5, sub: Negro Officer--Assignment
of to Auxiliary Vessel of the Fleet, AO 15/P16-1;
idem to CO, USS _Laramie_, 21 Aug 45, same sub, AO
16/P16-1. All in OpNavArchives.]

[Footnote 3-93: Quoted in Rowan, "Those Navy Boys
Changed My Life." pp 57-58.]

Admitting Negroes to the WAVES was another matter considered by the
new secretary in his first days in office. In fact, the subject had
been under discussion in the Navy Department for some two years. Soon
after the organization of the women's auxiliary, its director, Capt.
Mildred H. McAfee, had recommended that Negroes be accepted, arguing
that their recruitment would help to temper the widespread criticism
of the Navy's restrictive racial policy. But the traditionalists in
the Bureau of Naval Personnel had opposed the move on the grounds that
WAVES were organized to replace men, and since there were more than
enough black sailors to fill all billets open to Negroes there was no
need to recruit black women.

Actually, both arguments served to mask other motives, as did Knox's
rejection of recruitment on the grounds that integrating women into
the Navy was difficult enough without taking on the race (p. 087)
problem.[3-94] In April 1943 Knox "tentatively" approved the "tentative"
outline of a bureau plan for the induction of up to 5,000 black WAVES,
but nothing came of it.[3-95] Given the secretary's frequent
protestation that the subject was under constant review,[3-96] and his
statement to Captain McAfee that black WAVES would be enlisted "over
his dead body,"[3-97] the tentative outline and approval seems to have
been an attempt to defer the decision indefinitely.

[Footnote 3-94: Ltr, Mildred M. Horton to author, 14
Mar 75, CMH files.]

[Footnote 3-95: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, 27
Apr 43, Pers 17MD, BuPersRecs, Memo, SecNav for Adm
Jacobs, 29 Apr 43, 54-1-43, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-96: See, for example, Ltr, SecNav to
Algernon D. Black, City-Wide Citizen's Cmte on
Harlem, 23 Apr 43, 54-1-43, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-97: Quoted in Ltr, Horton to author, 14
Mar 75.]

Secretary Knox's delay merely attracted more attention to the problem
and enabled the protestors