of ground that is well tended. americaneekend on history tv on c-span3. university of kansas professor beth bailey discusses how issues of race affected the u.s. military and itself --ception of an colorblind of being colorblind during the vietnam war. she focuses on how african-americans were viewed by white soldiers, and how white soldiers protested mistreatment. nationalourtesy of the world war i museum and memorial in kansas city. prof. bailey: thank you all for being here tonight. it's a real pleasure to be able to speak to you at the world war i museum. i also was one of the consultants on the vietnam exhibit that began at the new

york historical society and has traveled here. it was a real pleasure to work on that, and i hope that you will get a chance to see it. it's an interesting exhibit. today i'm going to talk about my current research, which, as camille said, is how the u.s. army as an institution was trying to manage a crisis that its leaders perceived during the war in vietnam, a crisis around race. as i imagined almost all of you know, the u.s. war in vietnam was the first major conflict that the united states thoughts from the beginning was a racially integrated armed force. through much of the war, the process was treated as a great success. in combat, it almost without exception was. but by 1960, army leaders were talking about the war within the war and trying to figure out how

to manage a racial crisis that they saw as starting to tear the army apart. my research right now is trying to think about how this massive institution tried to manage a racial crisis. i look at the theories of actions the army took, a whole variety of actions that range from the predictable actions of education and training, to an emphasis on cultural sensitivity , to visible leadership and affirmative action. thishat i am arguing in larger project is that the army shifted from thinking of itself as proudly race blind, as colorblind, to thinking of , andf as a race conscious embracing different kinds of policies and practices that acknowledge the significance of racial identity. i am going to go through that , butent for you tonight

instead what i want to do is tell you two stories drawn from 1968 to give you a sense of the army's perception of a turning point in the war. i'm emphasizing that what i'm talking about are not so much the struggles of individuals or groups for racial justice within the army, but how the army as an institution tried to acknowledge , contend with, manage the demands that were being made. a humidt, so, it was afternoon in mid october of 1968 strode into aitt press briefing in saigon and passed out copies of a statement in which he asserted that "the american military services are the strongest citadels of racism

on the face of the earth. " the next day, his claims made newspapers throughout the united states. the most powerful coverage showed up in the new york times, although it was all over the place. that's not because it made itt'sines, but because merr complaints appeared confirmation of a heart wrenching story that the "times" editors placed adjacent to it. here, the parents of a 21-year-old soldier who is being awarded the bronze star had learned that he was missing in action the very same day they got a letter from another's sun's wife in germany that they had been unable to get -- another son's life in germany that they had been unable to get housing because of their race. tt offered arri

broader lesson. the article quoted him as saying the american people have been years told that the military leads the nation in eliminating all vestiges of segregation and discriminatory treatment of minority groups. this, he wrote, is a blatant lie. none of this is good news for the army, which had actually gotten a fair amount of mileage from the relative calm of its integrated forces as violence was erupting in the civilian world, whether it was murderous attacks on those who sought their full rights for black ghettos in flames during the hot summers of the 1960's. but when frederick alice davison was promoted to be a brigadier general in 1968, becoming the third black man to reach this plank in history of not only the army but the u.s. military as a he praised the army's

"unbelievable progress" in race relations." this was a story the army wanted to tell, and it is one that a lot of officers and nco's endorsed. not perfection, but progress. since been just 20 years president truman had ended official racial segregation in the u.s. armed forces, and even fewer since that segregation had ended. how could one applaud what had -- how could one not applaud what had been accomplished, how not to recognize the positive changes the army was making? certainly there were problems, a scarcity of black faces in leadership and command. that's true, but they could not pull generals out of nowhere. no possibility of lateral hires. no vast tracts.

