African American Soldier Stands Up to Racial Discrimination

Private Charles F. Wilson to Franklin D. Roosevelt (1944)

Roosevelt’s presidency was significant for the political shift it produced by luring African Americans away from their traditional Republican Party loyalties. His Executive Order 8802, issued in 1941, prohibited racially discriminatory practices in the federal government and its wartime union and private-sector contractors. The military, however, remained segregated by race. For many soldiers, their identity in the armed forces was defined almost exclusively by their race. In this letter, Private Wilson, an African American airman based in Arizona, points out the paradox to President Roosevelt, reminding him of the work remaining to be done.

33rd AAF Base Unit (CCTS(H))

Section C

DAVIS-MONTHAN FIELD

Tucson, Arizona

9 May 1944.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

White House

Washington, D.C.

Dear President Roosevelt:

It was with extreme pride that I, a soldier in the Armed Forces of our country, read the following affirmation of our war aims, pronounced by you at a recent press conference:

“The United Nations are fighting to make a world in which tyranny, and aggression cannot exist; a world based upon freedom, equality, and justice; a world in which all persons, regardless of race, color and creed, may live in peace, honor and dignity.”

Your use of the word “world” means that we are fighting for “freedom, equality, and justice” for “all persons, regardless of race, color and creed” in our own part of the world, the United States of America, as well as all other countries where such a fight is needed to be carried through. Your use of the words “all persons, regardless of race, color and creed” means that we are fighting for “freedom, equality, and justice” for our Negro American, no less than for our white Americans, or our Jewish, Protestant and Catholic Americans, or for the subjugated peoples in Europe and China and all other lands.

And the part that our country is playing in the United Nations world struggle against “tyranny and aggression” and for “a world based upon freedom, equality and justice,” although lacking in many respects, is certainly not one to be ashamed of.

Our driving back of the Japanese fascists in the Pacific; our driving back of the German fascists in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, in conjunction with our British and French Allies, freeing that part of the world from “tyranny and aggression” as the prerequisite for bringing “freedom, equality and justice” to the North African and Italian peoples; the tremendous preparations and planning that we as part of the United Nations have carried out so that we now stand on the eve of the invasion, and in conjunction with our Allies, the British, Russian, French and European Underground, on the eve of freeing the subjugated peoples of Europe from the German fascist tyranny; the glorious part that we played in the decisions reached at Teheran; these are vivid records of the manner in which the war aims of the United Nations, as pronounced by you, are being fought for by us, throughout the world.

On the home front there are vivid examples also; your issuance of Executive Order 8802, which established the Fair Employment Practices Committee, to fight against the discriminatory employment practices being used against Negroes and other minority groups in the war industries; the precedent-smashing decision of the United States Supreme Court, upholding the right of Negroes to vote in the Texas Democratic Primaries; the April 10th decision of the United States Supreme Court, against peonage, which voided a Florida statute which makes it a crime to obtain a wage advance with intent to defraud an employer. The court held that the statute was a violation of the 13th Amendment and the Federal Antipeonage Act; Attorney General Biddle’s clearing of the CIO Political Action Committee, against the attempts on the part of Representative Smith of Virginia to destroy it; the establishment on the part of our government of mixed housing projects like the Mother Cabrini housing Project in Chicago, where segregation because of “race, color and creed” was done away with; the cleansing of our home front of the out and out fascists …, who are being brought to trial by our Justice Department; the support which you have given to the fight against the flagrantly undemocratic poll tax as reported in the Afro-American of April the 8th: “President Roosevelt told his press conference last week that he feels the poll tax is undemocratic.”; the production by the U.S. Army Signal Corps, as authorized by the War Department, of the film “The Negro Soldier”; these are but a few of the many examples of the fight that the democratic forces in our government, with your leadership, is carrying on in our country as part of the world struggle against “tyranny” and for a “world based upon freedom, equality, and justice; a world in which all persons, regardless of race, color and creed, may live in peace, honor and dignity.”

