Oral History Archive
Ernestine (Johnson) Thomas
Staff Sergeant
US Air Force, 1949-52

	Image from an Air Force recruiting pamphlet distributed in the 1950s. View larger image.

The year 1948 was a seminal year for women in the military. Congress passed the Women's Armed Services Integration Act which gave women a permanent place in the military and President Truman signed Executive Order 9981 calling for equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed forces without regard for race, color, religion or national origin.

One year later when Ernestine (Johnson) Thomas enlisted in the US Air Force, the armed services were still struggling with how to carry out these mandates for gender and racial integration. A native of Warren, OH, Johnson enlisted on an impulse. She was 19 years old and had never been out of the Midwest. Neither had she experienced any kind of racial segregation until she was on her way to Lackland AFB in San Antonio, TX.

I had never been South and we were in a Pullman [railroad] car so I didn't have any encounters and when we got to, ... Arkansas I think [The porter] could probably tell that I was very naive ... and had never traveled anywhere and he said ... 'Well, I would just like for you to get off when we get to Little Rock,' or wherever it was ... and just go up ... into the waiting room and just see what it was like. And so I was ... elated and very happy and so my friends, the two white girls, we all went up and we were getting ready to go through the door and all of a sudden I looked up and I saw that sign and it was just like a bomb exploded. I'll never forget it. It said, White Only ... and I just took off and ran all the way back to the train.

Upon her arrival at Lackland, Thomas became the first black person to be integrated into a basic training squadron. Up to that time, training squadrons had been segregated. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, Thomas volunteered to go to Japan.

Life in Tokyo was far from spartan. The WAF (Women in the Air Force) lived in the Mitsubishi Building in Tokyo and had maid service, table cloths, candlelight and gourmet food. Thomas liked her work as a clerk typist in the intelligence section but became upset when a male private was promoted ahead of her despite her seniority. She complained to her supervisor, a master sergeant.

I told him I had been here longer ... and I wanted to know why I had not been promoted, and he said,' well perhaps I would go in the next time'. I said, 'Well then I'm not going to work here anymore.'

He said ... I didn't have a choice, and I said, I did. So I went to see the colonel ... and I talked to Colonel Chisholm and I told him ... that I wasn't going to work in that office and that I had been overlooked for a promotion, and he told me that I really didn't have anything to say about that because I was in the military and you just don't do things like that. And I said, 'I felt that the government had spent too much money on training me and I'm just not going to let it go like that.' And I said,' I'm just not going to stay. You can discharge me.'

I thought they were going to put me out. ... But as it turned out, it didn't happen that way.

... They sent me over to personnel ... to talk with someone there to see what positions were available in my category. They sent me around for interviews. The men were livid. They said, 'Who does she think she is that she can go and apply for positions and get interviews?' ... l understand that I was the talk of the whole ... Headquarters.