the army was starting to grow a carport of black leaders to move past its poor decisions of the past. that would take time, but it would happen. and housing, that was a perpetual issue, particularly in the american south and in germany. president kennedy's commission had highlighted the problem in 1961. the surrounding communities were not under military control, and relationships were particularly tricky in host nations. civilian discrimination was a problem and they were working on solutions. of "boy,"e indignity the outrage of the epithet in common use, the casual racism in the daily life of the unlisted man? many whites never registered it, or they paid it no heat. many came of age in eras where

such words were common and they saw no different than labels like pollock or wop or kike. lapses -- anduch countering such lapses were tales of camaraderie between the races. that quote, we don't think about race out here. we depend on each other too much . i see only one color. such interpretations seem awfully self-serving, especially in retrospect. it is striking how much they were in keeping with the official language of the time. a sociologist spent a year studying the issue, and he concluded in 1966 that the army was "an example of integration success." its 20magazine pulled

readers that despite a few blemishes, the armed forces remain a model of the integrated society the u.s. looks forward to in the new generation. here, an nbc special in 1967 concluded same mud, same blood, something that for combat was not unreasonable to say. manywas striking is how black leaders agreed, praising the military for its progress and endorsing it as a model for the nation. where it might have mattered most within the army, race did not make the list of command concerns in 1967. when the secretary of defense was visiting vietnam in 1967, he got a top secret briefing about soldier morale, and he heard about marijuana and narcotics.

he heard about the black market. he did not hear a single bird about race. it wasn't an issue. two years later, by the summer chief9, both the army's added secretary would put race second only to the word via -- to the war in vietnam on its list of concerns. with this shift, 1968 marked a in the army. this notion of there is only one color and its olive drab, which had been praised, that would continue as an ideal and as a field ideal -- failed ideal. but it was increasingly challenged by those who embraced black power and pride. people who rejected slow

in the wake of violence that forced the assassination of martin luther king, were willing to begin seeking freedom by any means necessary. the army did not and could not stand fully apart from the society and served. -- it served. it had been increasingly impossible by this point of the war to construct and enforce boundaries between civilian and military. because the war in vietnam demanded men. u.s. army strengths -- how did that happen? yes, ok. u.s. army strength increased by more than 700,000 men and women 1968.n 1961 and not all those troops were in vietnam. 25 nations had more than a

thousand u.s. military personnel in that era. but the wartime demands for men changed the shape and size and character of the army, because it was young men who were raised in the turmoil of 1960's revolts that were going to swell the army's ranks. whether draftees or volunteers, many of them motivated, the great majority of them did not plan an army career, and their long-term allegiance was not to the institution and its culture and practices. for many of them, their ties to home and the weight of their civilian identities were left for theclipsed time the military required of them. that had been the case for men who joined them before the war. and the practice of rotating individuals rather than units through year-long tours in vietnam tended to leave men less timely bound to their brothers in arms, especially outside of

combat units. for those in combat, race rarely provided a major divide, but the majority of men in vietnam were not serving in combat. maybe the army's racial problems came from outside. army leaders repeatedly insisted it did. it's not likely that the army as an institution became suddenly much more racist in the space of a year. races the struggles of the -- of a race changed in the civilian world, those could have touched those in uniform, even if only a few. in 1969, the army directly confronted the crisis, and that in no way denies that racism and racial discrimination had pervaded the army before that day, even if it was generally less powerful than in civilian life, but it was in 1968 that the reactions to racism began to

change, and it was in 1968 that race began to trouble the stability of the nation's armed forces. thus it was in 1968 that the army as an institution began in a stuttering an incomplete fashion to perceive race as a problem. two very different events that year. words,minor battle of and the other a violent conflict aat left smoldering ruins and young private dad at the hands thats fellow soldiers forced the army to start dealing with this problem of race. i will talk about major merrit t's venture into the press briefing room in saigon, and the other is the uprising of black stockade of the

army's long been posted northeast of saigon. case, the army's responses to the actions of black serviceman showed how reluctantly the army as an institution began to confront this emerging crisis. these events pushed the army to confront the crisis of race, moving by 1969 from proudly colorblind to an official position of race consciousness a secretary of the army claimed in address in 1969, a negro uniform does not cease to be a negro and become a soldier instead, he becomes a negro soldier.- a i will treat those two stories as pivot points to the army's

acknowledgment that it did have a problem. day of the offenses in 1968 was the day that major merritt took up a new assignment advisor at aenior training center. some of the housing had been destroyed, so the training team senior advisor, a man named lt. to. bradley, invited merritt share his room. the two apparently got very friendly, discussing everything in the world, including merritt's belief that he had been passed over for promotion because he was black. and bradley received his next assignment, he pushed merritt for his replacement. the spot was for lt. col.

