July 26 is the 50th anniversary of President Harry S. Truman’s issuance of Executive Order 9981, which declared it “. . .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.”
In his autobiography, “My American Journey,” former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Colin L. Powell, speaking of the effects of Executive Order 9981, says: “I entered the Army only 10 years after that historic turning point. . .The Army was living the democratic ideal ahead of the rest of America. Beginning in the ’50s, less discrimination, a truer merit system and leveler playing fields existed inside the gates of our military posts than in any Southern city hall or Northern corporation. The Army, therefore, made it easier for me to love my country, with all its flaws, and to serve her with all my heart.”
Sociologists Charles Moskos and John Butler have written about integration in the U.S. Army in the book “All That We Can Be.” They find that the present-day Army is “an organization unmatched in its level of racial integration” and “unmatched in its broad record of black achievement.”
This has not been accomplished by the use of quotas or timetables but by providing specialized training that creates a diverse pool of potentially promotable people. This assures that most members of the Army, including those with inferior schooling and social privilege, are qualified and eligible for promotion to a higher rank when a vacancy occurs.
The 50th anniversary of Executive Order 9981 has special significance for those of us who served with black troops in the segregated army of World War II. And for America it marks a significant step toward the American ideal “that all men are created equal.”
