When the Naval Academy Gave Up Jim Crow -
When Naval Academy Gave Up Jim Crow
By Paul Dickson
27Mar08 - In the fall of 1872, a black man from North Carolina named James Henry Conyers was appointed to and accepted by the United States Naval Academy. He arrived in Annapolis with strict orders from the Ulysses S. Grant White House that he be treated with "the utmost consideration."
However, shortly after arriving he was set upon by a score of midshipmen who beat and kicked him.
The gang also attacked the two "colored attendants" who were appointed by the Naval Academy to protect him from his white classmates.
A single white cadet with a sword stopped that particular attack, but the following spring Conyers was stoned by fellow midshipmen. Four white midshipmen were discharged from the Academy. Two weeks later the press - which was following the Conyers appointment with great interest - reported that he had failed to pass his examinations and was being asked to leave the Academy. Accounts of his expulsion did not allude to the earlier assault, or the stoning.
Conyers was one of only three dozen blacks appointed to the Academy through World War II. Only six were actually admitted - Conyers and two others during the 1870s, two more in the 1930s and one in 1945. The first five were unmercifully hazed, assaulted and driven out before their first year was over.
Historian Robert Schneller's new book concentrates on the story of the integration of the Naval Academy in the years following World War II. His self-described "biographical approach" relies on correspondence, memoirs and the oral histories of dozens of African American midshipmen who recount their experiences in their own words.
Blue & Gold and Black traces the transformation of an institution that goes from an ugly Jim Crow environment ruled by a bigoted minority of midshipmen to one which strives to empower minorites.
This transformation was not without social cost and black midshipmen bore the brunt of it, first only males and then the black women who were described as "double insults" because of race and gender.
He meshes this approach with information from the official records to produce a hybrid which perfectly suits this subject. As he explains in the introduction, most institutional history is written from the top down, while most social history is written from the bottom up. This book does it from both perspectives. The result is vivid history which blends the style of Studs Turkel with the rigor of the best academic writing.
Much to his credit, Mr. Schneller never flinches in getting to the truth of what was going on. He vividly describes one form of hazing so obscene and perverse that it cannot be mentioned in a family newspaper and cites hateful jibes and jokes directed at these men and women that make your skin crawl. That Mr. Schneller is a Navy historian working at the Naval Historical Center underscores how far we have come in exorcising the demon of racism from the military. Today, it can be argued that the military is the most successfully integrated element of our diverse society.
The power of this book is that it allows us to follow these men and women in their own words.
Readers will meet some remarkable individuals whose ability to prevail and lead is inspiring. For example there is James Frezzell class of '68, a football player who during his plebe year was injured tackling running back Larry Czonka (later to post a legendary career with the Miami Dolphins).
Night after night Mr. Frezzell was subjected to targeted hazing - hour after hour of standing at attention (even during meals ) and doing pushups. Deprived of countless hours of normal study time, he was forced to study by flashlight and began losing weight - 25 pounds in two months. Several white midshipmen tried to help him but never through any direct action. His coachs and fellow football players did not intervene. Mr. Frezzell finally concluded that "keeping the team lily-white was more important to the upperclassmen on the team than winning."
His grades suffered and moments before he appeared before a panel which would expel him honorably for academic failure, he was advised by an officer that he should file a discrimination complaint against the Academy with a black Congressman. The officer had been watching the brutality but did nothing about it. "If you knew this was going on all year, why didn't you do something about it," we are told he thought, but did not say, at the time with his jaw agape.
He went on to graduate from college elsewhere and became a successful executive. Years later, as a member of the Naval Academy Alumni Association, he worked to recruit minority midshipmen.
When Mr. Schneller asked him why he was willing to help he said, "It's the Christian way of doing things."
Despite such accounts, there are leaders here who serve as antidotes to the officers who are complicit - too timid, cowardly or racist - and choose to look the other way. CNO Elmo R. Zumwalt (1970-1974) and an Annapolis grad, class of 1943, came in at a time of turmoil - low morale, drug problems, racial tension and the departure from Vietnam - and issued one of his famous directives, known as Z-Grams, on Equal Opportun-ties in the Navy.
