Densho Digital Archive - Charles Z. Smith Interview (denshovh-scharles-01-0010)

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TI: While you were in the military -- so this is '45, '46 -- what did you observe in terms of how the army treated people of color, soldiers of color during this period?

CS: Well, in the early days, it was a totally segregated military system. I was at Camp Lee, which is now Fort Lee in Virginia, and we had a colored section and white section. So all the black troops were in the colored section. The Puerto Ricans were in the colored section. If there were any Asians of Filipino ancestry, for example, they would be in the colored section, but at Camp Lee, Virginia, we had no other Asians. I don't even remember seeing any Filipinos. And in the white section, they had German prisoners of war and Italian prisoners of war, who were treated as whites.

TI: Although they were -- I'm sorry -- they were prisoners of war?

CS: Prisoners of war.

TI: And they were in the white section.

CS: Right.

TI: Okay, go ahead.

CS: And treated just like white soldiers were treated. They ate in the mess halls with the whites, they drilled with the whites, and the Italian and German prisoners of war were treated better than the blacks were treated, because the blacks were in the segregated black units. When I, in 1945 at Camp Lee, Virginia, I can recall seeing only two black officers. All the officers who headed companies and battalions were white. And we had one black captain who was temporarily assigned there, and one black second lieutenant who was temporarily assigned. But in 1945 -- and I was in the quartermaster corps -- and in 1945 there were very few officers of color. And if they had them, they weren't assigned to Camp Lee, Virginia. And, but it was while I was in the army that President Truman came up with the executive order to desegregate the armed forces. And that desegregation process was underway when I left the army in (...) November of 1956. And the Truman executive order was sometime around October. And the armed forces were beginning to desegregate. They were beginning to house blacks with whites.