Blacks in the Marine Corps

When this monograph was published almost 30 years ago, then History and Museums Director Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons wrote: "Today's generation of Marines serve in a fully integrated Corps where blacks constitute almost one-fifth of our strength. Black officers, noncommissioned officers, and privates are omnipresent, their service so normal a part of Marine life that it escapes special notice. The fact that this was not always so and that as little as 34 years ago (in 1941) there were no black Marines deserves explanation." This statement holds true for this edition of Blacks in the Marine Corps, which has already gone through several previous reprintings. What has occurred since the first edition of Blacks in the Marine Corps has been considerable scholarship and additional writing on the subject that deserve mention to a new generation of readers, both in and outside the Corps. First and foremost is Morris J. MacGregor, Jr.'s Integration of the Armed Forces 1940-1965 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981) that documents the Armed Forces efforts as part of the Defense Studies Series. The volume is an excellent history of a social topic often difficult for Service historical offices to deal with.