bradley's supersize was leery of him getting the job, bradley insisted merritt did a great job for him, and he made that official by giving merritt 96 points out of 100 on his report without a single processing, constructive or otherwise. merritt got the job. he took command on may 1, the day bradley departed. what happened next is not completely clear, despite the fact that the army has mountains of records on this case. but bradley had second thoughts. he contacted the training director in june and said that things were going to pot. the director had took bradley's claims seriously and told merritt's newly assigned deputy to keep an eye on merritt. , in hiseantime, merritt

new command, had begun talking a lot about race, about the situation of black americans in the united states and of black soldiers in the army. a white captain was eating dinner in the mess soon after he arrived at the camp, and the major dropped a copy of the colonel report in front of him, a report that detailed and analyzed the recent race rebellions in the u.s. the captain what he thought of it. he said he had not read it. merritt said, you are going to stay and i'm going to educate you. the education lasted until after midnight. a discussion with a white sergeant that became, in the sergeant's words, quite heated. him amerritt brought magazine article that told him how living conditions for negro personnel back home were insufficient.

's general, merritt consciousness-raising was not welcome. it was later said, once he started talking on this civil rights thing, he was like a man pushing for a cause and tried to push it on everybody. was so merritt knowledgeable, quote, he made us all feel like we were kind of inferior. consensus building in the all-white team five that merritt was too preoccupied with questions of race. things came to a head the night of august 27. it's not clear whether merritt had too much to drink that night, or whether the men who shared the open bar, the mess with him got tired of his focus on race. after downing numerous martinis, merritt got on the racial cake.

he was loud and opinionated and wandered from person-to-person. referred to white enlisted men as honky and white trash. he spoke the language of 1960's racial pride, claiming that not only were blacks the sons of kings, but once a white woman had been with a black man, she would never want a white woman again. 's exerciset, merritt propelled a cheer toward the bar door, but it is unknown whether the chair was thrown, slammed, or given an underhanded toss. a white sergeant felt things were getting out of hand, so he went looking for major irving, the deputy senior advisor, and they were all hanging out together in the same room and said they were not going to intervene. asked later by he had not gone to the bar to calm things down as requested, major irving said

he had been reluctant to get involved. me being from alabama, i did not want this to appear to be a racial issue. not, hadrejudiced or been paralyzed by his discomfort over race. as he said later, he had not been trained to manage a situation like that. the next morning, major merritt apologized, hung over, and he left donggala early for scheduled r&r. merritt morning, major and two white officers called saigon. they were not conducting an official investigation, but they did collect witness testimony. one captain complained, during my assignment to team five, major merritt has continually

cajoled and harassed officers about racial problems in the states and the fact that he is a negro league officer. -- he is a negro officer. men to learn of their prejudices and get them to admit they are prejudiced against negroes. major merritt, in the meantime, knows nothing about this investigation, and the senior officer that came from saigon told everybody there to keep mum. the officer also decided he would replace major merritt as senior advisor, and he did not keep that decision to himself. so when merritt returned, major irving let slip the news of the pending replacement. wasther words, merritt informed by a subordinate that he was losing his position of command. within days, merritt gets an

