r Forrestal, 24 Apr 48; ltr, SecDef to
All Invited, 10 Apr 48. All in D54-1-3, SecDef
files. Those invited were Truman Gibson; Dr.
Channing Tobias; Dr. Sadie T. M. Alexander; Mary
McLeod Bethune; Dr. John W. Davis of West Virginia
State College; Dr. Benjamin E. Mays of Morehouse
College; Dr. Mordecai Johnson of Howard University;
P. B. Young, Jr., of the Norfolk _Journal and
Guide_; Willard Townsend of the United Transport
Service Employees; Rev. John H. Johnson of New
York; Walter White; Hobson E. Reynolds of the
International Order of Elks; Bishop J. W. Gregg of
Kansas City; Loren Miller of Los Angeles; and
Charles Houston of Washington, D.C. Unable to
attend, White sent his assistant Roy Wilkins,
Townsend sent George L. P. Weaver, and Mrs. Bethune
was replaced by Ira F. Lewis of the Pittsburgh
_Courier_.]

Announcement of the conference was upstaged in the press by the
activities of some civil rights militants, including those whom
Granger sought to exclude from the Forrestal conference because he
thought they would make a political issue of the war against
segregation. Forrestal first learned of the militants' plans from
members of the National Negro Publishers Association, a group of
publishers and editors of important black journals who were about to
tour European installations as guests of the Army.[12-32] At Granger's
suggestion Forrestal had met with the publishers and editors to
explain the causes for the delay in desegregating the services.
Instead, he found himself listening to an impassioned demand for
immediate change. Ira F. Lewis, president of the Pittsburgh _Courier_
and spokesman for the group, told the secretary that the black
community did not expect the services to be a laboratory or
clearinghouse for processing the social ills of the nation, but it
wanted to warn the man responsible for military preparedness that the
United States could not afford another war with one-tenth of its
population lacking the spirit to fight. The problem of segregation
could best be solved by the policymakers. "The colored people of the
country have a high regard for you, Mr. Secretary, as a square
sho