In the Air Force ...

	Helen Gentry remembered the transition of the Air Force from segregation to desegregation. “I experienced the termination of the Air Force segregated by race when our base unit was integrated in 1949-50. As an Intelligence Specialist I was assigned to a Fighter Wing headquarters at McChord Air Force Base, Washington. My top secret clearance attuned me to world wide events long before public revelation, events such as our extensive spy plane flights over the Soviet Union.”

In 1949, the first flight of African-American Women in the Air Force (WAFs) graduated from an eleven-week basic training course at Lackland AFB, TX. These 17 women from 11 states were a small group compared to the 330 trainee strength of white flights, but on graduation day, they came in third in the first “All Basic Training Parade,” competing against over 10,000 men. In 1949, the Air Force officially mandated desegregation and the service disbanded Jim Crow units.

 

In the Navy ...

 

	Because they were few, women in the US Navy served in desegregated units. Freddie Mae Hopson enlisted in the Navy in early 1952. In 1953, she received assignment to Hawaii as the assistant to the Foreign Liaison Office of the Port Control Office at Navy Headquarters where she once served as hostess for a USO dance for soldiers returning from Korea. “There were 3,000 men and 1,000 females ... the band would play three songs ... 1,000 men [would] be allowed into the hall and at the end of the third song, they would be sent out one door and the next 1,000 would be let in the front door. ... That was indeed an experience.”

African-American women were not allowed in the US Navy until 1944, after months of debate to define the service's racial policies. Once they were allowed to join, women in the Navy served in desegregated assignments, but the numbers were minute. In early 1948, the Navy could claim only one African-American woman officer and only six African-American women among an enlisted force of 1,700. New York's first African-American Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., charged that the status of black women in the Navy proved that the service was practicing “not merely discrimination, segregation and Jim Crowism, but total exclusion.” The Navy worked to improve its public image and during the Korean War, announced the achievements of African-American women through black newspapers.

In the Marines ...

	Annie Graham and Ann Lamb at work.			Annie Grimes appears to the right.

African-American women had not served in the Marines until Annie Graham and Ann Lamb volunteered in 1949. Annie Grimes became the third to enlist in 1950 and the first black woman officer to retire after a full 20-year career. Segregation shaped many of their experiences. Off-base they were not welcome in public places with their fellow Marines and on-base, white beauticians would not cross the color line to provide standard personal services.