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“The Most Progressive and Forward Looking Race Relations Experiment in Existence”: Race “Militancy”, Whiteness, and DRRI in the Early 1970s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 November 2014

SAY BURGIN
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Abstract

At the end of the 1960s, the United States military was rocked by race-related violence and riots. Growing fears of black “militancy” eventually compelled the military's largely white leadership to implement policies aimed at ameliorating racial disparities. One of the most significant changes was the establishment of the Defense Race Relations Institute (DRRI) and the requirement that all troops partake in race relations education. Largely overlooked in histories of military race relations and rarely viewed in terms of its place in the larger landscape of US race relations, DRRI was founded to train the military's race relations educators. Its original curriculum and methodology, during the years 1971–74, represented a radical response to the problems of racism in the military, and central to its framework was a critique of whiteness as a nexus of racialized power. This paper attempts to present a complex understanding of the motivations involved in the founding of the DRRI as it historicizes the military's quest to contain race “militancy” through the establishment of DRRI.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , August 2015 , pp. 557 - 574
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2014 

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References

1 House Committee on Armed Forces, “Inquiry into the Disturbances at Marine Corps Base, Camp Lejeune, N. C., on July 20, 1969,” 15 Dec. 1969, 91st Congress, 1st Session. Westheider, James E., Fighting on Two Fronts: African Americans and the Vietnam War (New York: New York University Press, 1997), 94–95Google Scholar.

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6 Quoted in David Llorens, “Why Negroes Re-enlist,” Ebony, Aug. 1968, 87–88, 90, 92. Nordlie, Peter G. et al. , Improving Race Relations in the Army: Handbook for Leaders (McLean: Human Sciences Research, Inc., 1972), 15, 37–39Google Scholar; Day, 243.

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11 Westheider, 111–13. On the violence and discrimination endured by Asian American, Native American and Latino troops see Loo, Chalsa M., “Race-Related PTSD: The Asian American Vietnam Veteran,” Journal of Traumatic Stress, 7, 4 (1994), 637–56CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Holm, Tom, Strong Hearts, Wounded Souls: Native American Veterans of the Vietnam War (Austin: University of Texas, 1996)Google Scholar; Ruef, Anne Marie, Litz, Brett T. and Schlenger, William E., “Hispanic Ethnicity and Risk for Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,” Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 6, 3 (2000), 235–51CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

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13 See, for instance, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, Department of the Army, An Assessment of Racial Tension in the Army (Department of the Army, 1969); “Newer Negro Marines Are Looking for Identity with Blackness,” New York Times special, 21 Dec. 1969, 44.

14 “Inquiry into the Disturbances at Marine Corps Base, Camp Lejeune.”

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid., added emphasis.

17 S&S Washington Bureau, “Race Relations Instruction to Begin Soon,” Pacific Stars & Stripes (hereafter S&S), 12 Jan. 1970, 7.

18 Westheider, 108. See also, Hope, Racial Strife, 108–11, 130–31; Kimbrough, Natalie, Equality or Discrimination? African Americans in the U.S. Military during the Vietnam War (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2007), 10Google Scholar.

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23 Day, “Race Relations Training,” 244–46, 255–56. By 1970, all major posts in the US had hosted race relations seminars. Even before the military was officially integrated, “informal discussion groups” between black and white troops were implemented during the 1940s in order to “improve relations.” See Race Relations Conference, 2; and Hope, 27, 41.

24 Hope, 44. “About DEOMI,” DEOMI (2009), at www.deomi.org/AboutDEOMI/AboutDEOMIIndex.cfm, accessed 10 Aug 2009.

25 “Inquiry into the Disturbances at Marine Corps Base, Camp Lejeune,” italics in original.

26 Quoted in Hope, 5.

27 Bill Craig, “‘All Left with Better Feelings,’ Captain Says,” S&S, 9 Feb. 1972, 10.

28 Eric Sharp, “Race Seminars,” S&S, 20 Nov. 1972, 8–9, 8.

29 Jon Nordheimer, “Curbing of Racial Tensions Is Aim of New Defense Institute,” S&S, 14 March 1972, 9.

30 Hope, 45.

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35 Quote from Hope, 9. General Officer Race Relations, 22–64; Hope, 56.

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39 Terry, 17.

40 Terry, 17–20.

41 General Officer Race Relations, 118–30; see esp. 140–42 on exercises in cultural racism.

42 Ibid.,122, 165.

43 Ibid., 166.

44 Ibid., 144.

45 “Race Relations School Is Launched at Oberammergau,” Stars and Stripes, 12 Sept. 1972, 9.

46 Ibid.

47 “Bias in Military Stirs Top Black Officers,” Jet, 4 Sept. 1969, 3.

48 Sharp, “Race Seminars,” 8–9.

49 Hope, Racial Strife, 60–74 (60).

50 Sharp, 8–9.

51 J. King Cruger, “17 Graduated by Racial Seminar,” S&S, 24 June 1972, 9.

52 Bob Hoyer, “Blacks and Whites Debate Tensions,” S&S, 1 Dec. 1972, 9.

53 Day, “Race Relations Training,” 254.

54 Hope, 86–87.

55 Nordheimer, “Curbing of Racial Tensions,” 9.

56 Hope, 52.

57 Ibid.

58 Marc Huet, “House Panel Criticizes DoD Race Relations Training,” S&S, 1 Dec. 1973, 10.

59 Hope, 58.

60 Day, 254–56, 263.

61 Hampton, Black Officer Corps, 123.

62 “Inquiry into the Disturbances at Marine Corps Base, Camp Lejeune.”

63 Say Burgin, “Locating Douglass Fitch: The Roots of Colour and Activist Traditions of United States Critical Whiteness Studies,” ACRAWSA E-Journal, 9, 1 (2013), at www.acrawsa.org.au/files/ejournalfiles/197Burgin20131.pdf.

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