ion that servants'
duties were for persons of dark complexion. The debate over a
segregated branch that had engaged the civil rights leaders and the
Navy since 1932 was over, but it had left a residue of ill will; some
were bitter at what they considered the listless pace of reform, a
pace which left the impression that the service had been forced to
change against its will. To some extent the Navy in the 1950's failed
to capitalize on its early achievements because it had for so long
missed the point of the integrationists' arguments about the stewards.
In the fifties the Navy expended considerable time and energy
advertising for black officer candidates and recruits whom they
guaranteed a genuinely equal chance to participate in all specialties,
but these efforts were to some extent dismissed by critics as not
germane. In 1950, for example, only 114 Negroes served in the
glamorous submarine assignments and even fewer in the naval air
service.[16-99] Yet this obvious underrepresentation caused no great
outcry from the black community. What did cause bitterness and (p. 425)
protest in an era of aroused racial pride was the fact that servants'
duties fell almost exclusively on nonwhite Americans. That these
duties were popular--the 80 percent reenlistment rate in the Steward's
Branch continued throughout the decade and the transfer rate into the
branch almost equaled the transfer out--was disregarded by many of the
more articulate spokesmen, who considered the branch an insult to the
black public. As Congressman Powell informed the Navy in 1953, "no one
is interested in today's world in fighting communism with a frying pan
or shoe polish."[16-100] Although statistics showed nearly half the
black sailors employed in other than menial tasks, Powell voiced the
mood of a large segment of the black community.

[Footnote 16-99: The Navy commissioned its first black
pilot, Ens. Jesse L. Brown, in 1950. He was killed
in action in Korea.]

[Footnote 16-100: Ltr, Powell to John Floberg, Asst
SecNav for Air, 29 Jun 53, SecNav files,
GenRecsNav.]

[Illustration: WAVE RECRUITS, _Naval Training Center, Bainbridge,
Maryland, 1953_.]

The Fahy Committee had acknowledged that manpower statistics alone
were not a reliable index of equal opportunity. Convinced that Negroes
were getting a full and equal chance to enlist