Goldfish Learn To Drive

A case study in desegregation 
Had Mereday been born a generation later, his 
quest for a home might have ended differently. 
On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman issued 
Executive Order 9981, which effectively mandated 
that the armed forces integrate. The move was, in 
part, politically expedient. Truman was running 
for re-election in a heated race against Thomas 
Dewey, who had a good record on civil rights 
issues. Truman hoped integrating the military 
would woo Black and other minority voters. 
The scheme was well-timed. By the early 1950s, 
the United States was at war with North Korea 
and needed racial unity within the troops. By the 
war’s end, the U.S. Army reported that 90 percent 
of Black soldiers were serving in integrated units. 
But back home, once they stepped off base, 
Black service members still had to contend with 
local prejudices. At one base in the Deep South, 
for example, Black service members riding a pub-
lic bus on the base had to move to the back of the 
vehicle once it crossed into the city. Restaurant 
and shop owners could refuse to serve Black ser-
vice members. And local school systems placed 
Black service members’ children in segregated 
schools. 
The military largely followed local practices on 
housing. When community members and land-
lords objected to housing Black service members 
in neighborhoods close to base, commanders
went along. 
But by the mid-1960s, the military began pri-
oritizing national security, and by extension, 
racial integration, over local concerns. “The 
[military’s] intent was not necessarily noble. The 
intent was manpower readiness,” says sociolo-
gist and demographer Jennifer Lundquist of the
University of Massachusetts Amherst. 
From 1967 to 1968, the Department of Defense 
implemented a program called Nondiscriminatory
This 1936 map of 
Philadelphia shows the 
“redlining” that labeled 
neighborhoods with 
Black residents as
“hazardous” invest-
ments, meaning they 
were at high risk for
home mortgage
foreclosure.
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George Romney (far left), shown at a 1963 anti-discrimination march, took an 
aggressive stance against segregation when he became U.S. Housing and Urban 
Development secretary in 1969. But his efforts failed and he resigned in 1972.
FLHC41/
ALAMY ST
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www.sciencenews.org 
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February 12, 2022 
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Housing for Military Personnel to get U.S. land-
lords to rent to all service members, regardless 
of race. Local military leaders first surveyed 
off-base housing in their area to see how many 
landlords were already in adherence with the pro-
gram. The effort revealed that about 60 percent of 
25,000 rental units surveyed were open to Black 
and brown tenants. 
When discriminatory landlords did not respond 
to “gentler” compliance methods, military lead-
ers hit them with an ultimatum: Rent to all 
soldiers, or rent to none. With many military bases 
serving as the largest employer in town, landlords 
who refused to comply risked going out of busi-
ness, Lundquist says.
The military’s approach worked. By August 
1968, landlords for 90 percent of the facilities sur-
veyed had pledged, in writing, to rent to service 
members of all races.