official notice from saigon that he's being transferred. the notification said now we have sufficient officers of appropriate rank, and it assured merritt the saigon office would benefit from his experience. merritt reported to saigon, and first thing when he got there, he was summoned to the office of the investigator general and told he was being investigated. the next day, merritt receives a poor efficiency report and, feeling bitter and betrayed, he sat down at a typewriter and started to compose a statement, an eight page statement that was going to guarantee not only the attention of the command, but a lot of the american public as well. the investigator general investigation found that major merritt was obsessed with race. it ignored the failures of leadership on the part of those

people who found themselves uncomfortable talking about race and contributed to the problem, major irving. it waited as discussions of racial discrimination with militancy and potential violence. onfailed to follow up alleged threats against major merritt's safety and instead focused on evidence that merritt had verbally denied the army's progress on race. it ignored major merritt's claims of discrimination, investigating instead how his discussions about race affected his wife's subordinates. the attorney general had compiled charges to be conferred against major merritt. he had engaged in conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman that night of august 22, arguing about racial manners, contemptuously

lieutenant davis junior -- that should be lieutenant darrell, as an uncle tom, insisting that once a white woman had a negro, she would never go back to a white man. he had released an eight page news article to the press without proper review, and he had just missed the many successful -- he had dismissed that many successful negro officers in the army. the attorney general was furious about these actions of merritt, and he was confident he was going to be found guilty, but he immediately offered a caution. he said such a trial would be time-consuming and expensive, and while it might possibly discredit merritt with the press, it would also give him a platform. the trial would give merritt more publicity. the more significant point, it would also bring publicity to

the army and its problem with race. so, the attorney general made a recommendation that went against his own desires. he wrote, although it hurts me to say this, for the overall good of the command, i recommend that major merritt be removed from the command and retired as soon as possible. thus, merritt retired from the army in february of 1969. after that, he maintained his commitment to racial change and his capacity for grand ideas, but his focus was no longer on the u.s. army. poorlyse illustrates how the army as an institution was prepared to deal with issues of race. whatever failures accrued to , and his record suggest some times he was a difficult man, the failures of the institution were far more significant.

officers had no training in managing issues that were difficult to address. the official investigation betrays a level of sensitivity and sometimes racial prejudice that was going to come to hot to the inspector general's office tn the years to come -- haun the inspector general's office in the years to come. and it would soon become that much more than: the flames -- than coal on the flames. first story. second story. it was a week later, almost to the hour, from the time that major merritt had tossed both that fateful chair and his career in the open mess bar that a small group of inmates that had long been jailed in vietnam, the u.s. army stockade, unleashed a storm of systemic destruction.

dead,ning, one inmate was and prisoners remained in control of one of its three compounds. the american press did not pay much attention, but that was probably due to the timing. this corresponded with the democratic national convention of 1968. if you think the country is divided right now, look back a few decades. a minor prison riot on the other cited the world could not complete with coverage of the streets of chicago. as far as violence in vietnam 537 -- for perspective, went, for perspective, 537 american soldiers had been killed in action in that month alone. it is not surprising that the uprising did not draw much notice from the american press, and army leaders were generally pretty grateful for that small

advantage. but the people in power were paying attention, even if "the new york times" was not. the lbj riot became one of the army's earliest experiments in managing the problem of race. that's when it was, a problem of race. at the jail was a racial uprising. it was an explosion of violence inspired by rage. black men began the uprising. black man, joined by a handful of,cleod, mexicans -- quote, mexicans, chanted kill the chucks. and black men occupied compound

b not only by taking physical control of it, but by improvising on african space with makeshift spears and drums. angeractions were born of and frustration, but in many ways, that's where the similarity to merritt and. -- ends. officer withn almost 20 years of experience. he also commanded the persuasive language of the 1960's era civil rights movement, and he had a case to make. he was seeking change. the men who rioted at the jail where enlisted men. many of them were still teenagers. some investigators argued they

were inspired by racial uprisings in american cities and they were encouraged by black panther literature. but this group's men made no demands. they did not offer any specific critique of racism, oppression, or even their immediate conditions. the language this group commanded was violence, and that was not without power. stockade was known to all as lbj, a play on the president who committed his nation to this difficult war. lbj was notorious as a place that was hated and feared. it's only historian today called it a brooding presence in the lives and consciousness of young soldiers. as the united states had moved