Z-66 targeted racism at every level of the service including Annapolis. With a great assist from Zumwalt, the Academy was finally truly on its way to becoming an institution where equal opportunity was a fundamental tenet.
There are heroic midshipmen as well - some are white, such as star quarterback Roger Staubach who set a new standard for accepting blacks both on campus and in town - but the real heroes are the black midshipmen, male and female, whose stories are as varied as the people who tell them. As Mr. Schneller shows, the vast majority are highly motivated men and women who despite being subjected to harassment and bigotry prevail and emerge as leaders not only because of - but often despite - their days in Annapolis.
Paul Dickson is a former Navy Officer whose most recent work of narrative history was "The Bonus Army: An American Epic," which he wrote with Thomas B. Allen.
BLUE & GOLD AND BLACK: RACIAL INTEGRATION OF THE U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY
By Robert J. Schneller Jr.
Texas A&M, $45, 437 pages
LOAD-DATE: March 26, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
BYLINE: By Paul Dickson, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
SECTION: BOOKS; B06
LENGTH: 1024 words
Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC
All Rights Reserved
The Washington Times
March 23, 2008 Sunday
Rear Admiral Bruce E. Grooms, USN
Rear Admiral Bruce E. Grooms, USN assumed command of Submarine Group Two in March of 2008. He was the 81st Commandant of Midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy, responsible for the military and professional development of the Brigade of Midshipmen, the first African American to serve in this position.
Education
Originally from Maple Heights, Ohio, Grooms graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1980 with a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering.
He earned a Master’s degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College, graduating with distinction and he attended Stanford University as a National Security Affairs Fellow.
Career highlights
Following completion of nuclear power training, he served in nearly every capacity aboard a variety of submarines including a tour as Executive Officer of USS Pasadena (SSN 752) where he twice deployed to the Persian Gulf.
His command tours include service as Commanding Officer of USS Asheville where he completed an extremely successful Western Pacific deployment. During his tour the ship received the Battle Efficiency "E" award, the Golden Anchor and Silver Anchor for the highest retention in the submarine force. USS Asheville twice earned the Engineering Excellence "E" award, won the Fleet Recreational Award for best quality of life programs, and twice won the Submarine Squadron Three Commodore’s Cup as the best all-around submarine in areas not related to battle efficiency. The ship was the Arleigh Burke Award finalist for most improved in battle efficiency, and the Pacific Fleet NEY Memorial Award finalist. Captain Grooms subsequently served as Commander, Submarine Squadron Six where he was responsible for operations and maintenance of five fast attack submarines and a floating dry-dock. Additionally, he provided local oversight for two Guided Missile Submarines (SSGN) undergoing refueling and conversion.
Captain Grooms’ staff assignments include service as a Naval Academy Company Officer, the Senior Inspector on the Atlantic Fleet Nuclear Propulsion Examining Board and service as the Senior Military Aide to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.
He also played varsity basketball for the Midshipman while attending the Naval Academy.
Awards
Admiral Grooms was selected as the Vice Admiral Stockdale Inspirational Leadership Award winner for 1999. He has also been awarded the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit (two awards), the Meritorious Service Medal and various campaign and unit awards.
Ken Johnson material from Blue & Gold and Black
Chapter 6
In the fall of 1970, the chief of naval personnel ordered the superintendent to increase minority enrollment at the Academy to achieve Admiral Zumwalt’s goal of proportional representation. For the rest of his tour as superintendent, Admiral Calvert investigated and implemented organizational and procedural changes to increase African American enrollment. Subsequent reports noted Admiral Calvert’s “personal interest in and emphasis upon increasing the number of black midshipmen.”[i]
Fortunately for Admiral Calvert, a new officer had just arrived in Annapolis to spearhead the minority recruiting effort. Lieutenant Kenneth Johnson had been assigned to the Recruitment and Candidate Guidance Office as the Academy’s first minority affairs officer in August 1970. Johnson grew up in Hallandale, Florida, where his father was a hotel cook. After graduating from Iowa State University in 1963, he joined the Navy and entered officer candidate school. He then went to sea on board three different ships before coming ashore in Annapolis.
