1,283 13.3
No Branch assignment[a] 42,643 11.4 17,779 11.7
Total 195,812[c] 87,788

[Tablenote a: In training.]

[Tablenote b: Figures show black percentage of
total Army enlistments.]

[Tablenote c: Discrepancy with Table 9, which is
based on September figures.]

_Source_: STM-30, 31 Oct 52.

These percentages were part of a larger concern over the number of
Negroes in the Army as a whole. Based on the evidence of draft-swollen
enlistment statistics, it seemed likely that the 15 to 20 percent
figure would be reached or surpassed in 1953 or 1954, and there was
some discussion in the staff about restoring the quota. But such talk
quickly faded as the Korean War wound down and the percentage
declined. Negroes constituted 14.4 percent of enlisted strength in
December 1952 and leveled off by the summer of 1955 at 11.9 percent.
Statistics for the European Command illustrated the trend. In June
1955, Negroes accounted for 3.6 percent of the command's officer
strength and 11.4 percent of its enlisted strength. The enlisted
figure represents a drop from a high of 16.1 percent in June 1953.
The percentage of black troops was down to 11.2 percent of the (p. 458)
command's total strength--officers, warrant officers, and enlisted
men--by June 1956. The reduction is explained in part by a policy
adopted by all commands in February 1955 of refusing, with certain
exceptions, to reenlist three-year veterans who scored less than
ninety in the classification tests. In Europe alone some 5,300
enlisted men were not permitted to reenlist in 1955. Slightly more
than 25 percent were black.[17-106]

[Footnote 17-106: Hq USAREUR, "Annual Historical
Report, 1 July 1954-30 June 1955," pp. 76-80, 92;
ibid., 1 July 1955-30 June 1956, pp. 65-67.]

The racial quota, in the guise of an "acceptable" percentage of
Negroes in individual units, continued to operate long after the Army
agreed to abandon it. No one, black or white, appears to have voiced
in the early 1950's the logical observation that the establishment of
a racial quota in individual Army units--whatever the percentage and
the grounds for that percentage--was in itself a residual form of
discrimination. Nor did anyone ask how establishing a race quota,
clearly dis