more and more deeply into war, as the number of u.s. troops grew and their morale declined lbjhe months following tet, was stretched well beyond capacity. this jail had been built to house 400 men. housed 7191968, it inmates. the space allotted to each man had been cut almost in half, from an original 70 square feet to 36.5 square feet. army regulations specified the trained guards should be present for an inmate population of that size, but lbj had only 153, and few were adequately trained. stories of the brutality of the guards abounded, have the guards claimed their jobs were impossible because they were

moving without weapons of any sort, not even a nightstick. the men incarcerated in lbj were a mixed bunch. refused a lawful order, whether to advance into combat or cut their hair. lbj's second-in-command later called them scared kids in a war zone. nonetheless, another stockade official in 1968 noted that almost none of those prisoners were first or even second-time offenders. officers by that point were so reluctant to take man out of the field but -- take men out of the field that it took several successes before a man can serve in the stockade. sometimes that was seen as being too militant. no matter how many scared kids lbj, the jail in also house murderers and rapists

and soldiers convicted of war crimes. some of the prisoners were men committed crimes against the population, against their own unit, guys who shot and killed vietnamese on a whim. you've got to understand, said the officer who took amanda lbj in late 1968, they had psychotics in there. they were not average people off the streets. the fellas we had were sociopaths. i will come back to that officer in a minute. it is critical to understand that during 1968, in every month except one, black prisoners outnumbered whites in lbj, even as black soldiers accounted for only about 11% of army troops in vietnam. have the black

population at lbj at 70%, even as high as 90%. because the army was officially colorblind, it did not keep racial statistics, so it is not possible to know for sure. but whatever the actual numbers, the imbalance was obvious, and it was worse once one got to the maximum security block. x7x8.5ers were housed in 6 metal containers that were referred to collectively as the box. many black inmates saw that imbalance as evidence that they had been treated unfairly by prejudiced officers and in co's and a biased system of what nco's at ace -- and biased system of military justice. there would be an investigation pushed by the congressional black caucus of the injustices that existed during this period. the officer that took over lbj, lt. col. vernon johnson,

attempted to solve the obvious crisis at the stockade, at least as they understood it in 1968. johnson had an he hd in p knology. he believed strongly in rehabilitation. the officer who insisted lbj was populated by sociopaths, johnson believed there was no such thing as a bad boy. but johnson wasted no time putting his principles into practice. he was trying to rehabilitate them. he listened to prisoners' complaints, sometimes supporting them against his guards. he urged the guards to get to know the prisoners, spend time talking with them, join their basketball games. he also attempted to stem the flow of illegal drugs into the jail. for many prisoners, this outweighed the positive roles he

tried to play, especially as he started a highly probable ruler -- highly unpopular practice of strip searching inmates. johnson was doing with the people who assigned him to his position had intended. he was implementing modern penal practices, but these did not solve the problem of the growing racial anger and conflict in lbj , even compared to the standard practices he was replacing. the riot that erupted on the night of august 29 was not spontaneous. it was orchestrated by a well-organized group of black inmates who called themselves the syndicate and who had been controlling the flow of drugs in the stockade. it is possible that colonel johnson's attempts to stop the flow of drugs precipitated action, but it's also true that syndicate numbers had talked a while about burning the place

down. and there were plenty of reasons for them to be angry. the overcrowding, the racial prejudice, the pervading system of military justice, the general oppression of black men in general oppression of black men in american society. one inmate was supposed to andin a supply of quaaludes marijuana to be distributed before the uprising. the plans were not closely guarded. there were rumors circulating that deep trouble was coming, and why did they not just start to tell the chaplain they were scared? the tension was becoming palpable. at a signal, a designated group of prisoners overpowered two gate guards, taking their keys. but they were not looking to escape. this was instead about general retribution.

