47, sub: HR 279: To Prohibit Race Segregation in
the Armed Forces of the United States, GenRecsNav.]

The Navy's major racial problem by 1948 was the shockingly small
number of Negroes in the service. In November 1948, a presidential
election month, Negroes accounted for 4.3 percent of the navy's
strength. Not only were there few Negroes in the Navy, but there were
especially too few in the general service and practically no black
officers, a series of statistics that made the predominately black and
separate stewards more conspicuous. The Navy rejected an obvious
solution, lowering recruitment standards, contending that it could not
run its ships and aircraft with men who scored below ninety in the
general classification test.[9-57] The alternative was to recruit among
the increasing numbers of educated Negroes, as the personnel bureau
had been trying to do. But here, as Nelson and others could report,
the Navy faced severe competition from other employers, and here the
Navy's public image had its strongest effect.

[Footnote 9-57: For discussion of the problem of
comparative enlistment standards, see Chapter 12.]

Lt. Comdr. Edward Hope, a black reserve officer assigned to officer
procurement, concluded that the black community, especially veterans,
distrusted all the services. Consequently, Negroes tended to disregard
announced plans and policies applicable to all citizens unless they
were specially labeled "for colored." Negroes tried to avoid the
humiliation of applying for certain rights or benefits only to be
arbitrarily rejected.[9-58] Compounding the suspicion and fear of
humiliation, Hope reported, was a genuine lack of information on Navy
policy that seriously limited the number of black applicants.

[Footnote 9-58: Ltr, Lt Cmdr, E. S. Hope to SecDef,
17 May 48, with attached rpt, D54-1-10,
GenRecsNav.]

The cause of confusion among black students over Navy policy was easy
to pinpoint, for memories of the frustrations and insults suffered by
black seamen during the war were still fresh. Negroes remembered the
labor battalions bossed by whites--much like the old plantation
system, Lester Granger observed. Unlike the Army, the Navy had offered
few black enlisted men the chance of serving in vital jobs under black
commanders. This slight, according to Granger, robbed the black sail