At the same time the Bureau of Naval Personnel wrote special press releases, arranged interviews for naval officials with members of the black press, and distributed publicity materials in predominantly black schools to attract candidates and to assure interested young men that race was no bar to their selection. In this connection Commander Heinz bid for and received an invitation to address the Urban League's annual conference in August 1949 to outline the Navy's program. The Chief of Naval Personnel, Rear Adm. Thomas L. Sprague, also arranged for the training of all those engaged in promoting the program—professors of naval science, naval procurement officers, and the like. In states where such assignments were considered acceptable, Sprague planned to appoint Negroes to selection committees.[16-64] In a related move he also ordered that when local law or custom required the segregation of facilities used for the administration of qualifying tests for reserve officer training, the Navy would use its own facilities for testing. This ruling was used when the 1949 examinations were given in Atlanta and New Orleans; to the delight of the black press the Navy transferred the test site to its nearby facilities.[16-65] These efforts had some positive effect. In 1949 alone some 2,700 black youths indicated an interest in the Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps by submitting applications.[16-66]
Despite these well-intentioned efforts, the Navy failed to increase significantly the number of black officers or sailors in the next decade (Table 8). The percentage of Negroes in the Navy increased so slowly that not until 1955, in the wake of the great manpower buildup during the Korean War, did it exceed the 1949 figure. Although the percentage of black enlistments increased significantly at times—approximately 12 percent of all enlistments in 1955 were black, for example—the proportion of Negroes in the Navy's enlisted ranks was only 0.4 percent higher in 1960 than in 1949. While the number of black officers increased more than sevenfold in the same decade, it was still considerably less than 1 percent of the total officer strength, well below Army and Air Force percentages.
Table 8—Black Manpower, U.S. Navy
| A. Enlisted Strength | |||
| Year | Total Strength | Black Strength | Percent Black |
| 1949 | 363,622 | 17,051 | 4.5 |
| 1950 | 329,114 | 14,858 | 3.7 |
| 1951 | 656,371 | 17,604 | 2.7 |
| 1952 | 728,511 | 23,010 | 3.2 |
| 1953 | 698,367 | 24,734 | 3.5 |
| 1954 | 635,103 | 24,236 | 3.8 |
| 1955 | 574,157 | 30,623 | 5.3 |
| 1956 | 586,782 | 37,308 | 6.3 |
| 1957 | 593,022 | 38,222 | 6.4 |
| 1958 | 558,955 | 30,978 | 5.7 |
| 1959 | 547,236 | 30,098 | 5.5 |
| 1960 | 544,323 | 26,760 | 4.9 |
| B. Percentage of Blacks Enlisted in Steward's and Other Branches | ||
| Year | Steward's Branch | Other Branches |
| 1949 | 65.12 | 34.88 |
| 1950 | 57.07 | 42.93 |
| 1951 | 51.73 | 48.27 |
| 1952 | 54.95 | 45.05 |
| 1953 | 51.73 | 48.27 |
| 1954 | 53.43 | 48.57 |
| 1955 | 51.19 | 48.81 |
| 1956 | 25.38 | 74.62 |
| 1957 | 21.66 | 78.34 |
| 1958 | 23.35 | 76.65 |
| C. Officer Strength (Selected Years) | ||
| Year | Black Officers on Active Duty | Total Officers |
| 1949 | 19 | 45,464 |
| 1951 | 23 | 66,323 |
| 1953 | 53 | 78,095 |
| 1955 | 81 | 71,591 |
| 1960 | 149 | |
Source: BuPers, Personnel Statistics Branch. See especially BuPers, "Memo on Discrimination of the Negro," 24 Jan 59, BAF2-014. BuPers Technical Library. All figures represent yearly averages.
The Navy had an explanation for the small number of Negroes. The reduced manpower ceilings imposed on the Navy, even during the Korean War, had caused a drastic curtailment in recruiting. At the same time, with the brief exception of the Korean War, the Navy had depended on volunteers for enlistment and had required volunteers to score ninety or higher on the general classification test. The percentage of those who scored above ninety was lower for blacks than for whites—16 percent against 67 percent, a ratio, naval spokesmen suggested, that explained the enlistment figures. Furthermore, the low enlistment quotas produced a long waiting list of those desiring to volunteer. All applicants for the relatively few openings were thoroughly screened, and competition was so keen that any Negroes accepted for the monthly quota had to be extraordinarily well qualified.[16-67]
What the Navy's explanation failed to mention was that the rise and decline in the Navy's black strength during the 1950's was intimately related to the number of group IV enlistees being forced on the services under the provisions of the Defense Department's program for the qualitative distribution of manpower. Each service was required to accept 24 percent of all recruits in group IV from fiscal year 1953 to 1956, 18 percent in fiscal year 1957, and 12 percent thereafter. Between 1953 and 1956 the Navy accepted well above the required 24 percent of group IV men, but in fiscal year 1957 took only 15.1 percent, and in 1958 only 6.8 percent. In 1958, with the knowledge of the Secretary of Defense, all the services took in fewer of the group IV's than the distribution program required, but justified the reduction on the grounds that declining strength made it necessary to emphasize high quality in recruits. In a move endorsed by the Navy, the Air Force finally requested in 1959 that the qualitative distribution program be held in abeyance. On the basis of this request the Navy temporarily ceased to accept all group IV and some group III men, but resumed recruiting them when it seemed likely that the Secretary of Defense would refuse the request.[16-68]