bunksinmates tore apart to create weapons, pulled boards from buildings to serve as clubs , liberated knives from the mess hall kitchen. prisoners, black and white, ran for the gate, trying to get out of the violence, climbing the fence and wedging themselves through wire. groups of men set mattresses on fire, ignited tents and buildings. some rounded up white prisoners. some bound their hands and feet. deathn assailants beat to . they beat tovate death with a shovel. in the midst of the violence, a frustrated black man paced back and forth, yelling, you stupid itking fools, you are doing all wrong. colonel johnson went unarmed

into the stockade and attempted to try to calm things down, and it is not clear what happened. the next time he was seeing was near the stockade gate, covered in blood. chaplain laterde found colonel johnson in the hospital, awaiting surgery on a deep gash in his head, johnson, agitated, told the chaplain, we did it to them. at the stockade, the case was subsiding. the inmates who fled had been herded into a nearby field and spent the rest of the night surrounded by armed guards. but the security compound remained under a group of inmates' control, and it would for more than three weeks. dawn broke on smoldering ruins, and as the days passed, this group of inmates made no demands. no spokesman emerged. there were no negotiations. some of the men created an

alternative space for themselves. they created what they came to call the soul brother compound. one participant remembered, we makethe blankets to african robes and the tent for spears. that's where head was at the time. the men continued to receive food and water. the person who had come into the fenceso had surrounded and covered with burlap so nobody could see the men. then the chaplain, who wrote an extensive report on this and had men of thethies, chaplain, characterized as the core of black power, continued to shout their complaints at the world, but there were no demands and there was no clear way forward. other inmates started to pull

away from the instigators of the riot. one man, who one day violently cursed the chaplain, appealed next day for helping get out of the compound, he said, i thought these guys were my people, but they are all insane. i want out before they killed me. perhaps self-interested. it was written to the army chief of staff on september 9, the segregated compound is still not under control. control. we dare not use force because of the publicity. but we will do -- what we will do -- i did not have any idea. nonetheless, the days passed and commanders, the resolveg inmates' started to fade. a small group continued to hold

up. but when their numbers dwindled troops were0 13, and were weapons met with no resistance. for the army, this tactic of anger, without for tatian, it was more difficult for inmates to retain a core of angry resistance, and without confrontation, this story had no choice in the american media. for the army, it had no signal can cost. -- had no significant cost. they burned the buildings well before the army could have mobilized any kind of reaction force. tore that sheey -- tore the sheets and blankets, but that was minor. the man who stormed the compound

had not harmed anyone else after the violence. in the end, the uprising left one young prisoner dead, 20 six inmates hospitalized for serious injury. injured, and colonel johnson never recovered from his head wound. and much of the stockade's physical plan was replaced quickly. quickly. of the approximately 200 men who -- included murder, aggravated assault, and distraction of government property. what the stockade fully reclaimed army later rejected the approaches of colonel johnson, the new commander was kicker whos an ass

the guardsdown on and tightened up the ship. the army takes pride in being a learning institution and events on the scale of uprising almost without exception demanded an accounting of lessons learned. in take away was most clear the appointment of colonel nelson, who dialed back the enlightened approach. the commander of the 18th military police brigade laid out his lessons in more detail. maintenance of discipline is crucial. unrest. contributes to drugs must be kept from the stockade. there must be enough properly trained custodial personnel for the actual number of inmates and overcrowding increases prisoner dissatisfaction. all makes sense. appropriate lessons learned.

