In the Oval Office on Sept. 27, 1940, A. Philip Randolph, a Black labor leader and president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, made the case for what would now be called the "inclusion" part of diversity, equity and inclusion, in the military: "Mr. President, it would mean a great deal to the morale of the Negro people if you could make some announcement on the roles the Negroes will play in the armed forces of the nation."
Roosevelt tried to interject, apparently to note that only 11 days earlier he had signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 that established a draft for all Americans, but Randolph continued: A speech or an announcement by Roosevelt on desegregation of the military "would have tremendous effect" because discrimination in the ranks "is the irritating spot among the Negro people."
"They feel that they -- they're not wanted in the various armed forces of the country, and they feel they have earned the right to participate in every phase of the government by virtue of their record in past wars for the nation. And they're feeling that they're being shunted aside, that they're being discriminated against, and that they're not wanted now," said Randolph, who would become a main figure in the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. would make his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech.
Also present at the Oval Office meeting was Walter Francis White, then head of the NAACP. White backed up Randolph on desegregation and told Roosevelt that, at least in the Northern states, "Negroes and whites go to school together, they play on the same athletic fields. And yet, when it comes to the Army, fighting for democracy, they say, 'Well, Negroes are not good enough. They've got to be shunted aside.'"
Roosevelt told White that his arguments had merit and added that he would be approving Black troops for non-combat service but desegregation would take more time: "Well, you see, Walter, my general thought on it is this -- it's a thing that we've got to work into," FDR said.
At the Oval Office meeting with the civil rights leaders, Navy Secretary Frank Knox told Roosevelt that desegregating the Navy would risk violence between whites and Blacks.
"You have a factor in the Navy, which is not present in the Army, and that is that these men live aboard ships," Knox said. The problem was to find "a way to permit the Negro to serve the Navy without raising the question of conflict between white men and Black men together living in the same ship."