dment of the existing
black regiments and argued for similar units throughout the
service.[1-27]

[Footnote 1-27: See especially Ltr, Houston to CofS,
1 Aug and 29 Aug 34; Ltr, CofS to Houston, 20 Aug
34; Ltr, Maj Gen Edgar T. Conley, Actg AG, USA, to
Walter White, 25 Nov 35; Ltr, Houston to Roosevelt,
8 Oct 37; Ltr, Houston to SW, 8 Oct 37. See also
Elijah Reynolds, _Colored Soldiers and the Regular
Army_ (NAACP Pamphlet, December 10, 1934). All in
C-376, NAACP Collection, Library of Congress.]

Yet the idea of integration was already strongly implied in Houston's
1934 call for "a more united nation of free citizens,"[1-28] and in
February 1937 the organization emphasized the idea in an editorial in
_The Crisis_, asking why black and white men could not fight side by
side as they had in the Continental Army.[1-29] And when the Army
informed the NAACP in September 1939 that more black units were
projected for mobilization, White found this solution unsatisfactory
because the proposed units would be segregated.[1-30] If democracy was
to be defended, he told the President, discrimination must be
eliminated from the armed forces. To this end, the NAACP urged
Roosevelt to appoint a commission of black and white citizens to
investigate discrimination in the Army and Navy and to recommend the
removal of racial barriers.[1-31]

[Footnote 1-28: Ibid. Ltr, Houston to CofS, 1 Aug
34.]

[Footnote 1-29: _The Crisis_ 46 (1939):49, 241, 337.]

[Footnote 1-30: Ltr, Presley Holliday to White, 11
Sep 39; Ltr, White to Holliday, 15 Sep 39. Both in
C-376, NAACP Collection, LC.]

[Footnote 1-31: Ltr, White to Roosevelt, 15 Sep 39,
in C-376, NAACP Collection, LC. This letter was
later released to the press.]

The White House ignored these demands, and on 17 October the secretary
to the President, Col. Edwin M. Watson, referred White to a War
Department report outlining the new black units being created under
presidential authorization. But the NAACP leaders were not to be
diverted from the main chance. Thurgood Marshall, then the head of (p. 015)
the organization's legal department, recommended that White tell the