Thomas P. Stoney, Excerpts from Oral History Interview, Charleston, SC, 2009

Thomas P. Stoney was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, and today lives in Sierra Vista, Arizona. His grandfather served in the Civil War. As a young boy, Stoney watched his neighbor go off to the army during World War II. He remembered how impressed he was when his neighbor came home with starched khakis, and Stoney thought life in the army might be a good career choice for him. After his father died young and his brother died as a prisoner of war in Korea, Stoney enlisted to provide for himself and his family. By the time he was sent to Korea, most of the army was integrated, although that had not been his brother’s experience. Later, when Stoney was assigned to service in Germany, he noted that the U.S. Armed Forces took their prejudices with them. He said life on the army bases was segregated because the soldiers and their commanders preferred that arrangement. View portions of the interview with Stoney here.

I was in Germany from 1961 to 1964, the first time. It was interesting to me because I love history. I loved Germany. But our troops, our American troops, took their prejudice with them to Germany. So as a result, the guesthouses where the troops were stationed, the different places where the troops were stationed, were very much segregated because of the troops.

I said our troops took their prejudices with them: they took it to Korea too; they took it to Germany too; and this is why the military cracked down on it in the early 1970s. So as a result, some guesthouses, some guesthouses, if you go into, you may get in a fight, o.k., against other GIs, not the Germans. And there were some Germans that wouldn’t rent to you, not all of them. But, still we loved Germany, because I know—I knew—that every step I took, I was walking on history, every step. I would go to the library and pick up books about German history, particularly what happened in World War II. I had already read what our generals said about WWII, and I wanted to know what the German generals had to say. I must have read Mein Kampf 3, 4 times.

I was in the military from ’57 all the way through ’76, but I’m saying that the advocacy for better rights in the military among the troops didn’t begin until the '70s, it didn’t begin in the military—I’m saying that the soldiers didn’t become activists. There were some soldiers that were activists, but it didn’t happen until the '70s, the early '70s.

I was shipped out to Germany again in ‘75 and I went to Bamberg, and the same thing was happening there [soldier militancy]. It was happening all over Germany and by this time the entire Department of Defense had implemented what was called the “Equal Opportunity Program,” and implemented what was called race relation training for all soldiers from the highest general down to the lowest private. [That] started around ’72, ’73. And that continued I guess right on into the ’80s; and they implemented an equal opportunity office on all bases around the world for soldiers that had complaints of discrimination or racism or sexism for that matter.

In the attitude of the soldiers, particularly the black soldiers, they were very vocal about their rights, they were very vocal about discrimination in town, and the guesthouses, to wrap it up they were very vocal about what they called equal opportunity. The army in the early '70s implemented a program called Department of Defense-wide—not just the army all the services—began to develop training in race relations; matter of fact, they even had a school called the Defense Race Relations Institute. They sent troops through there to become instructors, go back to their units, and teach race relations. They covered a lot of history and everybody from the top generals on down, all branches, top generals, top admirals, had to attend those courses. And to support what was called an Equal Employment Opportunity Office for military units. They also have one for civilian employees, and in Germany, to break down the discrimination in rental housing overseas. The Defense Department created what was called the Housing Referral Office, HRO, where every soldier coming in that had a family looking for a house, had to go through that office. They would go out to the civilians, the Germans, and if they wanted to list their housing for rental to military and wanted to be on that list, they had to sign a statement that they would not discriminate in renting their houses. No matter who you were, no matter what grade, you had to go through the housing referral office before you could get quarters or rental houses.

The soldiers themselves agitated; also, the NAACP got heavily involved. As a result of the agitation of the soldiers themselves and the problems they were having—I mean, there were fights, soldiers were throwing each other out of windows and things in Germany, you know—, I think that the leadership took action. The military has got to be a cohesive team. You cannot have an effective military that may have to go to war at any time, with displeased soldiers—anything could happen. They had to take action, so the leadership took action. That’s why they established the Race Relations Institute; they established the Equal Employment Opportunity Office, the Housing Referral Office: those three things went a long way to breaking up, at least openly, what you may call the overt discrimination—it was all broken up, overtly. The military in my opinion, took the lead in making changes, took the lead in breaking down racial discrimination. They still have some problems, but they took the lead. They’re way out there in comparison with the society in general, and I don’t regret my military career for one second. I’d do it over.

It got so bad that the NCOs [noncommissioned officers] had to do guard duty and charge of quarters, NCOs never walked guard duty because even before this stuff. There were still a lot of problems in the military with discrimination, a lot of it, even though the army had integrated in the early ’50s physically, there were still a lot of problems in those units. In the early days, when you went into those units as a black soldier it was easy to tell that they didn’t want you there. Fighting with an integrated unit was different, but soon as you’d pull away from the shooting you can see the attitude change. During the fighting, everybody had to have each other’s back. There were all kinds of cases of blacks being punished much harsher for the same offense, being denied promotions for the same job, being denied the better assignments. I mean you could see it. In the early days, you had some NCOs that would just yell out the N-word to you. You’d do nothing. I had a platoon sergeant like that up in Georgia. But the army has come a long way; the society has too, but society is behind the army on this issue of equality.

Source: Thomas P. Stoney, oral history interview by Maggi M. Morehouse, Charleston, SC, 2009.

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