oter," Lewis concluded. And from Forrestal they expected
action.[12-33]

[Footnote 12-32: Representing eight papers, a cross
section of the influential black press, the
journalists included Ira F. Lewis and William G.
Nunn, Pittsburgh _Courier_; Cliff W. Mackay,
_Afro-American_; Louis Martin and Charles Browning,
Chicago _Defender_; Thomas W. Young and Louis R.
Lautier, Norfolk _Journal and Guide_; Carter
Wesley, Houston _Defender_; Frank L. Stanley,
Louisville _Defender_; Dowdal H. Davis, Kansas City
_Call_; Dan Burley, _Amsterdam News_. See Evans,
list of Publishers and Editors of Negro Newspapers,
Pentagon, 18 Mar 48, copy in CMH.]

[Footnote 12-33: Sentiments of the meeting were
summarized in Ltr, Ira F. Lewis to Forrestal, 24
Mar 48; see also Ltr, Granger to Forrestal, 2 Mar
48; both in D54-1-4, SecDef files.]

While black newspapermen were pressing the executive branch, Randolph
and his Committee Against Jim Crow were demanding congressional
action. Randolph concentrated on one explosive issue, the Army's
procurement of troops. The first War Department plans for postwar
manpower procurement were predicated on some form of universal
military training, a new concept for the United States. The plans
immediately came under fire from Negroes because the Army, citing the
Gillem Board Report as its authority, had specified that black
recruits be trained in segregated units. The Army had also specified
that the black units form parts of larger, racially mixed units and
would be trained in racially mixed camps.[12-34] The President's (p. 303)
Advisory Commission on Universal Training (the Compton Commission),
appointed to study the Army's program, strongly objected to the
segregation provisions, but to no avail.[12-35] As if to signal its
intentions the Army trained an experimental universal military
training unit in 1947 at Fort Knox that carefully excluded black
volunteers.

[Footnote 12-34: WD Ltr, AGAO-S 353 (28 May 47),
WDGOT-M, 11 Jun 47.]

[Footnote 12-35: _A Program for National Security:
Report of the President's Advisory Commission