nly promise Ethridge that black enlistment would be taken
under consideration.

[Footnote 3-17: Ltr, SecNav to Gifford Pinchot, 19
Jan 42, 54-1-15, GenRecsNav.]

At this point the President again stepped in. On 15 January 1942 he
asked his beleaguered secretary to consider the whole problem once
more and suggested a course of action: "I think that with all the Navy
activities, BuNav might invent something that colored enlistees could
do in addition to the rating of messman."[3-18] The secretary passed the
task on to the General Board, asking that it develop a plan for
recruiting 5,000 Negroes in the general service.[3-19]

[Footnote 3-18: Quoted in "BuPers Hist," p. 5.]

[Footnote 3-19: Memo, SecNav for Chmn, Gen Bd, 16 Jan
42, sub: Enlistment of Men of Colored Race in Other
Than Messman Branch, Recs of Gen Bd,
OpNavArchives.]

When the General Board met on 23 January to consider the secretary's
request, it became apparent that the minority report on the role of
Negroes in the Navy had gained at least one convert among the senior
officers. One board member, the Inspector General of the Navy, Rear
Adm. Charles P. Snyder, repeated the arguments lately advanced by
Addison Walker. He suggested that the board consider employing Negroes
in some areas outside the servant class: in the Musician's Branch, for
example, because "the colored race is very musical and they are versed
in all forms of rhythm," in the Aviation Branch where the Army had
reported some success in employing Negroes, and on auxiliaries and
minor vessels, especially transports. Snyder noted that these schemes
would involve the creation of training schools, rigidly segregated at
first, and that the whole program would be "troublesome and require
tact, patience, and tolerance" on the part of those in charge. But, he
added, "we have so many difficulties to surmount anyhow that one more
possibly wouldn't swell the total very much." Foreseeing that
segregation would become the focal point of black protest, he argued
that the Navy had to begin accepting Negroes somewhere, and it might
as well begin with a segregated general service.

Adamant in its opposition to any change in the Navy's policy, the (p. 064)
Bureau of Navigation ignored Admiral Snyder's suggestions. The spokesman
for the bureau warned that the 5,000 Negroes unde