5 - The Truman Administration, Military Service, and Postwar Civil Rights

Summary

This chapter examines the effects of World War II and its aftermath on the Truman administration’s civil rights actions. In conjunction with broader political pressures and electoral incentives, the chapter points to Truman’s belief in the republican virtues of military service as a variable that can mediate between his personal racism and relatively more extensive civil rights program. It then shows how civil rights advocates—particularly by highlighting incidences of violence against returning black veterans in the immediate postwar period— convinced Truman to issue an executive order establishing the President’s Committee on Civil Rights. The chapter then discusses his executive order calling for equality of opportunity and treatment in the armed forces, issued after congressional inaction on his civil rights committee’s proposals, which eventually led to the desegregation of the U.S. military. This was not without its challenges, however, particularly from the Army, which frequently pushed back against the committee tasked with implementing the order.