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Black Quotidian: Everyday History in African-American Newspapers

Washington Afro-American - April 21, 1953

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April - Archived Posts
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April 1, 1950: Political April Fools’ Day wishes in Pittsburgh Courier.
April 2, 1966: Pittsburgh Courier sports editor Bill Nunn Jr. on Texas Western championship basketball team.
April 3, 1954: Cleveland Call and Post reports on death of nightclub owner and numbers racket king Bennie Mason.
April 4, 1968: The front pages of black newspapers after assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
April 5, 1933: Hamilton Lodge Ball and drag performances in New York Amsterdam News.
April 6, 1972: North Carolina Mutual insurance advertisement in Los Angeles Sentinel.
April 7, 1959: Ads for Lydia Pinkham’s tablets and topics to relieve menstrual and menopausal pain in the Philadelphia Tribune.
April 8, 1939: Norfolk Journal and Guide on controversy over Louis Armstrong’s swing version of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
April 9, 197: Hank Aaron’s record breaking 715th home run covered in the Atlanta Daily World.
April 10, 1909: New York Women’s Business Club featured in Baltimore Afro-American.
April 11, 1936: Chicago Defender on a Howard University student bet gone wrong.
April 12, 1947: Jackie Robinson’s Major League Baseball debut covered in the black press.
April 13, 1948: Philadelphia Tribune reports on killing of World War II veteran George Serrell, who refused to sit in a Jim Crow train car.
April 14, 1979: Disco advertisements in the Cleveland Call and Post.
April 15, 1939: Account from a fugitive from a North Carolina prison in the Baltimore Afro-American. Guest post by Daniel Arico, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 15, 1939: Marian Anderson’s landmark performance at Lincoln Memorial reported in Chicago Defender.
April 16, 1904: Anti-profanity campaign reported in The Appeal. Guest post by Caroline Arkesteyn, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 16, 1959: Francois Andre’s male fashion show at Hollywood’s Moulin Rouge in the Los Angeles Sentinel.
April 17, 1915: Ohio Governor Frank Willis blocks exhibition of racist photoplay, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Alex Bishop, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 17, 1943: African-American women protest racial discrimination at Bechtel-McCone-Parsons airplane modification plant in Birmingham, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Lillian G. Page, MA student in history at the University of Memphis.
April 18, 1942: Eleanor Roosevelt calls for equality in speech at the Hampton Institute, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Connor Callahan, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 19, 1958: New York Amsterdam News on dangerous apartment conditions. Guest post by Mark Speltz.
April 19, 1960: Chicago Defender on racial discrimination and student organizing at Indiana University. Guest post by Samuel Carter, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 20, 1929: Chicago Defender on teen runner killed after winning race. Guest post by Trent Cork, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 21, 1953: Washington Afro-American on discrimination in the U.S. Army. Guest post by Katelyn Culver, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 22, 1950: Housing discrimination in Los Angeles’ Leimert Park neighborhood, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Austin Demers, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 23, 1960: White woman in Alabama beaten for dating black men, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Thomas Esposito, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 24, 1954: Chicago Defender on discrimination in Baltimore hotels. Guest post by Mark Fowler, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 25, 1987: Indianapolis Recorder on black student demands at Purdue University. Guest post by Derek Gilman, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 26, 1930: Indianapolis Recorder on movie theater discrimination. Guest post by Ethan Hill, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 27, 1974: Chicago Defender salutes Duke Ellington on his birthday. Guest post by Luke Johnson, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 28, 1962: Police brutality reported in Indianapolis Recorder. Guest post by Samanvay Kasarala, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 28, 1988: Cleveland Call and Post endorses Jesse Jackson for President.
April 29, 1904: Iowa State Bystander reports on practical joke gone wrong. Guest post by Robert Kinser, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 30, 1960: Student protests in Greensboro, North Carolina reported in the Chicago Defender. Guest post by Samuel Kramer, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 21, 1953 Guest post by Katelyn Culver, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.

On April 21, 1953, the Washington Afro-American released a story regarding integration, or the lack thereof, in the two army posts Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. and Fort Myer in Virginia. The article brought to light the corrupt behavior of General J. Lawton Collins, Army Chief of Staff and General Omar N. Bradley, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In reflection of the study at the two army bases, the newspaper reported, ”Two of the army’s highest ranking generals, whom the President has ordered to end racial discrimination in the military service, actually tolerate more segregation and discrimination in their own military home bases than can be found at any other installation in the Army.”

On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, which called for the government to desegregate the military. Patrick Feng of the Army Historical Foundation explains the nation’s response: “Despite the issuing of the order, there was considerable resistance from the military. The full effects would not be felt until the end of the Korean War. The Army’s last segregated units were finally disbanded in 1954.”¹⁰⁴ Five years after Truman signed, the two previously mentioned army bases showed a good effort with integrating their programs. There was an exception, however. It was found that the job title of “flunky,” or “orderly” as the army called it, had been set apart exclusively for people of color. The article stated that orderlies “simply do anything the general and his wife want them to do around the house from washing and ironing to changing the baby.” The generals were not the only ones who benefited from their flunkies. Before even reaching the rank of a general’s glorified manservant, the orderlies had to go through a training program where they practiced for their future positions by serving a major or a colonel and their families.

Let it not be said that the flunkies were undercompensated for their position. In addition to the pay associated with their rank, the orderlies made a private agreement with the general in which they would receive extra payment each month in exchange for their service to him. While the exact amount of payment was not specified, army officials revealed to the reporter that it varied from anywhere between $15 to $30 a month. That would be the equivalent of around $130 to $265 in 2016. Even though the extra payment seemed to be a good reason for volunteering to be an orderly, it did not explain why only black men took up the position.

Because of that, the job itself was not the only thing that was exclusive. Although the rest of the base was integrated, the units of flunkies and flunky trainees were completely made up of black men. They lived only with other black men and used jim crow recreational facilities. Another instance of segregation in those two army bases was revealed in the Third Infantry Regiment. The newspaper explained that a “unit, which is called the ‘President’s Guards,’ is a select regiment of picked troops which performs ceremonial activities for the President and other high officials of state.” There were black men clearly qualified for the President’s Guards, but only white men held this position of high honor.

Obviously the segregation problem at Fort McNair and Fort Myer was displeasing. However, it did not go unchecked. An article in the same paper informed readers of an interview with a spokesman for General Collins, where it revealed that “the findings had been called to the attention of the Army’s G-I Section and that immediate steps are being taken to remedy certain conditions there.” It seemed that even after all the opposition to Truman’s executive order, there still was evidence of progress toward desegregation in the military.

To read more on this topic, see Patrick Feng’s “Executive Order 9981: Integration of the Armed Forces.”