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KNOCKING
DOWN
BARRIERS
MY FIGHT FOR
BLACK AMERICA
Truman K.Gibson Jr.
with Steve Huntley

Northwestern University Press

Evanston, Illinois
 Northwestern University Press
Evanston, Illinois 60208-4170

Copyright © 2005 by Truman K. Gibson Jr. and Steve Huntley.

Published 2005 by Northwestern University Press. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN 0-8101-2292-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gibson, Truman K. (Truman Kella), 1912–
Knocking down barriers : my fight for Black America / Truman K. Gibson Jr., with
Steve Huntley.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8101-2292-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Gibson, Truman K. (Truman Kella), 1912– 2. Cabinet officers—United States—
Biography. 3. African Americans—Biography. 4. African American lawyers—
Biography. 5. African American businesspeople—Biography. 6. African Americans—
Civil rights—History—20th century. 7. African American soldiers—History—20th
century. 8. World War, 1939–1945—African Americans. 9. United States—Armed
Forces—African Americans. I. Huntley, Steve. II. Title.
E748.G46G53 2005
305.896'073'0092—dc22
2004029460

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of

the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

Northwestern University Press thanks The Chicago Community Trust

for its support of this book and related efforts to promote Chicago’s future
by telling the stories of Chicago’s past.
 Contents

Preface vii
Acknowledgments ix
Note on Language xi
1 The Way We Were 3
2 Atlanta, Columbus, and W. E. B. DuBois 20
3 Black Metropolis 30
4 A Raisin in the Sun 41
5 The Black World’s Fair 52
6 Joe Louis: Chicago 67
7 On to the War Department 77
8 The War at Home 94
9 Negro Troop Policy 105
10 A Demand for Combat 129
11 The Negro Soldier 141
12 Buffalo Soldiers 153
13 The Ninety-second Vindicated 177
14 At Last! 189
15 More of the Same 200
16 A Presidential Order 211
17 Joe Louis, War, and Boxing 234
18 Boxing Promoter 241
19 Mob Allegations 260
20 Remembrances 275
Notes 283
Index 301
 Preface

The U.S. military’s greatest pride lies, after its battlefield prowess, in its
phenomenal success in race relations. Nowhere else in American soci-
ety have the lofty goals of integration been realized as they have in
the armed forces. That success culminated years of struggle against a
hidebound, obstinate, narrow-minded, and too often outright bigoted
mind-set in the military’s command structure that frustrated the hopes
and aspirations of black servicemen at every turn. During World War
II and immediately after, I was at the center of this struggle. For five
years I served in the office of the civilian aide to the secretary of war, a
post created in the army to represent the interests of African American
soldiers.
My role in those turbulent years has been documented in Integration
of the Armed Forces, 1940–1965 by Morris J. MacGregor Jr. and The Employ-
ment of Negro Troops by Major Ulysses Lee, which are two comprehensive
accounts of the military’s handling of black servicemen. MacGregor
especially was generous to me. “Dedicated to abolition of racial segrega-
tion,” he wrote, “Gibson eschewed the grand gesture and emphasized
those practical changes that could be effected one step at a time. . . . He
also knew that his fairness made him an effective advocate in the War
Department.” MacGregor wrote that as a result of my close coopera-
tion with the War Department’s Advisory Committee on Negro Troop
Policies, “the Army for the first time began to agree on practical if not
policy changes.”¹

vii
viii PREFACE

Still, over the years, friends have suggested I tell my own story about
the long, often bitter struggle over military segregation during and
after World War II and the part that others played, including men of
great stature but sometimes limited vision. They noted that I am the
last surviving member of the Roosevelt-Truman administrations’
“black cabinet” and should set down my recollections as an insider in
the government—or as much of an insider as an African American could
be in Washington in those days. So after nine decades on this earth, I
began a journey back in time, recalling happy successes and dredging
up painful memories of being caught in the middle of controversies
over racial issues in the military.
While an account of the struggle over segregation in the army is at
the heart of my story, it is far from the only chapter. I also recall my
involvement in a key legal fight against restrictive racial real estate cov-
enants in Chicago, my role in the virtually forgotten black world’s fair
of 1940, my friendship and collaborations with the great Joe Louis, and
my unexpected career as a boxing promoter in the 1950s.
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 Acknowledgments

