Serving during the Integration Years

By Adam Durnford

Wanza Brown

July 12, 1929 – July 26, 2001

---

Wanza L. Brown was born in Oklahoma, just like his father and mother before him. Brown had two older brothers, Rogeres and Sidney, and one older sister named Joyce.[1] By 1940 the family had moved from Oklahoma City to Crutcho, Oklahoma. The household also had two new members: Wanza’s younger sisters Glara Mae and Allie Ruth.[2] Wanza’s eldest brother Sidney would soon go off to Gotha, Florida and enlist into the Army Quartermaster Corps in July of 1941. The U.S. military at this time was segregated, and black men such as Sidney were usually relegated to labor units, as beliefs in black inability to fight courageously and efficiently ran rampant among U.S. Army officers.[3] In June of 1942, Wanza’s brother Rogeres was drafted. Wanza was little over 10 years old at this point. His brothers both survived the war. Rogeres was released from duty in 1943. Sidney would go on to continue his military career into the Cold War, and is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona.[4]

Tensions between white and black soldiers continued after World War II, due in part to the culture established by rigid segregation. Black troops stationed abroad and at home were subject to verbal abuse, and physical violence by white soldiers. News of assaults, beatings, and lynching were frequent in the black press.[5]

Tuskegee Airmen [18]

In 1948, President Truman issued Executive Order 9981. The order stated: “It is hereby declared to be the policy of the president that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.”[6] The newly established Air Force was on the cutting edge of the process, thanks in part to the presence of black officers trained as Tuskegee Airmen, the highly regarded group of black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. In fact, the Airforce had “begun the process of desegregation before [the executive order] was issued.”[7] Things moved much more slowly in the Army and Navy, however. Navy leaders saw in segregation an issue of “tradition and close living quarters.”[8] While many feared that white sailors would object to living so close to African Americans, policies were put in place to slowly move the Navy toward desegregation. The Marine Corps, on the other hand, flat out rejected orders from the Navy, but caved in 1949, due to “limitations in budget.” They could not afford separate training facilities, and thus “combined black and white platoons in the same companies.”[9]

While the Navy and Airforce moved toward a desegregated fighting force, the Army proved to be the most stubborn. This was partly due to the “attitudes of the white southern dominated officers and NCO ranks.”[10] Despite such attitudes, the branch contained the highest number of black service personnel. At the outbreak of the Korean War, the Army had three segregated units stationed in nearby Japan: The 24th Infantry Regiment, 159th Field Artillery Battalion, and 77th Engineer Combat Company. 1st Lt. Gorham Black Jr. stated “98% of blacks were in segregated Army units,” and that this would “remain until 10 months into the war.”[11]

In the aftermath of Japan’s defeat in World War II, the territory of Korea had been divided by the USSR and the United States. The north was administered by the Soviets while the south was administered by the United States. The First Republic of South Korea was established in the U.S. territory, while the communist Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea was established in the north, under the command of Kim Il-Sung (grandfather of Kim Jong-un).

The relationship between the two factions was tense, with both sides executing small raids into the other’s territory.[12] On June 25, 1950 this escalated as the North sent a force of around 90,000 troops over the border. Many of these soldiers were battle hardened from service with the Communist Chinese or Soviets during World War II. The South on the other hand was undertrained and unequipped. In fact, the military was “plagued by corruption” and in no state to fight a brutal campaign.[13] South Korean troops fled south to Pusan. Meanwhile the capitol of Seoul had fallen and a communist government was established by the north. This swift and effective action prompted the United Nations, led by the United States, to get involved. Truman soon approved the deployment of U.S. ground troops. They would spearhead a coalition of 20 nations, including France and the United Kingdom, but the United States “sent more than 90% of the troops, military equipment and supplies.”[14]

The U.S. military was severely unprepared for the Korean War. Budget cuts had brought troop numbers down since the end of the Second World War. U.S. forces that contended with Soviet-trained North Koreans were undertrained and outnumbered, with some reports claiming that Americans were “outnumbered 3 to 1 in some places, and from 10 to 1 in others.”[15] Casualties were high on both sides, and losses demanded that reinforcements be rushed in. The National Guard did not provide enough numbers, and forces stationed at other commands could not be moved; therefore, the Armed Forces relied on the draft to replenish troops. Although Army officials remained reluctant to integrate, from 1951-54, 12.8% of draftees were black.[16] As fresh officers arrived, “enlisted replacements remained substantially below what was needed.” The need for manpower led to the assignment of black troops to all-white units. Segregation had ended in the military. It was this situation which greeted private Wanza Brown. He started service in February of 1951 and was promoted to corporal during the war. He was in Aurora, Colorado as of 1993, and died on July 26, 2001.[17]

---

Footnotes ↓

[1] “1930 United States Census,” Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Page: 2B; Enumeration District: 0068; FHL microfilm: 2341653, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com.

[2] “1940 United States Census, Crutcho, Oklahoma; Roll: m-t0627-03317; Page: 2B; Enumeration District: 55-13, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com.

[3] Kimberly Phillips, WAR! What is it Good For?: Black Freedom Struggles and the U.S. Military from World War II to Iraq (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 22.

[4] “U.S. Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current,” entry for Sidney Brown, database, www.ancestrylibrary.com.

[5] Phillips, WAR! What is it Good For?, 66.

[6] Colin Powell, President Truman and the Desegregation of the Armed Forces: A 50th Anniversary View of Executive Order 9981, (Washington, D.C., National Legal Center for the Public Interest,) 1998, 10.

[7] Jeremy P. Maxwell, Brotherhood in Combat: How African Americans Found Equality in Korea and Vietnam (Norman, OK, University Oklahoma Press, 2018), 39.

[8] Ibid., 49.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid., 58.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Kathlyn Gay and Martin Gay, Korean War (New York: Twenty-first Century Books, 1996), 12.

[13] Paul M. Edwards, The Mistaken History of the Korean War: What We Got Wrong Then and Now (McFarland & Company, 2018), 20.

[14] Gay and Gay, Korean War, 22.

[15] Phillips, WAR! What is it Good For?, 132.

[16] Maxwell, Brotherhood in Combat, 62-63.

[17] “U.S. Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current,” entry for Wanza Brown, database, www.ancestrylibrary.com.

[18] U.S. Department of the Interior, Remembering The Tuskegee Airmen, https://www.doi.gov/video/remembering-tuskegee-airmen

More Stories