Reply #14: "You can be Black, and Navy too."

[DulceDecorum]

During the early 1970s, the Navy Recruiting Command issued several posters that featured African-American themes and individuals, as well as others that showed racially integrated Navy activities. This page presents copies of relevant posters that are in the Naval Historical Center's collections.




http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/prs-tpic/af-amer/afa-pstr.htm

Racial Incidents Onboard USS Kitty Hawk (CVA-63) and USS Constellation (CVA-64) in 1972.
15. The Navy's recruitment program for most of 1972 which resulted in the lowering of standards for enlistment, accepting a greater percentage of mental category IV and those in the lower half of category III, not requiring recruits in these categories to have completed their high school education, and accepting these people without sufficient analysis of their previous offense records, has created many of the problems the Navy is experiencing today.
16. The reduction of time in recruit training from 9 to 7 weeks, thus sending those personnel who do not qualify for advanced training in "A" schools from the street to the fleet in less than two months, appears to result in inadequate preparation for shipboard duty.
17. The investigation disclosed an alarming frequency of successful acts of sabotage
and apparent sabotage on a wide variety of ships and stations within the Navy.
http://www.history.navy.mil/library/special/racial_incidents.htm