ocial change through executive
fiat. Yet Forrestal was not impervious to the aspirations of the civil
rights activists; guided by a humane interest in racial equality, he
made integration a departmental goal. His technique for achieving
integration, however, proved inadequate in the face of strong service
opposition, and finally the President, acting on the basis of these
seemingly unrelated motives, had to issue the executive order to
strengthen the defense secretary's hand.

_The Truman Administration and Civil Rights_

Executive and legislative interest in the civil rights of black
Americans reached a level in 1948 unmatched since Reconstruction. The
President himself was the catalyst. By creating a presidential
committee on civil rights and developing a legislative program based
on its findings, Truman brought the black minority into the political
arena and committed the federal government to a program of social
legislation that it has continued to support ever since. Little in (p. 293)
the President's background suggested he would sponsor basic social
changes. He was a son of the middle border, from a family firmly
dedicated to the Confederate cause. His appreciation of black
aspirations was hardly sophisticated, as he revealed to a black
audience in 1940: "I wish to make it clear that I am not appealing for
social equality of the Negro. The Negro himself knows better than
that, and the highest types of Negro leaders say quite frankly they
prefer the society of their own people. Negroes want justice, not
social relations."[12-2]

[Footnote 12-2: Jonathan Daniels, _The Man of
Independence_ (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1950), p.
338. The quotation is from a speech before the
National Colored Democratic Convention, Chicago,
reprinted in the _Congressional Record_, 76th
Cong., 3d sess., vol. 86, 5 Aug 1940, Appendix, pp.
5367-69.]

Nor did his attitude change drastically in later years. In 1961, seven
years after the Supreme Court's vital school integration decision,
Truman was calling the Freedom Riders "meddlesome intruders who should
stay at home and attend to their own business." His suggestion to
proprietors of lunch counters undergoing sit-ins was to kick out
unwelcome customers.[12-3] But if he failed to appreciate the scope of
black demands, Truman nevertheless demonstrated a