Minneapolis spokesman. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1943-02-19

They travelled on government Pull
man tickets. Yet when they
reached Memphis, Tenn, they were
forced to move into the day coaches,
regardless of tickets and reserva-
tons.
Let US take look at our armed
fOrces-the Navy, Marine Corps,
Army or the Air Corps.
Even today when the alarming
Rews comes from the battlefields
all over the world, this determine
ton to yield not one inch in the
struggle to keep the Negro down,
goes on practically without abate-
ment. Under public pressure, our
Navy, which is begging for recruits
and officer material, yields only
slightly to that demand for an eas-
ing of the barriers against service
by Negroes in the Navy. The Navy
not only has refused to permit any
Negro college to participate in the
vi program for the training of
officers in the Navy, but further
refuses to allow any Negro student,
attending a white college to take
advantage of the vi program.
Negroes are tolerated but they
are not-urged into our Naval pro-
gram. In the St. Paul Minneapolis
recruiting center only one Negro is
allowed to enlist each week, but
there is no limitation to the num-
Der of whites taken in.
Another example of discrimina-
ton is that Of a Negro, DR.. Harold
J. Franklin Of Jamaica, New York.
DR.. Franklin, noted physician, re-
Gently volunteered for the Naval
Medical Corps, only to be told that
he was not temperamentally suited.
Yet as never before the Navy is
crying for medical men.
We all know the story of how
the Negro Messman, DOrie Miller,
who when the Japanese attacked
Pearl HarbOr, carried his wounded
captain to safety and then returned
to man a machine gun. After it
was all over, the sergeant who
made the warning received a COM
mission; DOrie Miller kept his mop.
Minnesota, instead of helping to
ease the situation, is only making
it worse. Early in September news
papers flashed "FilipinOs Welcome
to Home Guard" The story went
on to. say that from Minnesota At
tOrney General A. A. Burnquist's
office had come the information
that FilipinOs, willing to declare
their intention to become United
States citizens, might join the Min
nesOta Home Guard. Yet a Negro,
a born citizen of the United States,
is not eligible.
Then there was the incident in
Los Angeles. Three young Negroes
went to the Marine Corps recruit
ing station to volunteer. They
were told CURLY that they would
have to go, at their own expense,
to either Dallas, Texas, or Little
Rock, Arkansas, since those were
the nearest centers in which Ne
groes would be considered. Yet a
white American can enlist any
where without the considerable ex-
pense of travel to a distant point.
And now, the Army. Recently
more than $4,000 white Americans
made request to the War Depart
ment that it at least begin to break
down the segregation pattern of
the Army through the establish
ment of one division into which
men would be admitted on the
basis of their merit instead of the
color of their skin. But dominated
by the racial attitudes of the anti
Negro states of the south, the War
Department refuses to bulge.
Also, the requiring of all Negroes
who would be pilots to go to the
segregated school at Tuskegee
means that not more than 200 Of
the 100000 men being trained as