the services in the early postwar period, others had
become symbols of racism by 1961. Some fourteen years after the Truman
order, ten states with large black populations and understaffed guard
units still had no Negroes in the guard. The Kennedy administration
was not the first to wrestle with the problem of applying a single
racial policy to both the regulars and the guard. It was aware that
too much tampering with the politically influential and volatile guard
could produce an explosion. At the same time any appearance of
timidity courted antagonism from another quarter.

From the beginning the new administration found itself criticized by
civil rights organizations, including the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights, for not moving quickly against segregated National Guard
units.[20-68] A delegation from the NAACP's 1961 convention visited
Assistant Secretary Runge in July and criticized--to the exclusion of
all other subjects--discrimination in the National Guard. This group
wanted the federal government to withhold funds from states that
continued to bar black participation. Repeating the old claim that
special federal-state relationships precluded direct action by the
Secretary of Defense, Runge nevertheless promised the delegates a
renewed effort to provide equal opportunity. He also made a somewhat
irrelevant reference to the recent experience of a black citizen in
Oklahoma who had secured admission to the state guard by a direct
appeal to the governor.[20-69] How futile such appeals would be in
some states was demonstrated a week later when the Adjutant General of
Florida declared that since the guard was a volunteer organization and
his state had always drawn its members from among white citizens,
Florida was under no obligation to enlist black men.[20-70]

[Footnote 20-68: See petitions signed by thousands of
Negroes to the President demanding redress of
grievances against the discriminatory practices of
the National Guard, in White House Cen files, 1962,
J. F. Kennedy Library.]

[Footnote 20-69: Memo for Rcd, James C. Evans, OASD
(M), 17 Jul 61, sub: Mr. Runge Receives NAACP
Delegation, ASD (M) 291.2.]

[Footnote 20-70: Washington _Post_, July 28, 1961.]

That the new administration had quietly adopted different policies
toward the guard a