Navy and Marine Corps Military Statistics_, 30 Jun
59, BuPers. Official figures on black marines are
from reports of the USMC Personnel Accounting
Section.]

Yet neither the relatively small size of the Marine Corps nor the fact
that few black marines were enrolled could conceal the inefficiency of
segregation. Over the next three years the personnel planning staff
tried to find a solution to the problem of what it considered to be
too many Negroes in the general service. First it began to reduce
gradually the number of black units accommodated in the Operating
Force Plan, absorbing the excess black marines by increasing the
number of stewards. This course was not without obvious public
relations disadvantages, but they were offset somewhat by the fact
that the Marine Corps, unlike the Navy, never employed a majority of
its black recruits as stewards. In May 1948 the commandant approved
new plans for a 10 percent decrease in the number of general duty
assignments and a corresponding increase in spaces for stewards.[10-8]
The trend away from assigning Negroes to general service duty
continued until the Korean War, and in October 1949 a statistical high
point was reached when some 33 percent of all black marines were
serving as stewards. The doctrine that all marines were potential
infantrymen stood, but it was small comfort to civil rights activists
who feared that what at best was a nominal black representation in the
corps was being pushed into the kitchen.

[Footnote 10-8: Memo, Dir, Plans and Policies Div, for
CMC, 20 May 48, sub: Procurement and Assignment of
Negro Enlisted Personnel, A0-1.]

But they had little to fear since the number of Negroes that could be
absorbed in the Steward's Branch was limited. In the end the Marine
Corps still had to accommodate two-thirds of its black strength in
general duty billets, a course with several unpalatable consequences.
For one, Negroes would be assigned to new bases reluctant to accept
them and near some communities where they would be unwelcome. For
another, given the limitations in self-contained units, there was the
possibility of introducing some integration in the men's living or
working arrangements. Certainly black billets would have to be created
at the expense of white billets. The Director of Plans and Policies
warned in August