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#OnThisDay, 19 Oct 1944, President Roosevelt announces Black women can join WAVES – the US Navy's women's service.
Lt Harriet Pickens and Ensign Frances Wills, pictured, become the first Black women officers a couple of months later.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WorldWar2 #AmericanHistory #Histodons
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In spring 1942, the Senate Naval Affairs Committee had been against allowing women to volunteer for the US Navy at all. Its chair, Senator David I Walsh (Dem), said it would “tend to break-up American homes and would be a step backwards in the progress of civilization”.
By August 1942, the committee had been talked around and the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service was established. WAVES freed up men to go into active duty by taking up onshore posts.
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Although the 1942 legislation was silent about race, no Black women were recruited to WAVES for two years.
FDR’s Secretary to the Navy, Senator Frank Knox (R), had said that Black women would be accepted into the Navy “over my dead body”.
He died in April 1944: by December 1944 the two first Black women had taken up their commissions.
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I love it when someone says "over my dead body", then dies, and the other side says, "okay, let's go."
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