More than any other service during World War II, the U.S. Navy implemented steps toward racial integration. Black sailors had served in the sail navy during the 18th and 19th centuries, when the labor of handling sails required many hands. After the Civil War, as sails were replaced by steam and the number of hands required diminished, so did naval recruitment of African Americans. Those who did join were typically assigned to service positions, typically as "mess boys," stewards, and orderlies serving white officers. Segregation was enforced aboard ship in eating and sleeping areas. After the United States annexed the Philippines in 1898, black mess, steward, and orderly personnel were increasingly replaced by Filipinos, so that when the United States entered World War I in 1917, Filipinos outnumbered African Americans in the navy. The enlistment of Filipino volunteers declined beginning in the early 1930s, and African American enlistments rose proportionately--although black personnel were still confined to mess and steward positions, and segregation was enforced on board ships as well as in shore accommodations.

In 1940, Walter White of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), together with the black labor leader A. Phillip Randolph and activist T. Arnold Hill, wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt protesting the strictures on black employment in the navy. In response, the president approved a plan in support of "fair treatment," but the navy failed to implement it, arguing that morale would suffer if blacks were assigned to non-service positions. Only after World War II was under way did the NAACP again appeal to the administration, this time to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, to expand the role of African Americans beyond service positions. The conservative Knox declined to act, and the NAACP again appealed directly to the president. In June 1942, FDR personally prevailed on top naval command to adopt an expanded assignment policy. New guidelines were formulated that admitted African-American sailors to service in construction battalions, supply depots, air stations, shore stations, section bases, and yard craft. Although this represented an expansion well beyond mess and steward service, the new positions were overwhelmingly labor assignments and not combat postings.

President Roosevelt's December 1942 executive order mandating that African Americans represent 10 percent of the personnel in all the armed services created a dramatic increase in black enlistment in the navy. By July 1943, 12,000 blacks were being inducted monthly. By December 1943, 101,573 African Americans had enlisted, of whom 37,981 (37 percent) served in the Stewards Branch. The rest were boatswains, carpenters, painters, metalsmiths, hospital apprentices, firemen, aviation maintenance personnel, and members of the Shore Patrol. Few nonstewards were assigned sea duty. Nevertheless, by this time, the navy began selecting African Americans for commissioning as officers. The selectees were divided into line and staff officers. . .

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