even if the devil lies in the details, combat idleness with basketball courts or work details. how does one maintain discipline? most striking is what is missing. it is his recommendations for ways to prevent future racial commander never once mentioned race. as in the case of major merit, army leaders at lbj tried to deflect the problem of race. avoidance was not going to be any more of a solution in stockade then it was in the public eye. racial anger continue to fester at lbj as more and more people understood the system as to not be racially blind. strict discipline work for a while, but the underlying

problems would resurface. year, a greatwing many soldiers and their allies would offer critiques of army racial practices and policies and the uprising at lbj was a case of what was to come. racial violence exploded throughout the army. not only in the stockades and not only in vietnam, but in the barracks and mess halls and bars and communities surrounding army posts in the united states and throughout much of the world. it is hard not to have sympathy with the chaplain who admitted that the answers were beyond him , concluding his report on the lbj uprising, he might as well have been describing the crises as a whole. he wrote thank god it is not my

job to solve them. that task would fall two army leaders who would subsequently have no choice but to confront the problem of race. thanks. [applause] >> you are welcome to ask a question at either mic, or raise your hand and i will come to you. >> hi. how would you describe what 1960'shappened in the , between --ay today back then was with people of african-american dissent. now a lot of times there's the issue of those of immigrant

dissent in the military. do you think there's another militaryn about the confronting race, and the ethnicity and religion. ms. bailey: that is a very good question. i think the parallels don't fit neatly. moment isned at this that the nation was going through an upheaval over race. and a transition or development of a move away from a civil rights movement was oriented toward integration and inclusion to a movement embracing identity . the army was struggling with how to deal with that transition. were demanding as well as trying to figure out how to deal with the anger it

anger of manye whites in the military. in terms of immigrants, what we see frequently is changing status. official status. it is not so much how they contend with the violence against young men and women serving as the question of what immigrantse who are in the military. that is where the army has been addressing it. they do take some of the lessons they learn from this period in terms of trying to directly address those problems. do you have an incident in mind? my mind was going to a different point about sexuality and gender. ms. bailey: sexuality and

gender. part of what i am arguing is despite the fact the military has insisted its mission is not social site of experimentation, it often is. doause it is directed to something by civilian authorities. in terms of race and ethnicity, the army becomes a site of social experimentation and once ordered to do something, it has to figure out how to do it. what i see in terms of ethnicity and gender and sexuality is the hard learned lessons from this struggle as itl tries to figure out how it is going to implement issues such ending tone ask, don't tell. accepting transgender members. thinking about gender in the

u.s. military. >> our next question comes from the back of the auditorium. that had the progressive policies. i did not remember his name. injured and he was bloody when they brought him out when he came out of the stockade. did you say he never recovered from his injuries? ms. bailey: he never fully recovered. he had a head wound. there are multiple stories about what happened to him. withoutthem seem controversy. he was attacked by somebody when he was trying to put an end to the violence. >> it was moving, his response, rather than be angry, he was grieved over their situation. ms. bailey: his name was vernon johnson. >> vernon johnson.

thank you. defend some of my black soldiers from vietnam. i entered the army in 1968. back in the 1960's, there were some racial problems, obviously. isolated two incidents, both of them severe. know i wasetnam, i in a unit, we had black soldiers, white soldiers, hispanic soldiers. every so often a black soldier would come up who would be militant and tried to create problems. it wasn't the white soldiers saying, stop that. it was the other black soldiers in the unit saying we are a

cohesive unit. we fight together and live together. we don't do that here. stop it. and so i took this almost as an indictment of black soldiers back in the 1960's. it,ink that is, as i heard a bad evaluation of it. almost like looking at today and saying all muslims are bad because we have vices. that is not the case. it is the same thing. lbj, you have a riot. you have a lot of the rest of vietnam where you did not. you may have issues and you work them out. major or all like the lbj. indicting: i am not black soldiers in vietnam. i apologize if you heard it that way.

