arine units. While the assignment of an integrated unit with a few
black marines would probably go unnoticed in most naval
districts--witness the experience of the Navy itself--the task of (p. 263)
finding a naval district and an American community where a large
segregated group of black marines could be peacefully assimilated was
infinitely more difficult.

The original postwar racial program called for the assignment of black
security units to the Marine Barracks at McAlester, Oklahoma, and
Earle, New Jersey. Noting that the station was in a strict Jim Crow
area where recreational facilities for Negroes were limited and
distant, the commanding officer of the Marine Barracks at McAlester
recommended that no Negroes be assigned. He reminded the commandant
that guard duty required marines to question and apprehend white
civilian employees, a fact that would add to the racial tension in the
area. His conclusions, no doubt shared by commanders in many parts of
the country, summed up the problem of finding assignments for black
marines: any racial incident which might arise out of disregard for
local racial custom, he wrote,

would cause the Marine Corps to become involved by protecting
such personnel as required by Federal law and Navy Regulations.
It is believed that if one such potential incident occurred, it
would seriously jeopardize the standing of the Marine Corps
throughout the Southwest. To my way of thinking, the Marine Corps
is not now maintaining the high esteem of public opinion, or
gaining in prestige, by the manner in which its uniform and
insignia are subjected to such laws. The uniform does not count,
it is relegated to the background and made to participate in and
suffer the restrictions and limitations placed upon it by virtue
of the wearer being subject to the Jim Crow laws.[10-35]

[Footnote 10-35: Ltr, CO, MB, NAD, McAlester, Okla.,
to CMC, 5 Nov 46, sub: Assignment of Colored
Marines, 2385.]

The commander of the McAlester ammunition depot endorsed this
recommendation, adding that Oklahoma was a "border" state where the
Negro was not accepted as in the north nor understood and tolerated as
in the south. This argument moved the Director of Plans and Policies
to recommend that McAlester be dropped and the black unit sent instead
to Port Chicago, California.[10-36] With the approval of the