TUBERVILLE said the United States military was not an EQUAL OPPORTUNITY MILITARY
History is so important (We may be doomed to repeat some if it's atrocities.
The dumbest, ignorant, racist person who just happens to be my Alabama’ senator byway of Arkansas through Florida this former coach of a football team said:
“I heard some things that “he” (Air Force Gen. Charles "CQ" Brown Jr. the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) talked about race and things that he wanted to mix into the military," Tuberville said of the Black officer. "Let me tell you something: Our military is not an equal-opportunity employer.”
As I was going back through some of the articles that I had read over the last few months I could not believe I missed this one.
Tuberville said Listen, I want it to be on merit,” he added of the general’s push for more diversity among military pilots. “Don’t give me this stuff about equal opportunity, because that’s not what this military is about.
”YEAH IT IS YOU DUMB ASS
And has been for 75 years.
On July 26, 1948 Executive Order 9981, Desegregating the Military was signed by President Harry Truman. The order mandated the desegregation of the U.S. military. The first point in the executive order states “It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.”
Facts:
The United States Air Force was the first fully integrated branch of the military and by December of 1949, the Air Force reported that the number of integrated units had doubled between June and August 1949.
In the United States Navy most Blacks in the Navy remained stewards and mess men. Yet in 1949, Wesley A. Brown became the first African American to graduate from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Upon his graduation, he was the first Black officer in the Navy.
The United States Army was reluctant to enact Executive Order 9981. The brass felt that integration would lead to a decline in national security. By March of 1950, the U.S. Army agreed to integration across the entire service, but the last segregated army units were not dissolved until 1954. The Twenty-fourth Infantry, the last of the segregated Buffalo Soldiers regiments, was inactivated on October 1, 1951, and its soldiers were reassigned to integrated units.
The United States Marine Corps defended its segregated practices at the time and Black Marines were forced to choose retirement or to accept the role of steward. However while changes were slow in the Marine Corps, Black and White recruits began training together in 1949 and by 1952 the Corp was fully integrated.
Truman wrote in response to his detractors in 1948,
“I am asking for equality of opportunity for all human beings, and as long as I stay here, I am going to continue that fight.”
President Harry S. Truman - 1948
This statement was true in 1948 and has to be reiterated in 2023.
It may shock you that a white man born in 1884- 19 years after slavery in Independence, Missouri is responsible for desegregating the US Armed Forces.
Truman said “My forebears were Confederates ... but my very stomach turned over when I had learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being dumped out of Army trucks in Mississippi and beaten." The tales of abuse, violence, and persecution suffered by many African American veterans upon their return from World War II infuriated Truman and were major factors in his decision to issue.
Some gave all. While one has been trying to destroy our military inside our house. When we wake up from this dystopic dream we have been living in since 2016, I hope a lot of tears are shed for the broken foundation of democracy that has been damaged by ignorance and bigotry.
I write this post In Memory of my uncle Seaman 1st Class Nearest Ferguson, of Leeds, Alabama, and all those sailors who lost their lives in WWII (1944) in the yellow sea onboard the USS-278 Submarine Scorpion.
The photos of servicemen in this post are the property of CellyBlue and are of the pictures of the Dale, Jackson, Gaiter and Ferguson family members.
Great piece. I was born into a military (USAF) family in 1960. I grew up in this integrated environment. Women were still forbidden a wide range of jobs however, except as mothers. Interracial and international relationships were normal. My own mother is English. Major benefits from multiple perspectives.
What a horses ass tuberville is. I was in the USMC (68-71) and we were integrated and we were all treated the same. Small brained tuberville needs to shut his pie hole. How would he know, he’s never militarily served our country. What a lying pos.