Background

"Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship."

Frederick Douglass

The issues of emancipation and military service were intertwined from the onset of the Civil War. News from Fort Sumter set off a rush by free black men to enlist in U.S. military units. They were turned away, however, because a Federal law dating from 1792 barred Negroes from bearing arms for the U.S. army (although they had served in the American Revolution and in the War of 1812). In Boston disappointed would-be volunteers met and passed a resolution requesting that the Government modify its laws to permit their enlistment.

The Lincoln administration wrestled with the idea of authorizing the recruitment of black troops, concerned that such a move would prompt the border states to secede. When Gen. John C. Frémont (photo citation: 111-B-3756) in Missouri and Gen. David Hunter (photo citation: 111-B-3580) in South Carolina issued proclamations that emancipated slaves in their military regions and permitted them to enlist, their superiors sternly revoked their orders. By mid-1862, however, the escalating number of former slaves (contrabands), the declining number of white volunteers, and the increasingly pressing personnel needs of the Union Army pushed the Government into reconsidering the ban.

As a result, on July 17, 1862, Congress passed the Second Confiscation and Militia Act, freeing slaves who had masters in the Confederate Army. Two days later, slavery was abolished in the territories of the United States, and on July 22 President Lincoln (photo citation: 111-B-2323) presented the preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to his Cabinet. After the Union Army turned back Lee's first invasion of the North at Antietam, MD, and the Emancipation Proclamation was subsequently announced, black recruitment was pursued in earnest. Volunteers from South Carolina, Tennessee, and Massachusetts filled the first authorized black regiments. Recruitment was slow until black leaders such as Frederick Douglass (photo citation: 200-FL-22) encouraged black men to become soldiers to ensure eventual full citizenship. (Two of Douglass's own sons contributed to the war effort.) Volunteers began to respond, and in May 1863 the Government established the Bureau of Colored Troops to manage the burgeoning numbers of black soldiers.

By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy. Nearly 40,000 black soldiers died over the course of the war—30,000 of infection or disease. Black soldiers served in artillery and infantry and performed all noncombat support functions that sustain an army, as well. Black carpenters, chaplains, cooks, guards, laborers, nurses, scouts, spies, steamboat pilots, surgeons, and teamsters also contributed to the war cause. There were nearly 80 black commissioned officers. Black women, who could not formally join the Army, nonetheless served as nurses, spies, and scouts, the most famous being Harriet Tubman (photo citation: 200-HN-PIO-1), who scouted for the 2d South Carolina Volunteers.

Because of prejudice against them, black units were not used in combat as extensively as they might have been. Nevertheless, the soldiers served with distinction in a number of battles. Black infantrymen fought gallantly at Milliken's Bend, LA; Port Hudson, LA; Petersburg, VA; and Nashville, TN. The July 1863 assault on Fort Wagner, SC, in which the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers lost two-thirds of their officers and half of their troops, was memorably dramatized in the film Glory. By war's end, 16 black soldiers had been awarded the Medal of Honor for their valor.

In addition to the perils of war faced by all Civil War soldiers, black soldiers faced additional problems stemming from racial prejudice. Racial discrimination was prevalent even in the North, and discriminatory practices permeated the U.S. military. Segregated units were formed with black enlisted men and typically commanded by white officers and black noncommissioned officers. The 54th Massachusetts was commanded by Robert Shaw and the 1st South Carolina by Thomas Wentworth Higginson—both white. Black soldiers were initially paid $10 per month from which $3 was automatically deducted for clothing, resulting in a net pay of $7. In contrast, white soldiers received $13 per month from which no clothing allowance was drawn. In June 1864 Congress granted equal pay to the U.S. Colored Troops and made the action retroactive. Black soldiers received the same rations and supplies. In addition, they received comparable medical care.

