A series of policies were formerly issued by the United States Armed Forces which entailed the segregation of white and non-white American servicemen, prohibitions on the recruitment of people of color and restrictions of ethnic minorities to supporting roles. Since the American Revolutionary War, each branch of the U.S. military implemented differing policies surrounding racial segregation. Racial discrimination in the U.S. military was officially opposed by Harry S. Truman's Executive Order 9981 in 1948. The goal was equality of treatment and opportunity. Jon Taylor says, "The wording of the Executive Order was vague because it neither mentioned segregation or integration."Jon Taylor, Freedom to serve: Truman, civil rights, and Executive Order 9981 (Routledge, 2013), chapter 5.Truman, Harry S. "Executive Order 9981-Establishing the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services." Federal Register 13 (1948): 4313. Racial segregation was ended in the mid-1950s.David A. Nichols, A matter of justice: Eisenhower and the beginning of the civil rights revolution (Simon and Schuster, 2007).
American Revolutionary War
During the American Revolutionary War, there were varying opinions surrounding the enlistment of African Americans into the Continental Army. Though Black men had a long history of service in the militias and provincial forces of the Thirteen Colonies during the French and Indian Wars, most Patriots believed that arming Black soldiers would pose a threat to the existing American racial hierarchy and institution of slavery. Despite the death of Crispus Attucks in the 1770 Boston Massacre along with the participation of Black soldiers in the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the Battle of Bunker Hill, Patriot leaders continued to argue against the enlistment of African Americans on racial grounds. Due to fears of potential slave rebellions, one of George Washington's first acts as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army was to sign an order forbidding the recruitment of any Black person into the army. He later rescinded this order, and in total approximately 9,000 African Americans (mostly freedmen from the American North) ended up serving in the Continental Army, most of them in integrated units.Lanning, Michael Lee. "African Americans in the Revolutionary War." p. 177-178.
United States Army
After the enactment of the Militia Acts of 1792, the U.S. Army refused to enlist black men, and, with very few exceptions, the prohibition remained in effect until the second year of the Civil War.
War of 1812
Approximately a million black people lived in the United States at the outset of the War of 1812. However, the U.S. military remained segregated during the first years of the war, and African Americans remained mostly barred from enlisting. However, after British forces launched several invasions into the United States, Black soldiers began to be recruited by the U.S. authorities. In 1814, 2,000 free Black soldiers were trained in New York, and received the same compensation as their white counterparts. However, due to the U.S. Army' s exclusion policies the majority of black service members either served in the U.S. Navy or escaped to the Royal Navy to gain their freedom.
American Civil War
The history of African Americans in the Civil War involves 186,097 (7,122 officers, 178,975 enlisted) African American men, forming 163 units, who served in the Union Army.Herbert Aptheker, "Negro Casualties in the Civil War", The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 32, No. 1. (Jan., 1947), pp. 12. African Americans also served in the Union Navy, with both free African Americans and fugitives from slavery joining the fight.
On the Confederate side, black soldiers, both free and enslaved, were used for labor. The issue of whether to arm them and under what terms became a major source of debate among Southerners. At the start of the war, a Louisiana Confederate militia unit composed of free black soldiers from the extensive New Orleans Creoles of color was raised, but the Confederacy refused their service. On March 13, 1865, the Confederate Congress enacted a statute to allow the enlistment of African Americans, but few were recruited.
Asian and Pacific Islander troops also served with African Americans in the United States Colored Troops, and a few served with white troops.Gary Y. Okihiro, American History Unbound: Asians and Pacific Islanders, Univ. of California Press, Aug 25, 2015, p.88
Native Americans, such as General Stand Watie's Confederate Cherokee Battalion, fought in their own tribal regiments or battalions on both sides of the Civil War.
Buffalo Soldiers
The Buffalo Soldiers were established by Congress in 1866 as the first peacetime all-black regiments in the regular U.S. Army.Chap. CCXCIX. 14 Stat. 332 from "A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U. S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875" . Library of Congress, Law Library of Congress. Retrieved March 26, 2012. They were tasked with guarding settlements on the western frontier; this involved fighting the native people and bandits that frequented and occupied the area. The Buffalo soldiers were paid $13 a month, and maintained some of the lowest desertion rates in the Army.
Spanish–American War During the Spanish–American War (1898), the Illinois 8th Infantry National Guard was federalized, and made history when its all-African-American officer corps led the unit in the combat zone.