This book might not exist were it not for the late Steve Neal, to whom
it is dedicated. The Chicago Sun-Times political columnist and author of
many books of history brought Steve Huntley and me together, read
our proposal, offered advice, and introduced us to Northwestern Uni-
versity Press. In researching, writing, and editing this book, we tried to
follow the example of the tireless energy, commitment to the truth,
and dedication to excellence that was so evident in Steve Neal’s work as
a journalist and historian.
Many others also are owed our gratitude. My daughter, Karen Kelley,
and her husband, William Kelley, author of the outstanding A Different
Drummer and other novels, for years urged me to write a memoir. Two
old friends, Donald Stewart, past president and CEO of the Chicago
Community Trust, and Kenneth Smith, a senior fellow there, were in-
strumental in persuading the trust to underwrite the research and pro-
duction of this book. We are deeply grateful to the trust for its financial
support. Kiko Morgan, a friend of many years knowledgeable about
popular culture, helped in researching the chapters of the book touching
on jazz and the Errol Flynn inheritance case. Carlo Binosi, a friend from
Italy, first discovered and brought to my attention an Italian account of
the World War II heroics of the all-black Ninety-second Division, launch-
ing us on a voyage of discovery that I hope will contribute to righting the
record of those brave fighting men. Angelo Commito, a good friend and
business partner in years past, helped refresh my memory on important

ix
x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

episodes for the chapters on my career in boxing. Waymon Smith, my

law partner for the last decade, has been an indispensable friend whose
support and encouragement were critical to producing this book. Dr.
Edward Gibson of the Princeton University Hospital, my nephew, and
Kathy Gibson, his daughter, were generous in their encouragement of
this project. We are deeply grateful to Dr. Donald Hopkins of Chicago
for reading the manuscript and forwarding it to former president Jimmy
Carter, who read it and offered the kind words on the book jacket.
Steve’s wife, Linda, and his daughters, Kristine and Katie, helped
gather research materials, read the manuscript, and supported the writ-
ing of this book in every way possible.
We are thankful for the editing work, professional guidance, and com-
mitment to this project from the staff at Northwestern University Press.
We also owe thanks to the staff at the Library of Congress, Washington,
D.C., and the National Archives, College Park, Maryland, for aid in
finding research materials and to the Harry S. Truman Library in Inde-
pendence, Missouri, for making so much of its archival material about
the desegregation of the army available through Internet access.
Our thanks also go to John Cruickshank, publisher, and Michael
Cooke, former editor in chief, of the Chicago Sun-Times for their support.
 Note on Language

This book quotes documents from an era when race relations were far
different than today. “Negro” and “colored people” were the proper
terms for African Americans. Sometimes in documents, memos, and
correspondence they were capitalized; sometimes not. To represent
historical accuracy and to provide a flavor of the times, the documents
are quoted with the usage of the writers. Offensive racial epithets also
are part of the story of those days.

xi
 1

KNOCKING DOWN BARRIERS

2 KNOCKING DOWN BARRIERS
 3

1
The Way We Were

Little did I know what lay in store for me when I reported for duty in
the War Department in Washington as an advocate for African American
soldiers that late-autumn day in 1940. Oh, I was under no illusions about
the realities of race in America when I accepted the job of assistant to
the civilian aide to the secretary of war. Still, the things I came face-to-
face with in the Munitions Building, the home of the War Department
before the days of the Pentagon, and at army posts around the country
disturbed and angered me. The armed forces’ top commanders, whether
in three-piece suits or khaki uniforms, were determined to resist all
efforts to move away from policies that kept African American service-
men in segregated units on and off the battlefield. Even more alarming
to me was the army’s abandonment of black men who had been called
to the service of their country but were ruled, abused, assaulted, and
even murdered by white civilians in the South of the Jim Crow era.
Six decades ago Washington was a southern city in its unbending
segregation as well as its steamy summers. When confronted with the
realities of life in the nation’s capital—like being told that she and a
friend could not try on shoes at Garfinkel’s department store—my wife
broke into tears, crying to go home to Chicago. The capital was, pure
and simple, a closed society, and its social and legal barriers did not
trouble the thinking of people in power. None of the men in the most
prominent positions of the armed forces demonstrated any interest in
challenging the social inequities of the day despite the awakening of

