn’t going to take any of that mess. I told them they would all be privates if this thing didn’t clear up. I said, “This is the United States Army. I don’t give a damn if your daddy is Robert E. Lee or J.E.B. Stuart or whoever. It makes no difference to me. The Civil War is over.” But, I was tough on the black guys, too. When they complained I told them, “I don’t care how high up you are in the NAACP. We have an American company here in Germany and you are going to obey the Army regulations. I don’t intend to have any racial problems in my Company.” When we had our re-inspection we made a 97 out of 100. We continuously got the highest grades in the corps. Those fifteen guys just fell in line and became military after that. They may have muttered among themselves but not to me.

That was my experience in Germany when we integrated, but when we came back to the States in 1953, I was stationed in New Orleans, Louisiana, and they had not integrated at all. At first, my family was living in one of the hotels around New Orleans, a black hotel. I asked to go to the officer’s quarters at Camp Leroy Johnson there and the sergeant driving me took me to an empty barracks that was all dusty and unused. It was all closed up and it was about 90 degrees and humid. You can imagine what it was like inside. I told the sergeant to drive me back to HQ. When we pulled up, I saw the captain standing in the window looking out at us. Then he slipped away. I told the sergeant to take me to the back door of the building and when we got there, we met that captain coming out the back door. We talked for a little bit and straightened things out. Finally, he said he was going to take me to the VIP quarters. Ha! It was funny because when we got there a black maid was there and she told me right off, “You’re in the wrong place.” I told her to please get out of my way and let my children come in, and she was just adamant, telling me that I could not come in there. Finally, she said, “Well, we never had no colored officer in here.” And I said, “Well, now you do.”

Then they wouldn’t serve me in the officer’s bar. I don’t drink, but I was just checking it out to see what they would do about me. They wanted me to go to the colored NCO club, but I said, “I’m an officer and I will not go to any back rooms. I expect to be served.” This old white-haired man in civilian clothes jumped up and called me a black S.O.B. I asked the bartender who the old white-haired bastard was, and he jumped out of his chair. He said, “You want to know who this old white-haired bastard is?” and I said, “Yes, I want to know. You are the one that called me a black son of a bitch, so I presume that we should know each other.” He said he had been the commander of the base. But you see he was retiring. That’s how come I was there. I was brought in with the new General. I had just gotten there a little early. That former commander told me, “By God, if I wasn’t retiring I’d court martial you,” but I told him, “Sir, if you weren’t retiring I wouldn’t be down here. I didn’t ask to be here. The new commander wanted me here.”

When the new commanding general got there, we had all kinds of things to fix up and integrate. Like, they had segregated toilets. There were toilets for officers, enlisted men, white ladies, white men, colored ladies, and colored men. The only colored man working there was the janitor! I told the General about the situation and he called a sort-of spot inspection. Naturally, I called “Attention” when he walked in and I saluted him and all. He said, “How many toilets do you have here, Goodwin?” And I told him. He said, “How many sexes work out here, Goodwin?” And I said, “Sir, as far as I know only two.” He said we would only keep two toilets, then, and which ones did I want to keep. I looked him dead in the eye and didn’t crack a smile and said, “Sir, I have never been in the white ladies toilet.” He knew it was a lie, because I had been in there to check out and see if we wanted to keep it. But we made a show of going over to look at it. Let me tell you, in the white ladies room they had a couch, they had a chest of drawers, and a big mirror. They had dispensers and hand-towels. In the colored toilets, they just had the latrines with a partition pulled between them—the partition did not even come to the floor, there was no privacy. So, I told the General, “Sir, I would like to keep this one for the ladies, and I would like to keep the white officer’s toilet for the men. We do not need an enlisted men’s toilet.” We set the other rooms up as supply rooms and one was turned into a mimeograph room. Some of those white women had a real problem with sharing their space, but after a little adjustment and a few confrontations, we just made it all work out.

Source: Felix Goodwin, oral history interview by Maggi M. Morehouse, Tucson, Arizona, 1998.