The black troops, however, faced greater peril than white troops when captured by the Confederate Army. In 1863 the Confederate Congress threatened to punish severely officers of black troops and to enslave black soldiers. As a result, President Lincoln issued General Order 233, threatening reprisal on Confederate prisoners of war (POWs) for any mistreatment of black troops. Although the threat generally restrained the Confederates, black captives were typically treated more harshly than white captives. In perhaps the most heinous known example of abuse, Confederate soldiers shot to death black Union soldiers captured at the Fort Pillow, TN, engagement of 1864. Confederate General Nathan B. Forrest witnessed the massacre and did nothing to stop it.

The document featured with this article is a recruiting poster directed at black men during the Civil War. It refers to efforts by the Lincoln administration to provide equal pay for black soldiers and equal protection for black POWs. The original poster is located in the Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1780's–1917, Record Group 94.

Article Citation

Freeman, Elsie, Wynell Burroughs Schamel, and Jean West. "The Fight for Equal Rights: A Recruiting Poster for Black Soldiers in the Civil War." Social Education 56, 2 (February 1992): 118-120. [Revised and updated in 1999 by Budge Weidman.]

When the Selective Training and Service Act became the nation’s first peacetime draft law in September 1940, civil rights leaders pressured President Franklin D. Roosevelt to allow Black men the opportunity to register and serve in integrated regiments.

Although African Americans had participated in every conflict since the Revolutionary War, they had done so segregated, and FDR appointee Henry Stimson, the Secretary of War, was not interested in changing the status quo. With a need to shore up the U.S. Armed Forces as war intensified in Europe, FDR decided that Black men could register for the draft, but they would remain segregated and the military would determine the proportion of Blacks inducted into the service.

The compromise represented the paradoxical experience that befell the 1.2 million African American men who served in World War II: They fought for democracy overseas while being treated like second-class citizens by their own country.

WATCH: 'The Story of Us: World War II' on HISTORY Vault

Discrimination in the Military

Despite African American soldiers' eagerness to fight in World War II, the same Jim Crow discrimination in society was practiced in every branch of the armed forces. Many of the bases and training facilities were located in the South, in addition to the largest military installation for Black soldiers, Fort Huachuca, located in Arizona. Regardless of the region, at all the bases there were separate blood banks, hospitals or wards, medical staff, barracks and recreational facilities for Black soldiers. And white soldiers and local white residents routinely slurred and harassed them.

“The experience was very dispiriting for a lot of Black soldiers,” says Matthew Delmont, a history professor at Dartmouth College and author of Black Quotidian: Everyday History in African American Newspapers. “The kind of treatment they received by white officers in army bases in the United States was horrendous. They described being in slave-like conditions and being treated like animals. They were called racial epithets quite regularly and just not afforded respect either as soldiers or human beings.”

Because the military didn’t think African Americans were fit for combat or leadership positions, they were mostly relegated to labor and service units. Working as cooks and mechanics, building roads and ditches, and unloading supplies from trucks and airplanes were common tasks for Black soldiers. And for the few who did make officer rank, they could only lead other Black men.

As Christopher Paul Moore wrote in his book, Fighting for America: Black Soldiers—The Unsung Heroes of World War II, “Black Americans carrying weapons, either as infantry, tank corps, or as pilots, was simply an unthinkable notion…More acceptable to southern politicians and much of the military command was the use of black soldiers in support positions, as noncombatants or laborers.”

READ MORE: When Black Nurses Were Relegated to Care for German POWs

Fighting War on Two Fronts

WATCH: How the NAACP Fights Racial Discrimination

African American soldiers regularly reported their mistreatment to the Black press and to the NAACP, pleading for the right to fight on the front lines alongside white soldiers.

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“The Black press was quite successful in terms of advocating for Blacks soldiers in World War II,” says Delmont. “They point out the hypocrisy of fighting a war that was theoretically about democracy, at the same time having a racially segregated army.”

In 1942, the Black newspaper, the Pittsburgh Courier—in response to a letter to the editor by James G. Thompson, a 26-year-old Black soldier, in which he wrote, “Should I sacrifice my life to live half American?"—launched the Double V Campaign. The slogan, which stood for a victory for democracy overseas and a victory against racism in America, was touted by Black journalists and activists to rally support for equality for African Americans. The campaign highlighted the contributions the soldiers made in the war effort and exposed the discrimination that Black soldiers endured while fighting for liberties that African Americans themselves didn’t have.

