Department be granted wide latitude in deciding the number of Negroes
to be accepted as well as their rate of enlistment and the method of
recruiting, training, and assignment.[3-23] The President agreed to
the plan, but balked at the board's last request. "I think this is a
matter," he told Secretary Knox, "to be determined by you and
me."[3-24]

[Footnote 3-23: Memos, Chmn, Gen Bd, for Chief,
BuNav, Cmdt, CG, and Cmdt, MC, 18 Feb 42, sub:
Enlistment of Men of Colored Race in Other Than
Messman Branch. For examples of responses, see Ltr,
Cmdt, to Chmn, Gen Bd, 24 Feb 42, same sub; Memo,
Chief, BuNav, for Chmn, Gen Bd, 7 Mar 42, same sub;
Memo, CNO for Chief, BuNav, 25 Feb 42, same sub,
with 1st Ind by CINCUSFLT, 28 Feb 42, same sub. The
final enlistment plan is found in Memo, Chmn, Gen
Bd, for SecNav, 20 Mar 42, same sub (G. B. No 421).
All in Recs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives. It was
transmitted to the President in Ltr, SecNav to
President, 27 Mar 42, P14-4/MM, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-24: Memo, President for Secy of Navy, 31
Mar 42, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park,
New York.]

The two-year debate over the admission of Negroes ended just in time,
for the opposition to the Navy's policy was enlisting new allies
daily. The national press made the expected invidious comparisons when
Joe Louis turned over his share of the purse from the Louis-Baer fight
to Navy Relief, and Wendell Willkie in a well-publicized speech at New
York's Freedom House excoriated the Navy's racial practices as a
"mockery" of democracy.[3-25] But these were the last shots fired. On 7
April 1942 Secretary Knox announced the Navy's capitulation. The Navy
would accept 277 black volunteers per week--it was not yet drafting
anyone--for enlistment in all ratings of the general service of the
reserve components of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. Their
actual entry would have to await the construction of suitable, meaning
segregated, facilities, but the Navy's goal for the first year was
14,000 Negroes in the general service.[3-26]

[Footnote 3-25: New York _Times_, January 10 and
March 20, 1942.]