But the picture in our country is marred by one of the strangest paradoxes in our whole fight against world fascism. The United States Armed Forces, to fight for World Democracy, is within itself undemocratic. The undemocratic policy of jim crow and segregation is practiced by our Armed Forces against its Negro members. Totally inadequate opportunities are given to the Negro members of our Armed Forces, nearly one tenth of the whole, to participate with “equality” … “regardless of race and color” in the fight for our war aims. In fact it appears that the army intends to follow the very policy that the FEPC is battling against in civilian life, the pattern of assigning Negroes to the lowest types of work.

Let me give you an example of the lack of democracy in our Field, where I am now stationed. Negro soldiers are completely segregated from the white soldiers on the base. And to make doubly sure that no mistake is made about this, the barracks and other housing facilities (supply room, mess hall, etc.) of the Negro Section C are covered with black tar paper, while all other barracks and housing facilities on the base are painted white.

It is the stated policy of the Second Air Force that “every potential fighting man must be used as a fighting man. If you have such a man in a base job, you have no choice. His job must be eliminated or be filled by a limited service man, WAC, or civilian.” And yet, leaving out the Negro soldiers working with the Medical Section, fully 50% of the Negro soldiers are working in base jobs, such as, for example, at the Resident Officers’ Mess, Bachelor Officers’ Quarters, and Officers’ Club, as mess personnel, BOQ orderlies, and bar tenders. Leaving out the medical men again, based on the Section C average only 4% of this 50% would not be “potential fighting men.”

It is also a fact that “… the employment of enlisted men as attendants at officers’ clubs, whether officially designated as “Officers’ Mess” or “Officers’ Club” is not sanctioned by …” the Headquarters of the Army Air Forces.

Leaving out the medical men again, at least 50% of the members of the Negro Section C are being used for decidedly menial work, such as BOQ orderlies, janitors, permanent KP’s and the like.

Let us assume as a basis for discussion that there are no civilians or limited service men to do the menial work on the base. The democratic way, based upon “equality and justice” would be to assign this work to both Negro and white. Instead the discriminatory and undemocratic method is used whereby all of this work is assigned to the Negro soldiers.

On the other hand suppose civilians were found to take over all of the base jobs and thus free the Negro soldiers for use as fighting men. They would not be given “on-the-job-training” to become members of the ground crew, such as is being done for the WAC members on the base, because there is no such program for Negroes at Davis-Monthan Field. They would not be trained to become aerial gunners, or bombardiers, or navigators, or pilots, or bombsight mechanics, or any of the many other specialists at Davis-Monthan Field, because there is no authorization in the Second Air Force for this training to be given to Negroes.

About 15% of the soldiers of Section C are in fighting jobs, and about another 5% are receiving “on-the-job-training” in Vehicle Maintenance. Thus we see that the maintenance of the ideology of “white supremacy” resulting in the undemocratic practices of jim crow and segregation of the Negro members of the Armed Forces brings about the condition on Davis-Monthan Field whereby 80% of the whole Section is removed from the fighting activities on the base.

From what I read in the Newspapers, the above example from my own experience at Davis-Monthan Field, is typical of the situation throughout the Armed Forces. There is the report in an editorial on page five of the March 25th edition of the Pittsburgh Courier which states that: “Negro combat units are being constantly broken up and transferred to service units.”

How can we convince nearly one tenth of the Armed Forces, the Negro members, that your pronouncement of the war aims of the United Nations means what it says, when their experience with one of the United Nations, the United States of America, is just the opposite?

Are the Chinese people to believe that we are fighting to bring them “freedom, equality, and justice,” when they can see that in our Armed Forces we are not even practicing ourselves what we are preaching?

