Montgomery in the Good War: Portrait of a Southern City, 1939-1946

6. The Black Community in Montgomery and Abroad

6 The Black Community in Montgomery and Abroad Full-page advertisement purchased by black citizens in Montgomery for the fourth war loan drive in 1943, showing First Lieutenant Sherman White, Jr., of Montgomery in the cockpit. Courtesy of the Alabama Depm·tment of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama. The mistreatment in general of black citizens of the United States during "the Good War," besides being fueled by bigotry, continued to reflect legal segregation ofthe races in the former Confederate South. Elsewhere segregation was more de facto than de jure. Detroit, however, witnessed one of the war's largest race riots. The segregation ofpublic facilities, transportation, and education had been sanctioned by the U.S. Supreme Court as "separate but equal." The majority of whites did not question the legal or moral correctness of 122 The Black Community segregation, nor did they assert that most segregation was separate and unequal.I Black service people were quick to see the disparity between racial segregation in the armed forces and the call to defend democracy against tyranny abroad. They began to register protests, sometimes violent, against ill treatment in various places across the nation. The reactions, official and otherwise, particularly in the South, were repressive . Violence was often met with even more extreme violence.2 In Montgomery, seven months after Pearl Harbor, two policemen responded to a call from a city bus driver. Available records do not reveal what two black airmen from Gunter Field had done to provoke the call. Perhaps they had violated the segregation ordinance by taking forward seats on the bus or by doing something perceived to be disrespectful. Whatever the cause, the two policemen responded with a sudden violent assault. One of the officers fired his pistol, slightly wounding Private Joyner. At the driver's request the police arrested Joyner and took him to the city jail. They did not arrest the other airman.3 The next day, July 13, 1942, Colonel William Welsh, acting commanding officer ofthe Southeastern Army Air Forces Training Center headquartered at Maxwell, requested a morning meeting with police commissioner and retired army brigadier general W. P. Screws. The commissioner, perhaps a bit anxious, hurried to Welsh's office in Austin Hall, the headquarters building. Screws informed Welsh that the policemen's account made it appear that they were justified in their actions. The officers had been mistaken, however, in waiting to make the arrest until the bus driver asked them to do so and in arresting Private Joyner alone. Because of that error, Joyner had been released and some form of disciplinary step was being considered against the two policemen.4 In his official diary Welsh wrote: "General Screws ... informed me action had been taken to instruct all police in the handling ofmilitary personnel, and that mutual agreement could be worked out between the city of Montgomery and the commanding officers of Gunter and Maxwell Fields." Welsh told Screws that he did not believe "a repri- The Black Community 123 mand of the police concerned would be satisfactory to the military personnel and at the very least what should be done was to discharge the policemen guilty of this unwarranted attack, and that actually criminal action should be taken against them."s The retort shook Screws. Welsh, who had been stationed at Maxwell since 1938, was a favorite with the city's leadership. Screws told him that he would get back to him that afternoon. At 3:30 P.M. Screws returned with a copy ofthe police officers' testimony. He was, he told Welsh, seriously contemplating suspending the officers for "a period." The colonel replied bluntly that this action would be unsatisfactory. He informed Screws that Colonel Aubrey Hornsby, the commanding officer ofGunter and a native white Alabamian, had asked that criminal charges be filed against the policemen. Then Welsh was conciliatory . He told Screws he "sincerely hoped that we could obtain full cooperation ofthe city of Montgomery in order to avoid repetition of these instances and to prevent undue publicity or necessitate action by higher authority." Screws promised to cooperate "fully" with whatever course of action military authorities felt was warranted.6 In a huddle the same day with Welsh and his staff, Hornsby, as Welsh noted in his diary, "stated in his opinion the action on the part of the police was unprovoked and a brutal assault on the colored soldiers and he felt criminal action should be taken...