icers, there were a number of senior
enlisted black marines in the 1950's, many of them holdovers from the
World War II era, and Negroes were being promoted to the ranks of
corporal and sergeant in appreciable numbers.

But the tenfold increase in the number of black marines during the
Korean War caused the ratio of senior black noncommissioned officers
to black marines to drop. Here again promotion to higher rank was
slow. The first black marine to make the climb to the top in the
integrated corps was Edgar R. Huff. A gunnery sergeant in an
integrated infantry battalion in Korea, Huff later became battalion
sergeant major in the 8th Marines and eventually senior sergeant major
of the Marine Corps.[18-35]

[Footnote 18-35: Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks in the
Marine Corps_, pp. 62-63. 66.]

By 1962 there were 13,351 black enlisted men, 7.59 percent of the
corps' strength, and 34 black officers (7 captains, 25 lieutenants,
and 2 warrant officers) serving in integrated units in all military
occupations. These statistics illustrate the racial progress that
occurred in the Marine Corps during the 1950's, a change that was both
orderly and permanent, and, despite the complicated forces at work, in
essence a gift to the naval establishment from the Korean battlefield.

CHAPTER 19 (p. 473)

A New Era Begins

On 30 October 1954 the Secretary of Defense announced that the last
racially segregated unit in the armed forces of the United States had
been abolished.[19-1] Considering the department's very conservative
definition of a segregated unit--one at least 50 percent black--the
announcement celebrated a momentous change in policy. In the little
more than six years since President Truman's order, all black
servicemen, some quarter of a million in 1954, had been intermingled
with whites in the nation's military units throughout the world. For
the services the turbulent era of integration had begun.

[Footnote 19-1: New York _Times_, October 31, 1954;
ibid., Editorial, November 1, 1954.]

The new era's turbulence was caused in part by the decade-long debate
that immediately ensued over the scope of President Truman's guarantee
of equal treatment and opportunity for servicemen. On one side were
ranged most service officials, who argued that integration, now a
source of pride to the servi