ly we must continue the employment of negroes
in the Navy, and I do not think it the least bit necessary to put
mixed crews on the ships. I can find a thousand ways of employing
them without doing so.

The point or the thing is this. There is going to be a great deal
of feeling if the Government in winning this war does not employ
approximately 10% of negroes--their actual percentage to the
total population. The Army is nearly up to this percentage but
the Navy is so far below it that it will be deeply criticized by
anybody who wants to check into the details.

Perhaps a check by you showing exactly where all white enlisted
men are serving and where all colored enlisted men are serving
will show you the great number of places where colored men could
serve, where they are not serving now--shore duty of all kinds,
together with the handling of many kinds of yard craft.

You know the headache we have had about this and the reluctance
of the Navy to have any negroes. You and I have had to veto that
Navy reluctance and I think we have to do it again.[3-46]

[Footnote 3-46: Memo, President for SecNav, 22 Feb
43, FDR Library.]

In an effort to save the quota concept, the Bureau of Naval (p. 071)
Personnel ground out new figures that would raise the current call of
2,700 Negroes per month to 5,000 in April and 7,350 for each of the
remaining months of 1943. Armed with these figures, Secretary Knox was
able to promise Commissioner McNutt that 10 percent of the men
inducted for the rest of 1943 would be Negroes, although separate
calls had to be continued for the time being to permit adjusting the
flow of Negroes to the expansion of facilities.[3-47] In other words,
the secretary promised to accept 71,900 black draftees in 1943; he did
not promise to increase the black strength of the Navy to 10 percent
of the total.

[Footnote 3-47: Ltr, Knox to McNutt, 26 Feb 43, WMC
Gen files.]

Commissioner McNutt understood the distinction and found the Navy's
offer wanting for two reasons. The proposed schedule was inadequate to
absorb the backlog of black registrants who should have been inducted
into the armed services, and it did not raise the percentage of
Negroes in the Navy to a figure comparable to their strength in the
national population. McNutt wanted the Na