The 761st Tank Battalion and the Tuskegee Airmen

As casualties mounted among white soldiers toward the final year of the war, the military had to utilize African Americans as infantrymen, officers, tankers and pilots, in addition to remaining invaluable in supply divisions. 

From August 1944 to November 1944, the Red Ball Express, a unit of mostly Black drivers delivered gasoline, ammunition, food, mechanical parts and medical supplies to General George Patton’s Third Army in France, driving up to 400 miles on narrow roads in the dead of night without headlights to avoid detection by the Germans.

The 761 Tank Battalion, became the first Black division to see ground combat in Europe, joining Patton’s Third Army in France in November 1944. The men helped liberate 30 towns under Nazi control and spent 183 days in combat, including in the Battle of the Bulge. The Tuskegee Airmen, the all-Black fighter pilot group trained at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, escorted bombers over Italy and Sicily, flying 1600 combat missions and destroying 237 German aircraft on ground and 37 in air.

“Without these crucial roles that Blacks soldiers were playing, the American military wouldn’t have been the same fighting force it was,” says Delmont. “That was a perspective you didn’t see much in the white press.”

READ MORE: Battle of the Bulge: How American Grit Halted Hitler's Last-Ditch Strike

After the War, a Continued Fight for Civil Rights

After World War II officially ended on September 2, 1945, Black soldiers returned home to the United States facing violent white mobs of those who resented African Americans in uniform and perceived them as a threat to the social order of Jim Crow.

In addition to racial violence, Black soldiers were often denied benefits guaranteed under the G.I. Bill, the sweeping legislation that provided tuition assistance, job placement, and home and business loans to veterans. 

As civil rights activists continued to emphasize America’s hypocrisy as a democratic nation with a Jim Crow army, and Southern politicians stood firmly against full racial equality for Blacks, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981 that desegregated the U.S. Armed Forces in July 1948. Full integration, however, would not occur until the Korean War.

READ MORE: How the G.I. Bill's Promise Was Denied to Black WWII Veterans

WASHINGTON – The lack of Black officers in the Army’s combat commands has diminished the chances for diversity in military leadership for years to come, resulting in a nearly all-white leadership of an increasingly diverse military and nation. 

The Army, the largest of the armed services, has made little progress in promoting officers of color, particularly Black soldiers, to commands in the past six years, a USA TODAY analysis found.

Black people make up 22.7% of enlisted soldiers, 16.5% of warrant officers and 11% of officers on active duty as of July. At the officer levels, this is a decrease from 21%, 18.4% and 12.6%, respectively, in 2010. The stakes of fairness and equity are manifest. So, too, is military's ability to defend the nation.

“The public that we serve should see a reflection of that public in our ranks. From top to bottom and left to right," said Brig. Gen. Milford Beagle, a Black infantryman who commands Fort Jackson, South Carolina, the Army's largest basic training post. "Anytime you have a team that has diversity of thought, diversity of color, diversity of culture – all those things – it’s going to be a much stronger team. I’m a firm believer in that, and it gives our Army a strategic advantage. Looking out to our threats that are out there, they may not necessarily have that. But we do.”

Not enough, some argue. Consider the new commanders of the Army's operational brigades, including front-line units such as infantry, artillery and armor: There are 96 such brigades of about 4,000 soldiers each led by a colonel. Two of the incoming commanders of those units are Black.

In 2014, when USA TODAY began collecting such data, the Army had no Black colonels leading its combat arms units. Command at battalion and brigade level is practically a prerequisite to leading the Army's legendary divisions such as the 82nd Airborne, 10th Mountain and 1st Armored. Not coincidentally, the past five Army chiefs of staff commanded infantry or armored divisions.

The story is only slightly better an echelon below brigade. At the battalion level, where lieutenant colonels are in charge of about 700 soldiers, there are 13 Black commanders out of 231 combat units, or 5.6%.

The Army is addressing the problem with an array of initiatives. Among them: removing photos of officers from personnel files so promotion boards are less aware of race.

