Blacks Had Key Role in Military Desegregation

Re “The Good Fight: Marking 50 Years of Desegregation in the Military” (July 24): While desegregating the military may have been before the time of Rosa Parks and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., there were many black leaders who were instrumental in getting President Truman to issue Executive Order 9981.

One of them was A. Philip Randolph. A tireless fighter for the civil rights of African Americans, Randolph took one of the most radical positions of all his colleagues from organizations like the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and the Urban League. He advocated resistance to the peacetime draft. He shocked a congressional committee and made national headlines when he said, “I personally pledge myself to openly counsel, aid and abet youth, both white and colored, to quarantine any Jim Crow conscription system. . . . I shall call upon all colored veterans to join this civil disobedience movement and to recruit their younger brothers in an organized refusal to register.” A poll of black college students taken in 1948 found that 70% agreed with him.

It is true, as your article points out, that politics, not ethics, motivated Truman to issue EO 9981. But it was politics driven by brilliant organizing and the dogged determination of black leaders and citizenry that pushed the president, not just the Democrats’ need for the black urban vote.

NEAL SACHAROW

Santa Monica