A.Philip Randolph proved instrumental in urging #FDR to open up the #Marines—and other #military branches—to African American recruits.history.com/news/black-mar… #BlackMarines #ReparationsNow-#ADOS #DefundTheBBC #BidenIsAFailure #Bidenflation #USHistory,#TeachUSHistory,#History
It was just a month since the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. U.S. troops were arriving in Europe to join Allied forces in fighting Adolf Hitler’s invasions.The United States needed its people to help win World War II.
And yet,in January 1942,the highest-ranking officer in the Marines, General Thomas Holcomb, expressed contempt for an effort to recruit more marines—Black marines—to the force.
Holcomb contended that African Americans seeking to enlist in the Marines were “trying to break into a club that doesn’t want them.”Holcomb was reiterating a complaint he had registered in April 1941,when he said,
“If it were a question of having a Marine Corps of 5,000 whites or 250,000 Negroes, I would rather have the whites.”
Despite Holcomb’s words,the call was put out in June 1942 to enlist some 900 African American men between the ages of 19 and 29 to the U.S. Marine Corps.
The recruitment was in compliance with Executive Order 8802,which President Franklin D. Roosevelt had signed on June 25, 1941 to end discrimination in the American defense industry.
The order established the Fair Employment Practices Commission, which mandated “full participation in the defense program by all persons regardless of color, race, creed or national origin.”
It also directed, “all departments of the government, including the Armed Forces,” to “lead the way in erasing discrimination over color or race.”
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