St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1944-09-22


initiated by the Army Air Forces
in which there is no segregation
has struck a responsive chord and
has been adopted by the Army
Ground and Service Forces.
Into these centers men will be
brought from overseas, after being
afforded a short furlough to visit
their parents, friends and relatives
at home.
The whole purpose of the centers,
however, is to get the men in a
frame of mind to go back into COM
bat-usually in some other theatre
of action. This task is a tremend-
Gus psychological problem. Men
who have faced death, seen their
buddies wounded and die, lived in
foxholes, slept in mud, tortured
their souls wondering what and
how the folks back home were do
ing-such men feel when they are
brought back to the states that
the war for them is over. They are
inclined to believe that some of the
other fellows, still in this country,
should finish the job.
But the Army knows these bat
tle-veterans are it's greatest asset.
They are needed in combat theatres
because of their experience. To get
them in the mood to return to war is
the job of the redistribution center.
The first step in this direction is
to have the men relax completely,
forget war for short time, and
have a helluva good time in the
meanwhile.
Here the simplicity of the prob
lem ends. That complex question
of color is permitted to enter, and
with it come the difficulties. Shall
Negroes be sent to the same re-
distribution centers with the
whites? They've been facing the
same death-watching THEIR
buddies get wounded and die-liv-
ing in the same misunderstanding
in the same mud -and torturing
their souls wondering what and how
THEIR folks back home were do
ing-just like the white soldier!
But the Army, before it thought
about the color problem, already
had selected 49 hotels in the re-
sort centers at Miami Beach, Fla,
Asheville, N. c., Hot Springs, Ark,
Santa Barbara, Cal, and Lake Plac-
id, N. Y.
AS an afterthought, the Army
selected the Pershing Hotel in Chi
cago, and now the Theresa Hotel
in New York for it's colored SOL
diers. These they label "for col
ored." The other 40 are "for
white"
The Negro press and Negro lead
ers and organizations are right
fully raising hell about this segre-
cation. No Negro can afford to
condone segregation! This is true
despite the fact that the Negro
soldier who comes back undoubted-
ly will be much more able to relax
and have that "helluva good time"
in the Pershing and the Theresa.
He could hardly get into the frame
of mind to go back into battle
under the treatment to which he
would be subjected when he went
out into the town from a hotel in
Miami Beach, or Asheville, or Hot
Springs. He'd have very little
enjoyable contacts at Santa Bar
bara, where there are only hand
full of Negroes in the vicinity. And
how many would enjoy the below
zero temperatures and the skiing
at Lake Placid?
It isn't the opening of the Perish
ing and the Theresa as redistribu-
ton centers that is Objectionable
from the racial standpoint-leaving
out the strain it puts on the al
ready inadequate civilian housing
in the Negro neighborhoods involv-
ed. It is the labelling of them as
NEGRO" and the restriction of Ne
groes to these places only.
Negroes, like all other people,
rebel at being led by the hand and
told "this is what you MUST do"
on the assumption that it is what
they would prefer to do.
The Army would be so much
wiser and make for much better
program and a wider acceptance of
it, if it would give it's soldiers a
choice. With very few exceptions,
the Negroes would go to the Perish
ing and the Theresa. The few who
would choose to go elsewhere
should be permitted to do so.
But the Army's Southern hier-
archy and its dumbness on race re-
lations has put it in a very en-
barrassing position, subject to at
tack. It can still pull itself out
and save some of democracy's
"face."