--t i am trying to look at talkingn't see major about the ways in which black servicemen could not get adequate housing as something egregious. what i saw is the way he was treated by the army officials. at is am trying to look outside of combat, in many units, there was a frustration that the army tried to ignore. often ignored at the expense of black servicemen. there were lots of black servicemen that were not angry. there were black servicemen committed to their future in the army. white servicemen who were not angry who were committed to their future in the army. there was a racial crisis that was, by 1969, defined as the second most important thing the army had to pay attention to.

what i was trying to do is to thathese are two moments forced the army to pay attention to something it was trying to ignore. i will give you that there was much racial brotherhood in the army, especially in combat units. crisisas also a rising and at this point, this is a point where the army had to pay attention to it. >> another vector you could look at, idleness. idleness is where we found we had the problem. whether you are white or black. a unit that was idle, thousands of miles from home, i am stuck in vietnam not doing anything. let's get in trouble. the drugs or what have you. the idleness is a vector that hits home on problems regardless of the race. ms. bailey: absolutely.

you see it all over the world. and leadership makes a difference as well. units that had reasonable more out and good leadership were less likely to have racial tension. notnt to reiterate, i am indicting black servicemen in vietnam. i am indicting the u.s. army for not paying adequate attention to the ways in which discrimination functioned during this time. nextm going to take our question from the audience. ondo you have any comments the changes that have been made that show lessons have been learned and have mitigated some of the effects of the systemic racism in our culture? ms. bailey: that is a great question. what i can point to is a willingness to discuss systemic

racism and education that emphasizes the ways in which individual racism function in the army going back to the late 1960's. what i am looking at are the different techniques the army attempted to use to mitigate the problems it faced. some of it was investigating military justice. what was the most effective was race conscious processes of assignments and promotion and an attempt to foster visible leadership by people of color and by women. affirmative action case in michigan came to the supreme court, it was a crew of retired military generals that wrote a brief supporting it, saying this has been effective in the u.s. military and that it is something we should pay

attention to. there were lessons learned. no place is perfect. they're still elements of institutional racism and individual racism. didill think the military learn some lessons during this period. >> last question on the left. largepent 35 years in production manufacturing plants in baltimore and kansas city. 1966 and working in retired a while ago. time, in every place i worked very elaborate affirmative action programs. the thing i remember most about that experience was when we started in the 1960's, we had

hard-core unemployed programs to bring in folks in baltimore. probably 50% minority in the community. inwere trying to match that our population. , theember when we started idea was to try to bring minorities into the white club. make them white people. they acted like white people and they would and up being good employees. we found that did not work. black people did not want to become white people. i think we had a lot more success, and it took a while to learn this, by recognizing and hispanic,lack, communities, religions, churches , customs, and things like that.

and sensitizing our own leaders in the company to be able to talk that on the floor in a dayuction plant on a day to basis. one experience i had was we had a very senior black employee that died after 40 years with the company. we had several of our white managers go to the church where his wake and funeral were held. in the among the few church at the time and some of us got up to speak about him. he was a wonderful employee. i think we gained so much credit in the plant for recognizing him time,eir culture, at the that was worth millions of

points in terms of our relations in the plant over time. the one thing i remember most was the switch from trying to make people who were not white, white, and moving to recognizing their culture, the things important to them, being able to talk about those. including family and everything else. progress.de much more the places ran better production wise, cost wise. as a result of that. i don't know if the army has taken on that type of direction rather than just say we are all going to be disciplined and part of the same gang. let's recognize what makes these people tick and respond to that and help that and help them bring it out. ms. bailey: that is the fundamental argument i am making.

army movediod the from claiming to be colorblind, to being race conscious. with some curious missteps. one example of that is many young black men wanted to wear men wantedhite longhair. standard term for the haircut was white wall which shows the extent to which institute -- institutional racism functions. the presumption is the norm was white. confronting the fact the standard haircut presumes whiteness was a step forward. there were cases african-american men and women that said you are ignoring our background and culture and

variety of identities. we are not ever going to be simply od. we come from different backgrounds. there was a limited success in doing that. it's a really good question. there's lots of interesting parallels to civilian society. the army has more power. internally. >> thank you, dr. bailey. here and for being your questions. we hope you come back soon and another round of applause for dr. beth bailey. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> you are watching american coverage,, with event eyewitness accounts, archival films, lectures and classrooms, and visits to museums and

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