Johnson’s job was to help the Director of Recruitment and Candidate Guidance in identifying and assisting qualified members of minority groups interested in attending the Academy. “When I first came here,” he told a reporter near the end of his tour, “there had been really no active recruitment of blacks. I figured there’d be about 150 black kids—and I would have considered that small.” In fact, the 4300-man brigade included only fifty-two African American midshipmen when he came on board.
Johnson perceived three obstacles standing in the way of increased black enrollment: the Navy’s five-year service obligation for an Academy education; the Academy’s lily-white image; and the negative publicity surrounding racial incidents in the armed services. He found it difficult not to be discouraged. As he told a reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun, “so many things are against us.” Interest among minority high school students in becoming midshipmen, even in Baltimore, the Academy’s backyard, was “negligible.” Most students at Baltimore’s all-black Edmonson High School preferred to enter historically black colleges and universities where, as Edmonson’s head guidance counselor put it, “they are assured a good reception.” As Johnson told a reporter for the Annapolis Evening Capital, “Young black prospects are just not getting the word.” “Ours is an ‘image’ problem,” he added, “and it’s a bad one. You tell them all the benefits the Navy can offer them, and you feel you’ve got them in your corner. Then they go home and their parents tell them, ‘No way, the Navy’s Jim Crow.’” Johnson later elaborated on the image problem. “I don’t feel . . . that minority kids turn down the Navy because of an antimilitaristic attitude held by some white youngsters,” he said. “To them it’s more of an antiwhite attitude, or antisystem. And when you say system to most minority youngsters, that means white.”
Johnson concluded that the solution was dissemination of information. He devised a two-pronged strategy to increase the Academy’s outreach into the black community. The first involved marketing. Johnson spent the fall and winter of 1970-1971 traveling to black communities around the country and talking to high school students, principals, guidance counselors, and minority organizations about the opportunities for African Americans and other groups at the Naval Academy. In one month alone, he visited high schools in Dallas, Texas; Pensacola, Florida; Trenton, Willingboro, and Camden, New Jersey; Colorado Springs, Colorado; and Detroit, Michigan. He found that students in black high schools, even in nearby Baltimore, knew little about the Academy or had little interest in it. Slowly but surely, he established personal contact with increasing numbers of potential black candidates.
The second prong of Johnson’s outreach strategy involved integrating the Blue and Gold organization. When Lieutenant Johnson first arrived in Annapolis, the organization included only one black officer. Johnson invited black teachers and youth program counselors to participate in the Blue and Gold Program as affiliates. Johnson also asked 442 minority Naval Reserve officers to participate in the Academy’s recruiting effort. By April 1971, sixty-eight of them, including forty-three black officers, had agreed to become Blue and Gold officers.[ii]
Lieutenant Johnson’s efforts produced dramatic results. In the summer of 1971, forty-six African Americans entered with the Class of 1975, marking an important turning point. Blacks had accounted for an average of 1 percent of each incoming class entering the Academy between the summer of 1965 and the summer of 1970. In the summer of 1971, 3.5 percent of the incoming plebes were black. Never again would the proportion drop below that number. In the summer of 1972, a record seventy-eight African Americans entered with ‘76, largely due to Johnson’s extensive traveling and the efforts of the new black Blue and Gold officers and affiliates. Between 1971 and 1975, an average of seventy-nine blacks entered the Academy each summer and accounted for 5.6 percent of incoming plebes. Similarly, between 1976 and 1998, Annapolis admitted an average of seventy-four African Americans per year, accounting for 5.5 percent of each incoming class.[iii]