Project: Protests: Exchanges
Black MP in Columbus, Georgia, 1942

Black MP in Columbus, GA, 1942
Source: National Archives

    Blacks protested segregation on post, in the exchanges and the restaurants. As early as spring 1942, at Tuskegee Field, two black airmen tried to shop in the white section of the post exchange and refused to leave until ordered to do so. Blacks also targeted segregated on-post recreational facilities at Robbins Field in Georgia, at Maxwell Field in Alabama, at George Field in Illinois, at Laurinburg-Maxton Field in North Carolina, at Hill Field in Utah, at Langley Field in Virginia, and at Gulfport in Mississippi. At the post exchange at Robbins Field, Georgia, a black soldier tried to use the "white" restroom and was escorted out of the store. At Tuskegee Field, twelve black officers permanently integrated the post exchange restaurant; white officers responded by eating elsewhere. At Gunter Field, Alabama, a black enlisted man presented a copy of the Army directive requiring desegregated facilities to his section commander.1

    Blacks protested segregation in on-post movie theaters. At Cochran Field in Georgia, a black soldier sat in the "white" section of the post theater until officials asked him to leave. On its way to Europe, the 332nd Fighter Group desegregated an on-post movie theater by brandishing their handguns when threatened by the proprietor. An Army report noted that at Walterboro Air Base, black soldiers refused to attend movies until segregated seating was abolished. A black sailor wrote an article for the Crisis magazine of the National Association of Colored People (NAACP), explaining that blacks at Navy bases like Norfolk were forced to sit in segregated balconies. A black soldier wrote another article for the Crisis months later noting segregation in post theaters, libraries, exchanges, and buses and explaining that dissatisfaction had led to a number of altercations over the segregation policies.2

Excerpt from NAACP Crisis Magazine 1942

Cover from NAACP Crisis Magazine, Dec. 1940
Source: NAACP

    The black press reinforced the protests of members of the military about segregation in other ways. The Crisis magazine protested "separate buses 'for colored,' . . . and separate movie theatres (or Jim Crow 'roosts' for them in regular theaters.)" The NAACP asked Secretary of War Henry Stimson to investigate accusations made in letters from Army posts in Alaska alleging that the post theater and exchange were segregated. The Crisis also reported that ten black officers had been thrown out of a post theater in Tennessee after refusing to follow the seating segregation plan.3

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1 Osur, Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II, 44, 94-95; Sandler, Segregated Skies, 82; Osur, Separate and Unequal, 45. Full Cites

2 Osur, Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II, 94; Scott and Womack, Double V, 199; Lee, The U.S. Army in World War II, 399-400 (citing Memo, Col Leonard for ASW, 3 Oct 44, ASW 291.2); Anonymous, "The Negro in the United States Navy," Crisis, July 1940, 200; A Negro Enlisted Man, "Jim Crow in the Army Camps," Crisis, Dec. 1940, 385. Full Cites

3 Editorial, "The Negro in the United States Army," Crisis, Feb. 1942, 47; "Along the N.A.A.C.P. Battlefront: Alaska Concentration Camp?" Crisis, Nov. 1943, 339; Wilkins, "The Old Army Game?" Crisis, May 1945, 131.