Integration

 

An act or instance of combining into an integral whole is integration. An act or instance of integrating a racial, religious, or ethnic group is integration. The operation of finding the integral of a function or equation, especially solving a differential equation is integration. Behavior, as of an individual, that is in harmony with the environment.

 

 

Like every other Caucasian male growing up in the 50’s, solders that looked like you and your friends were the ones who won the previous war and the victory over tyranny. These were the fellows who stormed the beaches and flew the fighters and made the newsreels and movies.

In 1940 the U.S. population was about 131 million, 12.6 million of which was African American, or about 10 percent of the total population. During World War II, the Army had become the nation’s largest minority employer. Of the 2.5 million African Americans males who registered for the draft through December 31, 1945, more than one million were inducted into the armed forces.

African Americans, who constituted approximately 11 per cent of all registrants liable for service, furnished approximately this proportion of the inductees in all branches of the service except the Marine Corps.

Along with thousands of black women, these inductees served in all branches of service and in all Theaters of Operations during World War II.

During World War II, President Roosevelt had responded to complaints about discrimination at home against African Americans by issuing Executive Order 8802 in June 1941, directing that blacks be accepted into job-training programs in defense plants, forbidding discrimination by defense contractors, and establishing a Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC).

After the war, President Harry Truman, Roosevelt’s successor, faced a multitude of problems and allowed Congress to terminate the FEPC. However, in December 1946, Truman appointed a distinguished panel to serve as the President's Commission on Civil Rights, which recommended “more adequate means and procedures for the protection of the civil rights of the people of the United States.” When the commission issued its report, “To Secure These Rights,” in October 1947, among its proposals were anti-lynching and anti-poll tax laws, a permanent FEPC, and strengthening the civil rights division of the Department of Justice.

In February 1948 President Truman called on Congress to enact all of these recommendations. When Southern Senators immediately threatened a filibuster, Truman moved ahead on civil rights by using his executive powers.

Among other things, Truman bolstered the civil rights division, appointed the first African American judge to the Federal bench, named several other African Americans to high-ranking administration positions, and most important, on July 26, 1948, he issued an executive order abolishing segregation in the armed forces and ordering full integration of all the services.

Executive Order 9981 stated “there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.” The order also established an advisory committee to examine the rules, practices, and procedures of the armed services and recommend ways to make desegregation a reality. There was considerable resistance to the executive order from the military, but the end of the Korean conflict integrated almost all the military.

 

To continue I’ll use the vernacular of the day. Rather than Africana American or Black or People of Color, I call ‘these’ people Negros.

 

If you know anything about armies or battles or wars, the one with more bodies to sacrifice than the other wins. For eons men (and some badass women) would go toe-to-toe banging and slicing each other up until the last standing wins. Gunpowder raised the bar but still the one with the most bullets won.

Why were only white men carrying the guns and shooting at each other? Where was the Negros?

An army travels on its stomach. While soldiers are out on the battleground murdering each other, someone has to feed the horses and bring up the ammunition and haul the cannons and cook the food and those chores were designated to the Negros.

The culture of Jim Crow carried over into the military.

So why did Harry Truman declare Executive Order 9981?

World War II had just ended and the boys were coming home when suddenly the Commies started messing with Korea. Like many other spoils of war, Korea had been divided into North and South. The Allies would oversee the south and the north would be influenced by Russia and China.

You can read the history of the Korean War and all of its nuances, but the American army was sent to stop the brouhaha.

Like any army, when a soldier is put out of action, another soldier needs to take his place. The white army had many holes in it without time to procreate new soldiers or draft younger inductees, so the president turned to the Negro soldier to join the fight.

While in WWII there were Negro soldiers, they were segregated. Photos of fighting companies showed the faces.

Now the president was forcing barracks, mess halls, latrines and foxholes are filled with black and white soldiers. Imagine the culture shift on both sides to be thrown together?

Take a step back to Emancipation.

After decades of accepting the original sin, with a few words, slavery was over and the oppressed were free. What did that mean?

Did the people who had grown up working for another in subservience suddenly claim a plot of land, build a shelter, raise a family and make a subsistence living? How long will it take for the cultural ideal of a second-class citizen change?

Back to the Korean War and as you can see from the photo at the beginning, when soldiers were captured there was diversity. No longer was the Negro to carry the boxes, drive the trucks, cook the meals, construct the camps, carry the stretchers, but also shed the blood.

When the Negro soldier was discharged from battle, they returned to the culture that did not obey Executive Order 9981.

As a Caucasian growing up in the 50’s was involved in the desegregation of schools, watching the marches on Washington and the assassinations, seeing the riots and reading the legislature, questioning the bigotry while carrying an ancestry of bias now hears the same chants for equality.

 

Integration is the reverse of differentiation. The integral of 2 is 2x + c, where c is a constant. An “S” shaped symbol is used to mean the integral of, and dx is written at the end of the terms to be integrated, meaning “with respect to x”. This is the same “dx” that appears in dy/dx.