Another sign of progress: More young minority officers are choosing combat assignments. Leading the Army’s combat units is a critical stepping stone to the four-star ranks. 

The military's reckoning with racial inequality coincides with national unrest that erupted after the killing of George Floyd, a Black man in police custody, prompting military leaders to acknowledge racial inequality in the ranks.

"We must thoughtfully examine our institution and ensure it is a place where all Americans see themselves represented and have equal opportunity to succeed, especially in leadership positions," chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said July 9 in testimony before Congress.

Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., who chairs the military personnel panel on the Armed Services Committee, sponsored a provision to the National Defense Authorization Act that would establish diversity goals, plans to meet them and a special inspector general for racial and ethnic disparities.

“It’s 2020, and the Army combat arms only have two Black incoming commanders out of 96, showing that the path to attaining senior rank remains effectively closed to Black soldiers,” Speier said Monday.

She called the finding a “glaring example of structural racism.” 

“Failure to cultivate leadership that is truly representative of America threatens troop morale and cohesion,” Speier said. “The strength and future of our armed forces is its diversity. Congress has a duty to ensure military leadership understand and heed that fact.”

There are no quick fixes. It can take 20 years or more to train a colonel to lead a brigade, about 15 years to groom a lieutenant colonel for battalion command. Along the way, these officers typically have led smaller units at the platoon and company level, acquiring specialized leadership and tactical skills for leading forces into battle.

"There's no lateral entry for an infantry or armored battalion or brigade commander," said Lyle Hogue, a top Army official involved in planning and strategy for its inclusion efforts. "We can't bring them in when they're 30 years old and pin major or lieutenant colonel promotions on them. What we're seeing today is a product of what happened 20 years ago."

The other services also struggle to diversify their senior ranks.

In the Air Force, the other service that provided USA TODAY with demographic data for leadership of its combat units, three of 85 who command wings of warplanes are Black; 76, or 89%, are white. Being a combat pilot and leading them are near-prerequisites to senior command.

The Marines have the least diversity in their top ranks. Not a single Black Marine has made it to the top four-star rank; six African Americans reached lieutenant general (three stars); fewer than 20 have received one or two stars, The New York Times reported. Out of 60 Marine generals, five brigadier generals and one major general are Black.

'Heavy burden' carried by few at the top

One result of the paucity of minority officers at lower ranks is the lack of diversity at the very summit of the military. A select few ascend to the top of the pyramid. In May 2020, there were 19 Black one-star generals in the Army, 15 two-stars, eight three-stars and one four-star, according to Defense Department data. Compare that with white Army generals: 107 one-stars, 90 two-stars, 37 three-stars and 11 four-stars. 

Gen. Michael Garrett, commanding general of Forces Command, is the Army's lone Black four-star officer. Garrett is a career infantry officer. 

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, which dates to 1942, is made up of the service chiefs from the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy and National Guard Bureau. At the very top sit the chairman and vice chairman, the top two officers in the military. 

In August, the first Black general to lead one of the services, Gen. Charles Brown, an F-16 pilot, was sworn in as Air Force chief of staff. Army Gen. Colin Powell, the first and only Black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the leap to the top without having served as chief of staff of the Army. He was an infantry officer.

Brown spoke openly about discrimination in the military.

"I'm thinking about how my nomination provides some hope but also comes with a heavy burden," Brown said. "I can't fix centuries of racism in our country, nor can I fix decades of discrimination that may have impacted members of our Air Force."

The rest of the service chiefs, the chairman and vice chairman are white. There are no women either. Combat jobs opened fully to them in 2015. Hispanics make up about 16% of all active-duty military, according to the Department of Defense, but Latinos are only 8% of the officer corps and 2% of general/flag officers, according to a report in 2019 by the Congressional Research Service.

From segregation to discrimination

Why do so few Black officers lead combat units?

When Beagle's great grandfather Walter Beagles walked through the gates at Fort Jackson in 1918, he entered a segregated Army that relegated Black soldiers to labor units.

"They weren't thought to be smart enough to be in combat arms," Beagle said.

