Colored Persons in the U.S. Navy,
Recs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives. 1st Ind to Ltr, Natl
Public Relations Comm of the Universal Negro
Improvement Assn to SecNav, 4 Oct 41; Memo, Chief,
BuNav, for CNO, 24 Oct 41, and 2d Ind to same, CNO
to SecNav (Public Relations). Both in BuPers
QN/P14-4 (411004), GenRecsNav. For examples of the
Navy's response on race, see Ltr, Ens Ross R.
Hirshfield, Off of Pub Relations, to Roberson
County Training School, 25 Oct 41; Ltr, Ens William
Stucky to W. Henry White, 4 Feb 42. Both in
QN/P14-4. BuPersRecs.]

[Footnote 3-10: Quoted in White, _A Man Called
White_, p. 191.]

The White House conference revealed an interesting contrast between
Roosevelt and Knox. Whatever his personal feelings, Roosevelt agreed
with Knox that integration of the Navy was an impractical step in (p. 061)
wartime, but where Knox saw exclusion from general service as the
alternative to integration Roosevelt sought a compromise. He suggested
that the Navy "make a beginning" by putting some "good Negro bands"
aboard battleships. Under such intimate living conditions white and
black would learn to know and respect each other, and "then we can
move on from there."[3-11] In effect the President was trying to lead
the Navy toward a policy similar to that announced by the Army in
1940. While his suggestion about musicians was ignored by Secretary
Knox, the search for a middle way between exclusion and integration
had begun.

[Footnote 3-11: Ibid.]

[Illustration: ADMIRAL KING AND SECRETARY KNOX _on the USS Augusta_.]

The general public knew nothing of this search, and in the heightened
atmosphere of early war days, charged with unending propaganda about
the four freedoms and the forces of democracy against fascism, the
administration's racial attitudes were being questioned daily by civil
rights spokesmen and by some Democratic politicians.[3-12] As protest
against the Navy's racial policy mounted, Secretary Knox turned once
again to his staff for reassurance. In July 1941 he appointed a
committee consisting of Navy and Marine Corps personnel officers and
including Addison Walker, a special assistant to Assistant Secretary
Bard, to conduct a general investi