3
4 KNOCKING DOWN BARRIERS

black power and its potential for the Democratic Party that President
Franklin D. Roosevelt detected in the 1940 election campaign that had
given him a third term in the White House.
Many times over my years in Washington I was to run into the brick
wall of resistance to change in the military’s segregationist policies. I
never considered the office of civilian aide, where I was then serving
as an assistant to Bill Hastie, to be one devoted to public relations.
However, I wanted the military’s position disseminated; I wanted influ-
ential black Americans to get the army’s view straight from the horse’s
mouth.
After about a year on the job, I organized a conference of black edi-
tors and publishers at the Munitions Building. Among the fourteen
notables of the Negro press who turned out were Bill Nunn of the
Pittsburgh Courier, John Sengstacke of the Chicago Defender, and Carl
Murphy of the Baltimore Afro-American. As it happened, this meeting in
Washington came on December 8, 1941. It was a momentous day in our
nation’s history. The day before, the country was staggered by the shock
of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. On December 8, a Monday,
President Roosevelt had delivered his famous “day of infamy” speech,
and Congress had declared war. The Conference of Negro Editors and
Publishers convened with anxieties and emotions running high. The
newspapermen, like all Americans, knew their country faced years of
war, sacrifice, and unknown danger in the struggle against fascism. Yet
their anxieties were compounded because this fight in the name of lib-
erty would be a war steeped in hypocrisy if African American service-
men were condemned to segregated units and to slinging hash and
hauling supplies in support assignments behind the battlefronts. How
could the country present the war as a struggle for democracy if it
chained millions of its citizens to the injustices of racism? The army
brass had shown up that day to explain the thinking of those in the
Munitions Building, and the publishers and editors were eager to hear
what the officers had to say. I was there, too. Although I was all too
aware of the military’s attitude, I wanted to listen to what the army
commanders would tell these powerful representatives of black America
and to gauge the newspapermen’s reaction.
 THE WAY WE WERE 5

It should be remembered that back then the black press was a much
more potent voice of African American aspirations and a more central
spokesman for black complaints than it is today. That was a reflection
of the times. The huge black migration from the tenant farms and cot-
ton fields of the South to the bustling cities and factories of the North
had yet to reach critical mass to yield the voting power that would earn
African Americans ever increasing clout in politics in postwar America.
In the South, Jim Crow laws continued to deny blacks access to the
polls and, therefore, to influence in political affairs. The street demon-
strations, sit-ins, and marches—which through television would drama-
tize in living rooms across America the civil rights movement—were
still years away. And what we would today call the mainstream press
meant essentially white newspapers, with virtually all-white staffs of
writers and editors for whom the desperate struggle for racial justice
was hardly a front-page story. In the South, civil rights news was never
reported in the newspapers, but that did not mean southern blacks
were starved of all news. Porters on Pullman cars would grab stacks of
Couriers and Defenders, haul them south, and surreptitiously distribute
them to African Americans hungry for news they could trust. These
papers registered an impact far beyond their normal circulation num-
bers and zones.
The army’s position was articulated that day in a speech by Colonel
Eugene R. Householder, representing the adjutant general’s office. He
espoused what was throughout the war to be the army’s bottom-line
position—that the military was incapable of getting out in front of civil-
ian society in altering the accepted social structure and mores of America:
The Army then cannot be made the means of engendering conflict
among the mass of people because of a stand with respect to Negroes
which is not compatible with the position attained by the Negro in
civil life. The Army is not a sociological laboratory; to be effective it
must be organized and trained according to the principles which will
insure success. Experiments to meet the wishes and demands of the
champions of every race and creed for the solution of their problems
are a danger to efficiency, discipline and morale, and would result in
ultimate defeat.¹
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