ariable but also limited in
quantity. Military efficiency demanded, therefore, that the services
not only make the most effective use of available manpower, but also
improve its quality. Since Negroes, who made up approximately 10
percent of the population, formed a substantial part of the nation's
manpower, they could no longer be considered primarily a source of
unskilled labor. They too must be employed appropriately, and to this
end a higher proportion of Negroes in the services must be qualified
for specialized jobs.

Continuing demands by civil rights groups added to the pressure on the
services to employ Negroes according to their abilities. Arguing that
Negroes had the right to enjoy the privileges and share the
responsibilities of citizenship, civil rights spokesmen appeared
determined to test the constitutionality of the services' wartime
policies in the courts. Their demands placed the Truman administration
on the defensive and served warning on the armed forces that never
again could they look to the exclusion of black Americans as a
long-term solution to their racial problems.

In addition to such pressures, the services had to reckon with a more
immediate problem. Postwar black reenlistment, particularly among
service men stationed overseas, was climbing far beyond expectation.
As the armed forces demobilized in late 1945 and early 1946, the
percentage of Negroes in the Army rose above its wartime high of 9.68
percent of the enlisted strength and was expected to reach 15 percent
and more by 1947. Aside from the Marine Corps, which experienced a
rapid drop in black enlistment, the Navy also expected a rise in the
percentage of Negroes, at least in the near future. The increase
occurred in part because Negroes, who had less combat time than whites
and therefore fewer eligibility points for discharge, were being
separated from service later and more slowly. The rise reflected as
well the Negro's expectation that the national labor market would
deteriorate in the wake of the war. Although greater opportunities for
employment had developed for black Americans, civilians already filled
the posts and many young Negroes preferred the job security of a
military career. But there was another, more poignant reason why many
Negroes elected to remain in uniform: they were afraid to reenter (p. 153)
what seemed a hostile society and preferred life in the armed forces,
imperfect as that might be. The effect of this in