ROOT AND BRANCH, EXCERPT

"Scathing though it was, the racism Lieutenant [Charles Hamilton] Houston thus far had encountered in the army was mostly institutional. The military was a bigoted organization and operated in a bigoted fashion. African American enlisted soldiers and sailors were confined to subservient labor; they cooked, they cleaned, they dug ditches and moved heavy objects, all the while subjected to discipline of a severity unfamiliar to white men of similar rank. As a commissioned officer, Houston expected to escape the ardor of domestic labor and brute toil, and, for the most part , he did. The first lieutenant was not ordered to scrub latrines or subjected to the whims of any given white sergeant. "He was, however , governed by a War Department reluctant to place any tool save a shovel, spatula or mop in the hands of a black soldier. His charge was to lead men into battles from which their return was not promised, but his orders continually isolated him from both command and conflict . As he boarded the ship that at last would ferry him across the ocean and into war, Houston hoped that the awaiting fates of a distant shore would 'answer the question what it meant for a Negro to wear the uniform of the United States.' "After the 'grand vacation' of a voyage across the Atlantic, Houston 's contingent landed in France at Saint-Nazaire and soon traveled to Camp Mencou, in the hamlet of Vannes. The ninety-seven African American field artillery soldiers were the only black serviceman at the camp; indeed, they were the only black people for many miles surrounding the town. The townspeople, however, greeted the African-appearing American soldiers as warmly as they did all arrivals decked in American fatigues . "The citizens ' welcome contrasted sharply with the reception the soldiers received from the men of Camp Mencou. Years later when Houston first ventured into the American Deep South, it was but a return visit , because the Deep South's racist culture was on full display at Camp Mencou. Jim Crow ruled the base; officers and soldiers alike were classified neither by rank nor character , but by race alone. By now he was beginning to suspect that he might never see combat, but, as he later declared, life at Camp Mencou 'destroyed the last vestiges of any desire I might have had to get in the front lines and battle for my country.' "As night shrouded their first day at the camp, Lieutenant Houston and his fellow officers followed the line to the officers' mess for dinner. They were refused at the door, ordered to turn back. The officers' insignia stitched on their uniforms might mean something to the desk warmers at the War Department and might make their high yellow girlfriends swoon and their mamas proud, but here at Camp Mencou there was order to keep. The officers' mess was for white officers." P.42-43, "No Tea for the Feeble," ROOT AND BRANCH:CHARLES HAMILTON HOUSTON, THURGOOD MARSHALL, AND THE STRUGGLE TO END SEGREGATION (2010) by Rawn James, Jr.