Gerald E. Thomas, on the other hand, suggested that the use of the
term Negro might repel readers with much to learn about their recent
past. Still others thought that the historian should respect the usage
of the various periods covered in the story, a solution that would
have left the volume with the term _colored_ for most of the earlier
chapters and Negro for much of the rest. With rare exception, the term
black does not appear in twentieth century military records before the
late 1960's. Fashions in words change, and it is only for the time
being perhaps that black and Negro symbolize different attitudes. The
author has used the words as synonyms and trusts that the reader will
accept them as such. Professor John Hope Franklin, Mrs. Sara Jackson
of the National Archives, and the historians and officials that
constituted the review panel went along with this approach.

The second question of usage concerns the words _integration_ and
_desegregation_. In recent years many historians have come to
distinguish between these like-sounding words. Desegregation they see
as a direct action against segregation; that is, it signifies the act
of removing legal barriers to the equal treatment of black citizens as
guaranteed by the Constitution. The movement toward desegregation,
breaking down the nation's Jim Crow system, became increasingly
popular in the decade after World War II. Integration, on the other
hand, Professor Oscar Handlin maintains, implies several things not
yet necessarily accepted in all areas of American society. In one
sense it refers to the "leveling of all barriers to association other
than those based on ability, taste, and personal preference";[1] in
other words, providing equal opportunity. But in another sense
integration calls for the random distribution of a minority throughout
society. Here, according to Handlin, the emphasis is on racial balance
in areas of occupation, education, residency, and the like.

[Footnote 1: Oscar Handlin, "The Goals of Integration,"
_Daedalus 95_ (Winter 1966): 270.]

From the beginning the military establishment rightly understood that
the breakup of the all-black unit would in a closed society
necessarily mean more than mere desegregation. It constantly used the
terms integration and equal treatment and opportunity to describe its
racial goals. Rarely, if ever, does one find the word desegregation in
military files that include