It was 30 years before the armed services integrated. Even 100 years later, commanders such as Milford Beagle are few and far between.

A system that didn't afford opportunity to Black and minority officers in combat units explains part of the problem. After integration, the military was slow to accept minority officers. There's also the matter of choice.

Parents, clergy, coaches, even soldiers often discourage aspiring minority officers from joining combat units, Beagle said. Heavy casualties among African Americans, particularly early in the Vietnam War, and the prospect of better post-military employment options made noncombat units such as logistics a preferred choice. 

Casualty statistics from Vietnam show how those perceptions formed, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. In 1966, Blacks accounted for 22.4% of all troops killed in action in 1966 while making up 18% of the Army and about 17% of the Marine Corps. By the end of the war, Black war deaths had dropped to 12.4% of the total. But the perception persisted. 

"To this day, you still may have influencers from the Vietnam era,” Beagle said.  

The relatively few Black officers who rose through the ranks in the 1980s and 1990s often saw few minority officers as role models to encourage them. There is evidence of systemic racism in the military's criminal justice system. This spring, the Air Force acknowledged that young enlisted Black airmen were twice as likely to face punishment as their white counterparts. 

Interpersonal racism is also an issue. A study published in 2016 in the peer-reviewed journal Sage found that white military veterans expressed more “virulent attitudes” toward African Americans relative to their civilian counterparts. 

Many Black troops do succeed but not without overcoming obstacles.

Lt. Gen. Gary Brito was one of three Black ROTC students at Penn State University in the mid-1980s.  Brito recalled that his fondness for the outdoors and interest in leading soldiers meshed well with infantry. 

"Was going to do four years and get out," he said. "Turned into 10, turned into 20. Still love what I do. That’s what inspired me."

Brito, the Army's top personnel officer, does not recall overt racism blocking his ascent but allowed that his path was "a little more challenging than for others." He adopted, he said, the attitude that "any obstacle can be breached."

Retired Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard graduated from West Point in 1981 and said he was actively discouraged from climbing the ranks of armor, his career field. As a young officer in the 1990s, he was assigned to recruiting command, a move that would have limited his career options. 

"I said, 'This is crap," Pittard said. "'This is bull crap.'" 

Instead of recruiting, Pittard chose to enroll in the School for Advanced Military Studies at the Army's Command and General Staff College. He knew he'd find a combat assignment after graduation. The experience taught him that unless the Army encourages minority officers and offers them challenging assignments, diversity in its senior ranks will be left to chance.

“If you keep making assignments by accident and not on purpose, you’re going to get the same kind of by-accident results that we see now,” Pittard said.

'Soldiers need to ... see leaders that look like them'

The Army's new initiatives to diversify its senior ranks aim to improve recruiting, mentoring and retaining minority soldiers, said Marshall Williams, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs. Elimination of photos for review by promotion boards is on the leading edge of the effort.

Recruits come from increasingly diverse backgrounds, he said. 

"We need diversity because those soldiers need to look up and see leaders that look like them," Williams said.

Young minority officers from combat units have success at persuading cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and ROTC students at colleges to pursue careers in infantry, armor and aviation. But assigning a promising minority infantry or artillery officer to teach military science and mentor students can delay or derail the officer's career, said Anselm Beach, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for equity and inclusion.

"Then you reduce that pool, and you have a structural issue," Beach said. "Those are things we are looking at."

There are some reasons for optimism. Since 2014, the Army has seen a slow but generally steady increase in the number of young Black officers choosing combat assignments, according to newly released data. Officer Candidate School, ROTC programs and West Point have all seen increases. At West Point, less than 6% of new officers joined combat units in 2014. In 2020, more than 10% chose that path. College campuses with ROTC programs registered an increase from 6.7% to 9.4%.

One of those university graduates who accepted an infantry assignment is Beagle's son, 1st Lt. Jordan Beagle. 

Contributing: Adrianna Rodriguez

Tom Vanden Brook has covered the Pentagon for USA TODAY for more than 15 years. Follow him on Twitter @tvandenbrook.