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.
I posted this 5 months ago here, and figured it should be boosted.
This article was published in The Pittsburgh Courier (pic) and in The New York Age (image in post), both can be found on newspapers.com. Both papers were owned and operated by black Americans.
This is the Navy official that attempted to justify the practice. This is the naval yard where the badges were reported.
An update on the FOIA request I submitted: someone did respond that they were going to look into a voluminous collection of papers related to Bard, but COVID-19 has thrown a wrench in normal operations and such on-site work is unlikely to get completed any time soon. As of yet, no progress has been made.