the services in many parts of the country, they
stepped up demands for remedial action against a situation that they
believed continued at the sufferance of the armed forces.

Nor were their demands limited to the problem of discrimination in the
local community. Civil rights spokesmen backed the complaints of those
black servicemen who had begun to question their treatment in the
military community itself. Lacking what many of them considered an
effective procedure for dealing with racial complaints, black
servicemen usually passed on their grievances to congressmen and
various civil rights organizations, and these, in turn, took the
problems to the Defense Department. The number of complaints over
inequalities in promotion, assignment, and racial representation never
matched the volume of those on discrimination in the community, nor
did their appearance attest to a new set of problems or any particular
increase in discrimination. It seemed rather that the black
serviceman, after the first flush of victory over segregation, was
beginning to perceive from the vantage of his improved position that
other and perhaps more subtle barriers stood in his way. Whatever the
reason, complaints of discrimination within the services themselves,
rarely heard in the Pentagon in the late 1950's, suddenly
reappeared.[20-1] Actually, the complaints about discrimination both
in the local civilian community and on the military reservation called
for a basic alteration in the way the services interpreted their
policies of equal treatment and opportunity. In the end it would prove
easier for the services to attack the gaudier but ultimately less
complicated problems outside their gates.

[Footnote 20-1: For discussion of charges of
discrimination within the services, see Ltrs, ASD
(M) to Congressman Charles C. Diggs, Jr., 15 Mar
and 5 Sep 61; and the following Memos: Under SecNav
for ASD (M), 16 Mar 62, sub: Discrimination in U.S.
Military Services; Dep SecAF for Manpower,
Personnel, and Organization for ASD (M), 29 Mar 62,
sub: Alleged Racial Discrimination With the Air
Force; Dep Under SA (M) For ASD (M), 30 Mar 62,
sub: Servicemen's Complaints of Discrimination in
the U.S. Military. All in ASD (M) 291.2.]

It would be a mistake