Foxholes & Color Lines: Desegregating the U. S. Armed Forces

July 26, 1998 marks the 50th anniversary of President Truman's Executive Order 9981, which mandated the desegregation of the American armed forces - one of the most sweeping changes in the military's history. Today, the incorporation of blacks into military service under terms of full equality is widely remembered as a straigthforward, relatively effortless process and a shining example of the effectiveness of America's military command. "Foxholes and Colour Lines" challenges this view, revealing both the intense political conflict at the time and the strenuous opposition to racial integration within all branches of the armed forces. Moving from the eve of World War II to Vietnam, Sherie Mershon and Steven Schlossman focus on the implementation of Truman's order and show that major changes in military race relations seldom took place quickly. Truman's 1948 order was a turning point, but it met with resistance from military officers and much of the American public - resistance that slowed desegregation. Unit integration was completed from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, but was marred by lingering restrictions on the assignment and deployment of black troops and the intractable problem of discrimination against black military personnel off base.