ions, as, for example, in the
pilot training of black officers in the Army Air Corps. Just as
quickly, the civil rights leaders, who had expected more from the tone
of the President's own comments and more also from the egalitarian
implications of the new draft law, bitterly attacked the Army's
policy.

Black criticism came at an awkward moment for President Roosevelt, who
was entering a heated campaign for an unprecedented third term and
whose New Deal coalition included the urban black vote. His opponent,
the articulate Wendell L. Willkie, was an unabashed champion of civil
rights and was reportedly attracting a wide following among black
voters. In the weeks preceding the election the President tried to
soften the effect of the Army's announcement. He promoted Col.
Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., to brigadier general, thereby making Davis the
first Negro to hold this rank in the Regular Army. He appointed the
commander of reserve officers' training at Howard University, Col.
Campbell C. Johnson, Special Aide to the Director of Selective
Service. And, finally, he named Judge William H. Hastie, dean of the
Howard University Law School, Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War.

A successful lawyer, Judge Hastie entered upon his new assignment with
several handicaps. Because of his long association with black causes,
some civil rights organizations assumed that Hastie would be their man
in Washington and regarded his duties as an extension of their crusade
against discrimination. Hastie's War Department superiors, on the
other hand, assumed that his was a public relations job and expected
him to handle all complaints and mobilization problems as had his
World War I predecessor, Emmett J. Scott. Both assumptions proved
false. Hastie was evidently determined to break the racial logjam in
the War Department, yet unlike many civil rights advocates he seemed
willing to pay the price of slow progress to obtain lasting
improvement. According to those who knew him, Hastie was confident
that he could demonstrate to War Department officials that the Army's
racial policies were both inefficient and unpatriotic.[2-5]

[Footnote 2-5: The foregoing impressions are derived
largely from Interviews, Lee Nichols with James C.
Evans, who worked for Judge Hastie during World War
II, and Ulysses G. Lee (c. 1953). Both in Nichols
Collection, CMH.]

Judge