obvious. At its national conventions in 1953 and 1954, for
example, the NAACP officially praised the services for their race
policy. As one writer observed, integration not only increased black
support for the armed forces and black commitment to national defense
during the cold war, but it also boosted the department's prestige in
the black and white community alike, creating indirect political
support for those politicians who sponsored the racial reforms.[19-108]

[Footnote 19-108: Bahr, "The Expanding Role of the
Department of Defense," pp. 86-87.]

But what about the black serviceman himself? A Negro enlisting in the
armed forces in 1960, unlike his counterpart in 1950, entered an
integrated military community. He would quickly discover traces of
discrimination, especially in the form of unequal treatment in
assignments, promotions, and the application of military justice, but
for a while at least these would seem minor irritants to a man who was
more often than not for the first time close to being judged by
ability rather than race.[19-109] It was a different story in the
civilian community, where the black serviceman's uniform commanded
little more respect than it did in 1950. Eventually this contrast
would become so intolerable that he and his sympathizers would
beleaguer the Department of Defense with demands for action against
discrimination in off-base housing, schools, and places of public
accommodation.

[Footnote 19-109: Ginzberg, _The Negro Potential_, p.
90.]

CHAPTER 20 (p. 501)

Limited Response to Discrimination

The good feelings brought on by the integration of the armed forces
lasted less than a decade. By the early 1960's the Department of
Defense and the civil rights advocates had begun once more to draw
apart, the source of contention centering on their differing
interpretations of the scope of the Truman order. The Defense
Department professed itself unable to interfere with community laws
and customs even when those laws and customs discriminated against men
in uniform. The civil rights leaders, however, rejected the federal
government's acceptance of the _status quo_. Reacting especially to
the widespread and blatant discrimination encountered by servicemen
both in communities adjacent to bases at home and abroad and in the
reserve components of