The "N" badges for Negro workers used at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, have been made standard by the Navy Department, according to a letter to the N.A.A.C.P., from Ralph A. Bard, assistant secretary of the Navy.

Bard said that the badge was developed for emergency use at a West Coast Yard and that by instructions of the Navy department was made standard "some six months ago." He asserted that the letters W (for white) and N (for Negro) are inconspicuous and cannot be construed to be discriminatory.

Bard claimed: "Letters to designate the race of the individuals concerned .... are not merely restricted to the white and colored races, but many others."

The N.A.A.C.P. replied on Friday, October 31. "The question is not," it said, "whether the designation is 'discriminatory' or not. It is humiliating, insulting, and unnecessary. It offers a gratuitous affront to Negro American citizens by labeling them (as though a man with colored skin needed to be labeled) in much of the same manner as the labels used by the Nazis to designate Jews from so-called Aryans in Germany."

In reply to the Navy's statement that "many others" are labeled according to race, the N.A.A.C.P. asked, "What others?"

The Association also pointed out that the Navy has gone far afield in this manner, and reminded Bard that private industries employing both colored and white workers have not found it necessary to use any such designation on badges.

  • Melon [she/her,they/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I finally got off my arse and made a FOIA request because it's criminal just how little is out there about this, it's literally just this obscure newspaper clipping and Settlers

    will update you comrades in about 2 years when the FOIA request yields results

    edit: found another article on the same day, that's the exact same as this from The Pittsburgh Courier which is great in proving veracity

    • TillieNeuen [she/her]
      ·
      4 years ago

      That's so cool! You have become one of those awesome FOIA people.

      I just read what I wrote, and it sounds sarcastic? But seriously, I think that people who just doggedly keep submitting FOIA requests are extremely cool, and I hope you find out some good dirt and are able to do something awesome with it.

          • Melon [she/her,they/them]
            ·
            4 years ago

            I know, I'm excited but I know I'll have to wait (idk how much COVID has screwed up FOIA request times but it can't be fun for them)

  • Melon [she/her,they/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Transcribed because, believe it or not, I only managed to find it because some OCR text from newspapers.com was indexed by Google search engine. Freshly unearthed history!

    This is referenced in Settlers but isn't adequately sourced in the book. Navy dude in question, naval yard that this went down in

    Edit: Found the same article posted in the November 8, 1941 issue of The Pittsburgh Courier on page 2. pic

  • constantly_dabbing [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    coincidentally I was just reading about this lady:

    Lena Horne refused to perform "for segregated audiences or for groups in which German POWs were seated in front of black servicemen", according to her Kennedy Center biography.[20] Because the U.S. Army refused to allow integrated audiences, she staged her show for a mixed audience of black U.S. soldiers and white German POWs. Seeing the black soldiers had been forced to sit in the back seats, she walked off the stage to the first row where the black troops were seated and performed with the Germans behind her. After quitting the USO in 1945 because of the organization's policy of segregating audiences, Horne financed tours of military camps herself.[21]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lena_Horne