However, we leave ourselves wide open for sowers of disunity. Nothing would suit Hitler, Tojo, and our native fascists better, than disunity. The lead editorial in the Afro-American of April the 1st entitled “Soldiers or Sissies” is a tragic example of this. The editorial after relating two cases of tyranny against two Negro soldiers: one in Alabama where the “civil police lynched a hand-cuffed, defenseless soldier when they were moving from one prison to another,” and another case in Louisiana, where a “Bus driver shot and killed a New York [soldier] who refused to move to a rear seat,” goes on to say: “This is terrorism, and the army has no answer for it. Have the soldiers themselves an answer? There are thousands of them and only a few police or bus drivers.” If the advice of that editorial were followed it could only lead to disunity and civil strife. We know that isn’t the answer. Disunity and civil strife would only weaken our fight against the German and Japanese fascists, or more than that result in our defeat. A victory for the German and Japanese fascists would mean a victory for our native fascists, who are at the bottom [of] this whole program of “white supremacy,” race hatred, jim-crowism, and segregation. It would mean victory, not defeat for the Rankins, Bilbos, Smiths, Hearsts, McCormicks, Paglers, and Dies.1

Such an editorial is totally irresponsible. But decrying such an editorial will get us nowhere. The only answer is to remove the conditions which give rise to such an editorial. That means fighting for the war aims of the United Nations in our own country as well as throughout the rest of the world. That means that we must fight against the fascist shouters of “white supremacy,” against the labor baiters, against segregation and jim-crowism, wherever these evils show their fangs, whether in the Armed Forces, or in the civilian population.

The Public Affairs Pamphlet “The Races of Mankind” by Ruth Benedict and Gene Weltfish, as well as many other scientific writings have exploded the anti-democratic doctrine of “race-superiority” or “white supremacy.”

The achievements of heroes like Dorie Miller; the record of the 99th Pursuit Squadron in Italy; the records of the 24th Infantry and 93rd Infantry in Bougainfille,2 disprove Secretary of War Stimson’s statement in a recent letter: “Negro units … have been unable to master efficiently the technique of modern weapons.”

The experience in training negro and white, on a mixed basis, in the Officers’ Candidate Schools, and the Army Technical Training Schools, is proof enough, if proof is needed, that there is no justification for the present policy of jim-crow and segregation in the Armed Forces. The Navy can look to the Merchant Marine for an example of democracy in action, in which the crews are organized on a mixed basis, with Negroes and whites from North and South eating and sleeping, working and fighting together.

Just as our government in civilian life, is carrying on a fight for the full integration of the Negro and all other minority groups into the war effort, with the result that Negro men and women are producing the implements of war, in jobs from the unskilled to the most highly skilled, side by side with their white brothers and sisters, so in the Armed Forces our government must take up the same fight for the full integration of the Negro into all phases of our fighting forces from the lowest to the highest.

President Roosevelt, in the interest of the war effort you issued Executive Order 8802, which established the Fair Employment Practices Committee. Although there is still much to be done, nevertheless this committee, against heavy opposition, has played, and is playing a gallant role in fighting for democracy for the men and women behind the lines, in the industries that produce the guns, and tanks, and bombers for victory over world fascism.

With your issuance of Executive Order 8802, and the setting up of the Fair Employment Practices Committee, you established the foundation for fighting for democracy in the industrial forces of our country, in the interest of victory for the United Nations. In the interest of victory for the United Nations, another Executive Order is now needed. An Executive Order which will lay the base for fighting for democracy in the Armed Forces of our country. An Executive Order which would bring about the result here at Davis-Monthan Field whereby the Negro soldiers would be integrated into all of the Sections on the base, as fighting men, instead of in the segregated Section C as housekeepers.

Then and only then can your pronouncement of the war aims of the United Nations mean to all that we “are fighting to make a world in which tyranny, and aggression cannot exist; a world based upon freedom, equality and justice; a world in which all persons, regardless of race, color and creed, may live in peace, honor and dignity.”

Respectfully yours,

Charles F. Wilson, 36794590

Private, Air Corps.

Phillip McGuire, ed., Taps for a Jim Crow Army: Letters from Black Soldiers in World War II (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993), 134–139.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS