Based on Wikipedia: Racial segregation in the United States Armed Forces

Here is a peculiar fact about American history: Black men were dying for a country that wasn't sure it wanted them to fight. Crispus Attucks, a man of African and Native American descent, was the first person killed in the Boston Massacre of 1770, making him arguably the first casualty of American independence. Yet one of George Washington's first acts as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army was to sign an order forbidding the recruitment of any Black person into the army.

This contradiction defined American military policy for nearly two centuries.

The Revolution's Uncomfortable Paradox

The American Revolution was fought under the banner of liberty and equality. These ideals, however, came with an asterisk. Black soldiers had already proven themselves in combat during the French and Indian War, serving in militias and provincial forces. They fought at Lexington and Concord. They stood at Bunker Hill. None of this mattered to the white colonists who argued that arming Black soldiers posed too great a threat.

What threat, exactly? The fear was slave rebellion. The Southern colonies, where enslaved people often outnumbered free whites, couldn't stomach the idea of trained Black soldiers with weapons and military experience. Washington's prohibition reflected this anxiety, prioritizing social control over military necessity.

The Militia Acts of 1792 formalized this exclusion. With very few exceptions, Black men were barred from serving in the United States Army. This ban would remain largely in effect for seven decades, until the second year of the Civil War forced a reconsideration.

The War of 1812: Necessity Trumps Prejudice

By 1812, approximately one million Black people lived in the United States. The military remained segregated, and African Americans remained mostly barred from enlisting. But then the British started winning.

British forces launched several invasions into American territory, and suddenly military necessity began to override racial anxiety. In 1814, two thousand free Black soldiers were trained in New York. Remarkably, they received the same compensation as their white counterparts, a rare instance of equal treatment.

But the Army's exclusion policies meant most Black service members had to find other paths. Many served in the United States Navy, which had always been somewhat more open to Black sailors out of practical necessity. Ships needed crews, and prejudice mattered less when you needed hands on deck. Others made a more dramatic choice: they escaped to the Royal Navy to gain their freedom. The British, fighting against American independence, were happy to accept any soldier willing to fight against their former masters.

The Civil War: Fighting for Freedom

The Civil War finally shattered the prohibition on Black military service, though it took time. In the war's second year, the Union began recruiting African American soldiers in earnest. By the war's end, 186,097 African American men had served in the Union Army, forming 163 separate units. Another 7,122 served as officers.

These numbers are staggering when you consider the context. The country had spent decades insisting Black men couldn't or shouldn't fight. Now nearly two hundred thousand were proving otherwise.

They served in what were called the United States Colored Troops, a bureaucratic name for a revolutionary development. Asian and Pacific Islander soldiers also served in these units, alongside African Americans. Native Americans, meanwhile, fought in their own tribal regiments on both sides of the conflict. General Stand Watie commanded a Confederate Cherokee Battalion, one of several indigenous units that chose sides in what was fundamentally a war about whether some humans could own others.

The Confederacy's relationship with Black soldiers was even more complicated. Initially, they used enslaved and free Black people only for labor, building fortifications and roads. The question of whether to actually arm them became a bitter debate among Southerners. A Louisiana militia unit composed of free Black soldiers from New Orleans's extensive Creole community tried to serve the Confederacy at the war's start. The Confederacy refused them.

Only in March 1865, with the war essentially lost, did the Confederate Congress pass a statute allowing African American enlistment. By then it was far too late. Few were recruited before the surrender.

The Buffalo Soldiers: America's First Peacetime Black Regiments

After the Civil War, Congress did something unprecedented in 1866: it established the first peacetime all-Black regiments in the regular United States Army. These soldiers would become known as the Buffalo Soldiers, a name whose origin remains somewhat disputed. Some say Native American adversaries gave them the name as a sign of respect, comparing their fierce fighting to the buffalo. Others suggest it referenced their dark, curly hair.

Their mission was to guard settlements on the western frontier. This meant fighting Native Americans and bandits, an uncomfortable irony given that these Black soldiers were often enforcing the same expansionist policies that had dispossessed indigenous peoples. The Buffalo Soldiers were paid thirteen dollars a month and maintained some of the lowest desertion rates in the entire Army. They served with distinction despite receiving inferior equipment and facing constant discrimination.

The Spanish-American War and Philippine Scouts

The Spanish-American War of 1898 brought another historic milestone. The Illinois 8th Infantry National Guard, an all-African-American unit, was federalized and sent to the combat zone. What made them unique was their all-African-American officer corps. For the first time, Black officers commanded Black soldiers in an American war.

Three years later, Congress passed a law allowing the Commander-in-Chief to recruit Filipinos into Army service. Fifty-two companies were enlisted from the same regions of the Philippines, tasked with pushing past enemy lines in the ongoing Philippine-American War. These Philippine Scouts developed a reputation as highly proficient soldiers with remarkably low desertion rates. The regiment would last until the end of World War Two, when they were compelled to surrender to Japanese troops due to shortages of resources and reinforcements during the fall of the Philippines.

World War One: Segregation at Scale

When the United States entered World War One in 1917, the American military was entirely segregated. White supremacist politicians like Senator James Vardaman of Mississippi and Senator Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina actively opposed any military training for Black Americans. Nevertheless, Congress passed the Selective Service Act in May 1917, mandating that all male citizens over twenty-one register for the draft.

The draft was not applied equally. Southern draft boards, in particular, selected Black men at disproportionate rates. Though African Americans made up only ten percent of the United States population, they constituted roughly thirteen percent of those drafted. Draft officials were even instructed to tear off the lower left corner of registration forms filled out by Black registrants, physically marking them for assignment to segregated units.

A total of 290,527 Black Americans were registered for the draft. Including volunteers, 350,000 African Americans served in the American Expeditionary Force on the Western Front. But the War Department's decisions about how they would serve were shaped by more than just logistics.

The Houston Riot of August 1917 cast a long shadow. Armed African American soldiers, responding to racist behavior by Houston police officers, clashed with civilians. The incident gave War Department officials an excuse to assign the vast majority of Black soldiers to labor roles: building roads, unloading ships, other forms of what the military called "common labor." Combat was reserved primarily for white soldiers.

Yet some Black units did see combat, and they distinguished themselves. The 369th Infantry, known as the "Hell Fighters from Harlem," served longer in continuous combat than any other American unit in the war. The French, who had no prohibition against fighting alongside Black soldiers, awarded them the Croix de Guerre for their bravery. The Germans called the 370th Infantry "The Black Devils." Following their pre-war organization in Illinois, the 370th was the only American unit to have Black officers throughout its chain of command.

Asian Americans, meanwhile, fought in integrated units during World War One. Non-citizens among them were offered citizenship after the war as recognition of their service.

World War Two: The Pressure Builds

When the United States entered World War Two, racial segregation in the military was not just policy but deeply entrenched practice. In 1939, only 3,640 Black soldiers were enlisted in the entire Army, all under white leadership. The exclusion was systematic and deliberate.

But pressure was building. Rayford Logan headed the Committee for the Participation of Negroes in National Defense, pushing for greater Black participation and an end to military discrimination. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, known as the NAACP, met with President Franklin Roosevelt to outline demands for improving conditions for Black soldiers.

The result was the Selective Service Act of 1940, which reflected some of these demands. But Roosevelt imposed racial quotas limiting the Black military population to nine percent, a proportion the Army never actually reached. The vast majority of Black soldiers were never sent overseas, often because foreign governments made exclusionary requests or subjected Black troops to discriminatory treatment.

Military leadership began attempting to address the issue in 1943, but only halfheartedly. Segregation remained official policy until 1948. The pattern was familiar: acknowledge the problem, make minor adjustments, maintain the fundamental structure of discrimination.

The Army Nurse Corps

The Army Nurse Corps presents a microcosm of this pattern. Established in 1901, it remained entirely white until 1941, with the exception of eighteen African American nurses who had served during World War One. Pressure from the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses and from Eleanor Roosevelt, the President's wife, finally forced the Army to admit Black nurses.

Even then, a quota was set: forty-eight nurses. These women were segregated from white nurses and white soldiers throughout much of the war. They were assigned exclusively to care for Black soldiers. Over time, as the war's demands grew, more Black nurses enlisted. They served in the China-Burma-India theater, in Australia, New Guinea, Liberia, England, and the Philippines. Their competence was never in question. Only their skin color.

Japanese Americans: Enemy Aliens and Decorated Heroes

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, men of Japanese birth and descent were classified as enemy aliens. The Army stopped accepting new Nisei recruits, Nisei being the Japanese term for second-generation Japanese Americans born in the United States. However, three thousand Japanese American men were already serving in the military.

In Hawaii, nearly fifteen hundred of these men were sent to the continental United States in June 1942 to form the 100th Infantry Battalion. John McCloy, the Assistant Secretary of War, stated candidly that one of the original purposes for activating this unit was to test whether Americans of Japanese descent "were loyal and willing to fight for the country."

The test came in Italy in September 1943. The 100th Infantry Battalion, attached to the 34th Infantry Division, performed brilliantly in combat. Whatever doubts existed about Japanese American loyalty were erased by their battlefield performance.

This success led to the creation of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in February 1943. Composed of Nisei soldiers commanded by white officers, the unit drew volunteers from Hawaii and from the mainland, where many recruits came directly from the internment camps where their families were imprisoned. The 442nd joined the 100th Infantry Battalion in Italy in June 1944.

Together, they emerged as one of the most decorated units in American military history. Their motto was "Go for Broke," a gambling term meaning to risk everything. They lived up to it.

The cruel irony was inescapable: these men fought for a country that had imprisoned their families simply for being of Japanese descent. On the mainland, the federal government had forced most ethnic Japanese Americans and legal Japanese immigrants to relocate from Pacific coastal areas to incarceration camps controlled by armed guards. Yet their sons volunteered to prove their loyalty in combat.

Chinese Americans: A Different Path

Unlike Japanese Americans, seventy-five percent of Chinese American soldiers served in non-segregated units during World War Two. An estimated thirteen thousand Chinese Americans served in the war. Only two units consisted entirely of Chinese Americans: the 407th Air Service Squadron and the 987th Signal Company, both based in the China-Burma-India Theater.

The difference in treatment reflected the different politics of race and foreign policy. Japan was the enemy; China was an ally. Chinese Americans, though still facing discrimination in civilian life, were not subject to the same suspicion as Japanese Americans.

The Tuskegee Airmen: Breaking the Color Barrier in the Sky

When the United States Army Air Service was formed in 1918, only white soldiers were allowed. Aviation was considered too technical, too prestigious for Black men. This prohibition held until World War Two made it untenable.

The Army Air Service needed more people. The Tuskegee Airmen program was established to train Black men as military pilots, the first such program in American history. They trained at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama, deep in the Jim Crow South, where racial segregation was the law.

The program faced fierce opposition from Congress, the War Department, and the general public. Training began in October 1940 despite this resistance. The Tuskegee Airmen faced racial discrimination both within and outside the army. They were denied access to officers' clubs. They faced harassment from local whites. Their competence was constantly questioned.

Despite these adversities, they trained and flew with distinction. They flew escort missions protecting bombers over Europe, and they did it well. Black men and women also served in administrative and support roles that kept the aircraft flying and the program running.

Executive Order 9981: The Beginning of the End

In 1948, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981. The order declared "a policy of equal treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin." It was a milestone, but an ambiguous one. As historian Jon Taylor notes, "The wording of the Executive Order was vague because it neither mentioned segregation or integration."

Truman ordered that this policy "shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale." The qualifying language gave resistant military leaders room to delay.

Only the Air Force used the opportunity to integrate its units immediately. The Army was especially resistant, dragging its feet on implementation. It took a war to force the issue.

During the Korean War, a shortage of troops required that Black soldiers serve alongside their white counterparts out of sheer necessity. Combat has a way of clarifying priorities. When you need every soldier you can get, racial theories become less compelling than the man beside you who can shoot straight.

Military units were officially desegregated after the Korean War ended in 1954. But official policy and lived reality were different things.

Vietnam: Integration Tested

The Vietnam War is considered the first American war in which the military was fully integrated. African Americans at one point constituted twenty-three percent of battlefield combat troops while representing only 16.3 percent of the draft-eligible population. This was a dramatic reversal from previous wars, where Black men had been told they were not fit for combat and relegated to labor and support roles.

Yet Black soldiers during Vietnam faced what amounted to two wars. One was on the battlefield. The other was against discrimination, both within the army and in civilian life back home. African American soldiers were more likely to be drafted. They maintained higher casualty rates. They went largely unsung and underrepresented in popular culture.

Racial tensions continued to flare, giving rise to informal segregation and fighting between units. The military inefficiencies caused by this internal conflict finally convinced military leaders that they had to actively address institutional racism. The alternative was having soldiers fighting each other instead of the enemy.

One scholar argued that in being forced to actively root out institutional racial tensions, "the military radically revised the moral contract governing relations between it and its members." This was not idealism. It was pragmatism. A divided army is a weak army.

A 2025 study found an unexpected effect: white men who were drafted to serve in Vietnam developed more positive attitudes toward Black people. Combat integration, it seems, changed minds in ways that civilian integration often failed to do.

The Long View

The history of racial segregation in the American military is a history of contradictions. Black men died for American independence while being denied the rights that independence promised. They proved themselves in every American war while being told they weren't capable of fighting. They served with distinction while being treated with contempt.

The military's eventual integration was not primarily a moral awakening. It was driven by necessity, by the practical requirements of modern warfare, and by the obvious waste of excluding capable soldiers based on the color of their skin. The same pattern repeated across nearly two centuries: need soldiers, recruit Black men, win the war, return to discrimination, repeat.

What changed after World War Two was that the cycle finally broke. The combination of Truman's executive order, the pressures of the Cold War, and the practical lessons of Korea and Vietnam made reversion to full segregation impossible. The military, an institution not known for progressive politics, became one of the most integrated institutions in American society.

This doesn't mean racism disappeared. It means the official policy of racial separation ended. The distinction matters, but so does recognizing that official equality was itself a revolutionary change in an institution that had, from its founding, been designed around white supremacy.

From Crispus Attucks in 1770 to the Vietnam War two hundred years later, the story of Black soldiers in America is a story of fighting for a country that didn't always want to acknowledge their service. They fought anyway. And eventually, the country changed, not because it wanted to, but because it had to.