Why Executive Order 9981

Why Executive Order 9981


​“Unfortunately, there still are examples - flagrant examples - of discrimination which are utterly contrary to our ideals. Not all groups of our population are free from the fear of violence. Not all groups are free to live and work where they please or to improve their conditions of life by their own efforts. Not all groups enjoy the full privileges of citizenship and participation in the government under which they live.”
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~ President Harry S. Truman, Civil Rights message to Congress on February 2, 1948, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum
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“I wish to make it clear that I am not appealing for social equality of the Negro.  The Negro himself knows better than that, and the highest types of Negro leaders say quite frankly, that they prefer the society of their own people.  Negroes want justice, not social relations.”

~ President Harry Truman, address to the National Colored Democratic Association (1940)

President Truman believed that America has to keep freedom and democracy alive, and it has to start from home. "We can't get the respect of a democratic nation, until we put a stop to the domestic issues involving segregation at home."

~ President Harry Truman

Desegregation Glog, https://edu.glogster.com/glog/desegregation-glog/2s5apvdgj5b

After World War II, the Soviet Union started to push communism  through Europe. President Truman wanted to contain their presence and claimed that the world is being challenged between Soviet-style dictatorship or American-style democracy.

"Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman - from World War to Cold War by Michael Dobbs (Knopf)", https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/six-months-in-1945-fdr-stalin-churchill-and-truman--from-world-war-to-cold-war-by-michael-dobbs/2012/12/28/1c19b87e-3020-11e2-9f50-0308e1e75445_story.html

President Truman was lagging against Republican challenger, Thomas E. Dewey, in the 1948 presidential election. President Truman and his advisers pushed for the Executive Order 9981 in order to gain the crucial black vote in the South by desegregating the Armed Forces.

"The Cold War at Home and Abroad", 1945–1953, https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_a-history-of-the-united-states-vol-2/s12-the-cold-war-at-home-and-abroa.html

“I believe in the brotherhood of man; not merely the brotherhood of white men, but the brotherhood of all men before the law.  I believe in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.  In giving to the Negroes the rights that are theirs, we are only acting in accord with our own ideals of a true democracy.  If any class or race can be permanently set apart from, or pushed down below, the rest in political and civil rights, so may any other class or race when it shall incur the displeasure of its more powerful associates, and we may say farewell to the principles on which we count our safety.”

~ Senator Harry S. Truman – Speech at Sedalia, Missouri (July 25, 1940)

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Executive Order 9981