Philippine Scouts
In February 1901, Congress passed a law allowing the Commander-in-chief to recruit members of the Filipino community into Army service. Fifty two companies, all from the same regions of the country, were enlisted to push past enemy lines. The Philippine Scouts were known as highly proficient soldiers with low desertion rates; their regiment lasted until the end of World War II, in which they were compelled to surrender to Japanese troops due to a dearth of resources and numbers.
World War I
African Americans
The American military was entirely segregated for African Americans during World War I. Despite expressed opposition to military training for black Americans by white supremacist politicians such as Sen. James K. Vardaman (D-MS) and Sen. Benjamin Tillman (D-SC), Congress passed the Selective Service Act in May 1917. This mandated draft registry included all male citizens over the age of 21. A total of 290,527 black Americans were ultimately registered for the draft. The rate at which black soldiers were drafted—especially by southern draft boards—was much higher than that of white soldiers. Though black people made up only 10 percent of the United States population at the time, black soldiers made up roughly 13 percent of those drafted. Draft board officials were instructed to tear off the lower left corner of the Selective Service forms filled out by black registrants to mark these for segregated units.Chad L. Williams, Torchbearers of Democracy: African American Soldiers in the World War I Era. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2010; pg. 53.
At the start of World War I, there were four regiments composed entirely of black soldiers. Two combat units of African-Americans were established: the 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions.Williams, Torchbearers of Democracy, pg. 2. The August 1917 Houston Riot of armed African-American soldiers, spurred by racist behavior by Houston police officers, additionally shaped the War Department's decision-making, and the great majority of black soldiers were assigned jobs like the building of roads, unloading of shipping, and other forms of common labor.Williams, Torchbearers of Democracy, pg. 54.
Including volunteers, 350,000 African-Americans served in the American Expeditionary Force on the western front, with one combat unit, the 369th Infantry "Hell Fighters from Harlem" being awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French allies for their bravery and competence in combat. The 370th Infantry was given the name "The Black Devils" by the Germans and following their pre-war organization in Illinois, were the only American unit to have black officers.
Asian Americans
Asian Americans fought in integrated units during World War I, and non-citizens were offered citizenship after the war as a result of their service.
World War II During World War II, the United States Army established several new segregated units, and maintained several historic segregated units.
African Americans
When the U.S. entered World War II, the U.S. Army was racially segregated. Despite the service of African American soldiers in every previous American conflict, exclusion and discrimination from the American War Department made it difficult for black soldiers to serve. In 1939, only 3,640 black soldiers were enlisted under white leadership. Led by Rayford W. Logan, head of the Committee for the Participation of Negroes in National Defense, the push for greater black participation and nondiscrimination in the military was reflected in the Selective Service Act of 1940. Members of the NAACP also met with Roosevelt to outline demands for the betterment of black soldiers' conditions in the military.
Because of this resistance to the Army's treatment of its black soldiers, military leadership began to attempt to address the issue beginning in 1943, but segregation in the armed forces remained official policy until 1948. Roosevelt's racial quotas limited the black military population to nine percent—a proportion that the Army never even reached. Furthermore, vast majority of black soldiers were never sent overseas, due to exclusionary requests and discriminatory treatment from foreign governments.
The Army Nurse Corps was established in 1901. With the exception of 18 female African-American nurses who had served in World War I, it remained white until 1941, when pressure from the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, and Eleanor Roosevelt, caused the Army to admit black nurses. A quota of 48 nurses was set, and the women were segregated from white nurses and white soldiers for much of the war. Over time, more black nurses enlisted. They were assigned to care for black soldiers, and served in the China-Burma-India theater, Australia, New Guinea, Liberia, England and the Philippines.
Japanese Americans
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, men of Japanese birth and descent were classified as enemy aliens and the Army stopped accepting new Nisei recruits on January 5, 1942; however, there were 3,000 men already in the military. In Hawaii, nearly 1,500 men were sent to the continental U.S. in June 1942 to form the 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate) and trained at both Camp McCoy WI and Camp Shelby MS. Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy stated that one of the original purposes for the activation of the 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate) was to see if Americans of Japanese descent "were loyal and willing to fight for the country." This battalion became the War Department's test on whether they could be trustworthy soldiers when the unit landed in Italy in September 1943 as part of the 34th Infantry Division. This unit performed brilliantly, removing all doubts of the loyalty issue, that led to the eventual deployment of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in June 1944.
In addition, on the U.S. mainland, the federal government forced most ethnic Japanese Americans and legal Japanese immigrants to relocate from Pacific coastal areas to incarceration camps located inland of the Pacific and controlled by armed guards.