Thread by @JABell27

Here's a little thread on Black history and the @NavalAcademy for your Saturday. As background: No African Americans were admitted to USNA between Henry E. Baker of MS (1874) & James Lee Johnson of IL (1936). Wesley Anthony Brown '49 would be the 1st Black graduate. 1/

Henry Baker deserves his own thread, but he's not the young man I want to write about today. Today I'd like to tell you about James A. Parsons, Jr., of Dayton, OH (1900-1989). 2/

James A. Parsons, Jr., born May 30, 1990, was the son of James A. Parsons, Sr., the butler to metallurgist and entrepreneur Pierce Davies Schenck. (In 1917, Schenck became one of 3 founders of Duriron Co. in Dayton.) 3/

James graduated from Steele High School, Class of 1917, and was said to be "exceptionally brilliant." He completed the 4-year high school course in just 3 years. Here's his yearbook photo. 4/

In January 1918, Congressman Warren Gard (D) of Ohio's Third District had three USNA appointments available. Here's Congressman Gard. He and Dayton school superintendent Frank Miller arranged to hold a competitive exam for the appointments on 1/5/1918. 5/

James took the exam, and his score was in the top three. Congressman Gard's office announced that a young white man, Harold V. Pollock, had the top score. Gard announced that he would be appointing Pollock, Parsons, and a third young white man, James Osness of Dayton, to USNA. 6/

But we know that James Parsons was not admitted to USNA. What happened? The "rest of the story" is in a letter in the Josephus Daniels Papers at the Library of Congress. (Remember Daniels? White supremacist Secretary of the Navy? Wilmington Massacre of 1898?) 7/

The letter is from Admiral Leigh Palmer of Missouri, who was at the time the head of the Bureau of Navigation. In 1918, the Bureau of Navigation included the Personnel Department. Here's Admiral Palmer, nice image from Navy History & Heritage Command. 8/

I'm just going to leave his letter to Secretary Daniels here. You have to read it. 9/

I haven't found any documents that explain exactly what happened next. Daniels, like President Woodrow Wilson, worked pretty hard not to get his hands dirty w/any ink from signing documents that prove he had anything to do w/racial discrimination in the Navy. 10/

But it's pretty obvious that James Parsons, Jr. was never admitted to USNA. I THINK that what happened was, Daniels got Congressman Gard to agree to pull the nomination. And, probably in order not to piss off Mr. Schenck rather than from any innate sense of fairness— 11/

Congressman Gard and Mr. Schenck probably encouraged James to apply to @RPI, which seems not to have had the same...reluctance to admit qualified Black students that @NavalAcademy had. He went off to Troy in the fall of 1918. 12/

In October 1918, he enrolled in the Students' Army Training Corps. He was discharged at the rank of private in December 1918. Don't know for sure, but I would guess that the program may have been cut after the Armistice. 13/

James A. Parsons Jr. graduated from RPI and went on to work as a chemist at Duriron Co., founded by his father's employer, Mr. Schenck. He became director of the Duriron Research Laboratory, & held 9 patents in the heat treatment of metals. 14/

In 1953 he left Duriron after a 31-year career and went to @TSUedu (then Tennessee A & I), where he founded the 1st metallurgy curriculum at a HBCU. He retired in 1966, but served 4 years as an adjunct in the Department of Metallurgical Engineering at @OhioState. 15/

The @USNavy lost some major talent to racial prejudice when Admiral Palmer & Secretary Daniels convinced Congressman Gard to pull that nomination. 16/

James Albert Parsons, Jr., died in Dayton, Ohio, on 5 March 1989 at the age of 88. He was survived by his wife, two daughters, and eight grandchildren. BZ for a life well-lived, sir. 17/end

Thank you for that encyclopedia entry, @cgberube! James A. Parsons, Jr. basically invented stainless steel. Wonder if we'd be seeing all those photos of rusty USN ships these days if he'd commissioned?