Black Sailor White Navy Summary

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Black Sailor, White Navy examines racial unrest that occurred in the U.S. Navy during the early 1970s. The early 1970s was a very stressful time for the U.S. Navy. On top of the Vietnam War, social unrest in the United States started to affect the Navy as a whole more significantly. To make matter worse Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Elmo Zumwalt Jr. had implanted some controversial personnel reforms in order to provide better opportunities for African Americans serving. Zumwalt was only one of a few high ranked officials to believe that the Navy had a problem with institutional racism. However, Zumwalt originally put the reforms in order to have more appeal to African Americans in order to recruit. Nevertheless, the reforms would later cause the racial unrest to boil over.
John Darrell explores the extent of racial unrest that occurred through official records from the Navy along with interviews with Vietnam veterans and other military personnel. Darrell is able to provide detailed information on service during one of …show more content…
Darrell displayed instances of African Americans receiving harsh treatment while serving in the Navy. Not many high-ranking officials in the military were African Americans. This allowed many injustices to occur that were rightly unfair. In addition to fighting the Vietnam War, internal strife was occurring among the soldiers as time went on due to racial unrest. The resulting tension between white soldiers and African American soldiers was high which resulted in some retaliations. Darrell presents several instances where higher-ranked officials either ignored racism as a cause of incidents or just blamed it on a different reason. The higher ranked officials did not see it as institutional racism. Black Sailor, White Navy shows just how complex the racial problems that occurred in what would be the Navy’s darkest

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