On July 26th, 1948, President Harry Truman signed an Executive Order, the integrated the US Military.
He officially declared “there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.” This order desegregated the United States military.
While it marked a changing moment in our history it wasn't completely embraced at the time. A 1948 poll showed that only about 26 percent of the American people supported Truman’s decision and he was loudly criticized for using our armed services as a “social experiment.”
In Wichita Wednesday a special ceremony at Wichita State University marked the occasion.
NAACP Chairman of Military and Veterans Affairs, Harry Willis says the executive order signed seventy five years ago was specifically for the military, it changed all aspects of life in America.
The Air Force was the first branch to fully integrate their ranks. And to mark the anniversary, they accepted a PT-17 aircraft to induct into the National Museum of the United States Air Force.
The PT-17 was the primary training aircraft for the Tuskegee Airmen.
Only two of them still exist with both telling the story of the first all- black unit.