page_title: Racial segregation in the United States Armed Forces
section_title: Franklin Roosevelt administration
hierarchical_section_title: Racial segregation in the United States Armed Forces / United States Marine Corps / Franklin Roosevelt administration
context_page_description: Racial segregation in the United States Armed Forces, which has included separation of white and non-white American troops, quotas, restriction of people of color troops to support roles, and outright bans on blacks and other people of color serving in the military, has been a part of the military history of the United States since the American Revolution. Each branch of the Armed Forces has historically had different policies regarding racial segregation. Although Executive Order 9981 officially ended segregation in the Armed Forces in 1948, following World War II, some forms of racial segregation continued until after the Korean War. The US government complied with an Icelandic government request not to station black soldiers on the US base in Keflavík, Iceland until the 1970s and 1980s when black soldiers began to be stationed in Iceland.
context_section_description: During the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the growing political power of African Americans was increasingly felt in Washington, DC. Civil rights groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Urban League, and the National Negro Congress called for greater equality between the races. In 1938, the Committee on Participation of Negroes in the National Defense Program was formed by the Pittsburgh Courier, a newspaper with a large black readership. Further calls to increase the proportion of blacks in the military were published in 1939.
  After wars broke out in the late 1930s in Africa, China and Europe, black community leaders determined to use the black workforce's loyalty as leverage to gain greater racial equality at home. In June 1940, the NAACP's magazine, The Crisis, published a declaration that the fighting around the world was certainly bad, "but the hysterical cries of the preachers of democracy for Europe leave us cold. We want democracy in Alabama, Arkansas, in Mississippi and Michigan, in the District of Columbia, in the Senate of the United States." During the 1940 presidential election, both parties courted the black vote. Incumbent President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was re-elected, partly because substantial numbers of black voters crossed previous party lines and voted for the Democratic Party candidate.
  In April 1941, the U.S. Navy convened its General Board to discuss expansion of the USMC. Major General Thomas Holcomb, Commandant of the Marines, who lived in Delaware and Washington, DC in his early years and attended private schools, said that African Americans had no right to serve as Marines. He said, "If it were a question of having a Marine Corps of 5,000 whites or 250,000 Negroes, I would rather have the whites."
  In 1941, civil rights activists Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, and A. J. Muste pushed Roosevelt to order fair employment for blacks in the federal government. Many rural southern African-Americans who arrived in urban Northern and Western states in search of defense industry jobs during the second phase of the Great Migration were faced with constant discrimination in housing, on the job market, and in their recreational activities. The activists threatened to march on Washington D.C. in July 1941, and Roosevelt intended to prevent such a public relations disaster for his presidency as well as wanting to unite all Americans in striving towards defeating fascism. On June 25, 1941, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802: the elimination of racial discrimination from federal departments, agencies, the military, and from private defense contractors. The black activists cancelled their planned march.
  Directed by Roosevelt and U.S. Navy Secretary Frank Knox to accept black recruits, Holcomb proposed a separate battalion of African Americans, a seacoast defense battalion armed with anti-aircraft and anti-shipping artillery. To make this battalion self-supporting, Holcomb determined that it would contain a rifle company, special weapons platoons, and a light tank platoon—all manned by black Marines.
caption: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt prohibited racial discrimination in the military.
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