services surmounted bigotry and rejected
the old ways to a gratifying degree. To the extent that they were
successful in bringing the races together, their efficiency prospered
and the nation's ideal of equal opportunity for all citizens was
fortified.

Unfortunately, the collapse of the legal and administrative barriers
to equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces did not lead
immediately to the full realization of this ideal. Equal treatment and
opportunity would remain an elusive goal for the Department of Defense
for years to come. The post-1965 period comprises a new chapter in the
racial history of the services. The agitation that followed the
McNamara era had different roots from the events of the previous
decades. The key to this difference was suggested during the Vietnam
War by the Kerner Commission in its stark conclusion that "our nation
is moving toward two societies, one black, one white--separate but
unequal."[24-9] In contrast to the McNamara period of integration,
when civil rights advocates and Defense Department officials worked
toward a common goal, subsequent years would be marked by an often
greater militancy on the part of black servicemen and a new kind of
friction between a fragmented civil rights movement and the Department
of Defense. Clearly, in coping with these problems the services will
have to move beyond the elimination of legal and administrative
barriers that had ordered their racial concerns between 1940 and 1965.

[Footnote 24-9: _Report of the National Advisory
Commission on Civil Disorders_, p. 1.]

Note on Sources (p. 625)

The search for source materials used in this volume provided the
writer with a special glimpse into the ways in which various
government agencies have treated what was until recently considered a
sensitive subject. Most important documents and working papers
concerning the employment of black servicemen were, well into the
1950's and in contrast to the great bulk of personnel policy papers,
routinely given a security classification. In some agencies the
"secret" or "confidential" stamp was considered sufficient to protect
the materials, which were filed and retired in a routine manner and,
therefore, have always been readily available to the persistent and
qualified researcher. But, as any experienced staff officer could
demonstrate, other methods beyond mer