Orders From the Chief

   "There has never been issued in America an Executive Order affecting Negroes in this country since the Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln."
                                                                                                  ~  Walter White, President of NAACP, 1941
   


   By June 20th, 1941 100,000 Negroes planned to march. Roosevelt fearing riots, the message it would send to Axis leaders and needing African American support for the war effort, signed Executive Order 8802 on June 25th, 1941. 
Mr. Norman Hill, 1963 March on Washington Organizer, 
1975 to 1980 Executive Director for A. Philip Randolph Institute
  (Personal Interview in May 2014)
"I do hereby reaffirm the policy of the United States that there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin..."
                                                                                                                           ~  Executive Order 8802, June 25th, 1941

Picture
President Roosevelt signing Executive Order 8802. (FDR Library)
Cover of Executive Order 8802. (FDR Library)
[Click to Enlarge]
   It prohibited employment discrimination in the defense industry and military including the Marine Corps, but didn't take responsibility to ban other forms of discrimination. Not all military members accepted the order. Marine General Thomas Holcomb resisted allowing Negroes to join.




"If it was a question of having a Marine Corps of 5,000 whites or 250,000 Negroes, I would rather have the whites. There could be no Black Marines because the corps was simply too small to form segregated units. ...There would be a definite loss of efficiency..The Negro race has every opportunity now to satisfy its aspirations for combat in the Army."           
  ~ Major General Thomas Holcomb Testifies before the General Board of the              Navy on April 18,1941
Picture
Marine General Thomas Holcomb (USMC Archives)
National Marine Museum Curator Owen L. Conner
(Personal Interview in April 2014)



"Eleanor [Roosevelt] says we gotta take in Negroes, and we are just scared to death; we've never had any; we don't know how to handle them; are afraid of them."
                  ~  General Ray A. Robinson, 1942
   On December 7th, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor forcing America to enter the war. All manpower was needed, and Holcomb is overruled.

Picture
Alfred Masters being sworn into the Marines. (Montford Point Marine Association)


“It is a dark secret...when they did open up African American service, Blacks didn't tend to join. They looked at it and said "I could always join the Navy." There was a tradition of serving stewards...It was not the best job, but people respected it. The Army had the Buffalo soldiers and other Black units. Not always well treated but there was a tradition within the Black community of service in that branch.”
        ~ Owen Conner, National Marine Museum Curator,                               Personal Interview on April 2014
   Breaking the color barrier required those that joined or were drafted to take on the responsibility of proving they were just as capable as white men. 

Montford Point Marine Staff Sergeant (Ret.) John L. Spencer
(Personal Interview in January 2014)