Army & Navy – MORALE: No Rest Yet

After a July order banning discrimination between white and Negro troops on all its posts, the Army hoped that things would cool off. But by last week one phase of the problem of how to treat Negro soldiers was hot and growing hotter.

The newest flare-up began last month when the well-meaning Army decided to set up separate redistribution centers in Harlem and Chicago’s down-at-the-heel South Side for Negro troops of the Army Ground Forces (TIME, Oct. 2). Although they are in overcrowded sections and only equipped to the lower-drummer-trade standard, the Hotels Pershing and Theresa, the Army wishfully reasoned, would still be more restful to battle-weary Negroes than any of the 49 fancy hotels taken over for whites in resort centers like Miami, Santa Barbara, Lake Placid.

At this announcement shouts of “Jim Crow” went up from the Negro press and public. The President promptly called off the plan, left the Army with a choice of 1) sending Negroes to centers for white Ground Forces soldiers; 2) setting up equally fancy centers, probably up North, for Negroes only.

Either choice would bring its troubles. The Army Air Forces, which has only a few Negro troops, operates 18 centers successfully without any segregation. But the much higher proportion of Negroes among ground troops makes the Ground Forces’ problem another kind of exercise in race relations. So Ground Forces officers considered all-Negro rest hotels in first-class resorts, gloomily reflected that, if that solution were selected, they would hear loud squawks from the managements of any hotels they chose. And again the Negro press would cry “Jim Crow.”

At week’s end, the Army was still struggling with its dilemma. Until it comes up with an answer, Negroes will continue to be sent to Camp Butner, N.C., where all ground troops, white & Negro, went for redistribution before hotel centers were organized.