For a brief period, the Air Force stopped showing videos about the Tuskegee Airmen and the first women pilots in the Air Force. The Tuskegee Airmen, known as the “Red Tails,” were the nation’s first Black military pilots who served in a segregated WWII unit. Their all-Black 332nd Fighter Group had one of the lowest loss records of all the bomber escorts in the war.
Tuskegee Airmen Inc., a nonprofit foundation created to preserve the legacy of those pilots, said it was “strongly opposed” to removing the videos to comply with Trump’s order. The Air Force publicly announced it was complying with President Trump's directive to root out DEI programs, and the backlash to erasing the teaching about Black and female contributions was building. The Air Force soon edited the videos and returned them to the curriculum. Who knows what they felt compelled to remove?
The Tuskegee Airmen flew P-47 Thunderbolts, P-51 Mustangs, and other fighter aircraft to escort American bombers on dangerous missions over Germany. In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded the Tuskegee Airmen the Congressional Gold Medal in a ceremony at the Capitol Rotunda. The training courses included videos of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs — the female World War II pilots.
WASP was preceded by the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) and the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS). Both were organized separately in September 1942. On August 5, 1943, the WFTD and WAFS merged to create the WASP organization. The women typically ferried aircraft and took on other flying roles to free up men for combat.
Because they deserve it, I’ll write about the Tuskegee Airmen and Wasps separately. The bigger question is whether President Donald Trump can resegregate the military and federal government via executive order. The answer appears to be yes.
There is a precedent for resegregating the military and federal government. President Harry Truman gets credit for integrating the military and federal government in 1948 via Executive Order 9981. Many departments and some of the armed forces had long been partially integrated. Black seamen in the Navy ate and bunked with their white counterparts. Truman had come a long way from 1911, when he revealed his views in a letter to his wife, Bess.
“I think one man is just as good as another so long as he’s honest and decent and not a nigger or a Chinaman… I am strongly of the opinion that negroes ought to be in Africa, yellow men in Asia, and white men in Europe and America.” — Harry Truman
Black sailors comprised about 10% of the Continental Navy during the American Revolution. They served in many roles, including carpenters and pilots. Many Black sailors had experience from having served in the Royal Navy. Most of the Black sailors were free men, though some enslaved people enlisted with the approval of their masters. The contribution of Black sailors temporarily ended in 1798 when Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddert banned “negroes and mulatoes” from naval service. Calling them “Persons whose Characters are Suspicious.”
Although the ban on Black people was strictly enforced in other branches of the military, which had issued similar proclamations, senior naval officers often tacitly ignored it. Their need for a workforce outweighed the need to exclude Black people. When construction began on the USS Constitution in 1794, Black carpenters were on hand and part of the crew when it was first launched in 1797.
By the War of 1812, the USS Constitution had become the flagship of the American Navy. It has been portrayed in films and documentaries, though you’d never know from watching that the crew was often more than 25% Black. The 1926 film “Old Ironsides” showed a single prominent Black figure, known only as “the cook,” not even worthy of a name. Actor George Godfrey played the cook.
By 1839, the Navy was getting a little too Black, and Secretary of the Navy Isaac Chauncey issued a circular declaring that because of complaints, the number of Blacks in naval service would be no more than five percent of the total number entered under any circumstances. No slave was to be entered under any circumstances. In 1842, Secretary of the Navy Abel Upshur promised southern Congressmen that “no more than one-twentieth part of the crew of any vessel” would be African American.
Black men served in the other armed forces as well, including the Buffalo Soldiers. You might even know of the Montford Point Marines, the last of the armed forces to integrate in 1941.
President Woodrow Wilson is known for showing Birth of a Nation in the White House and leading the Second Wave of the Ku Klux Klan. Wilson practiced what he preached. When he entered office in 1913, he directed his Cabinet Secretaries to segregate all parts of the government, including the military.
Wilson directed his cabinet to segregate the Treasury, the Post Office, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the Navy, the Interior, the Marine Hospital, the War Department, and the Government Printing Office. This meant creating separate offices, lunchrooms, bathrooms, and other facilities for white and Black workers. It also meant dismissing Black supervisors, cutting off Black employees’ access to promotions and better-paying jobs, and reserving those jobs for white people. After Wilson’s presidency, Black homeownership fell in D.C., in part because Black federal employees no longer had access to better jobs and salaries.
Truman ordered the desegregation of the military and federal government by executive order, and we know what was done by executive order can be undone by the same. Trump has already revoked a 1965 Lyndon Johnson executive order prohibiting discrimination by federal contractors. Trump eliminated additional executive orders by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama that sought to promote further diversity and inclusion in hiring across the federal government. If Trump is against prohibiting discrimination and diversity in hiring, it’s clear what he’s for.
In his first week in office, Trump focused on eradicating everything he could call DEI from the federal government, going back to long before DEI was even a thing. DEI opponents have renamed the component words Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as “Didn’t Earn It.” Condemnation of DEI has become an open expression of racism, and any Black person not in agreement with MAGA is called a DEI hire and deemed unworthy without regard to their qualifications. Kamala Harris is a prime example.
So yes, Donald Trump, with the stroke of a pen, can restore segregation in the military. There was a Constitution when Wilson did it, and no segregation amendment has been passed since then. Under Trump, we may see a return to almost all-white office corps in the military. Look at his Cabinet. The controversy about removing the Tuskegee Airmen videos will soon die down, then the administration can turn to more important matters like a return to renaming military bases after Confederate generals.
This article originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of William Spivey's work on Medium.