The Forgotten First: B-1 and the Integration of the Modern Navy

The Forgotten First: B-1 and the Integration of the Modern Navy
awards:
Winner of a 2014 Willie Parker Peace History Book Award from NC Society of Historians
Finalist for 2014 Montaigne Medal
Silver Medal for “Best Interior Design” from Independent Book Publishers Association

“thoroughly researched and beautifully written. . .”
–Stephen E. Smith in O.Henry magazine

“the detail and clean prose make for an engaging read. . .”
–Jeff Sykes in Yes! Weekly

Steven Case, in the North Carolina Libraries Association Online, writes that the The Forgotten First “provides a detailed and fascinating portrait of the pressures for change brought to bear by respected opinion makers, such as James Shepard, C.C. Spaulding, and Frank Porter Graham, who each sought in varying ways to use the crisis of the war as an avenue for social change.” The author “skillfully pilots the reader through an intimate portrait of the band members as they negotiated their way through the complexities in service to a military that treated them as second class citizens.” And he concludes that The Forgotten First is “highly recommended for collections focused on North Carolina, military history, and any collection on the history of race relations and integration.

‒Steven Case

Stephen E. Smith’s review in the December 2013 issue of O.Henry magazine calls The Forgotten First a “comprehensive study of the forgotten B-1 band” that “places in perspective North Carolina’s current social and legislative struggles to overcome the vestiges of racism.” The book, he notes, is “thoroughly researched and beautifully written.”

Read the rest of Smith’s review (which is also published in December issues of two other magazines, Salt, from Southern Pines, and Pinestraw, from Wilmington), and an excerpt from The Forgotten First in the online version of O.Henry.

‒Stephen E. Smith

The Forgotten First: B-1 and the Integration of the Modern Navy. By Alex Albright. (Fountain, N.C.: R. A. Fountain, 2013. Pp. 194. Paper, $20.00, ISBN 978-0-9842102-2-0.)

Scholars have increasingly stressed the wartime experience, both personal and professional, of African Americans in World War II. Texts such as Melton A. McLaurin’s The Marines of Montford Point: America’s First Black Marines (Chapel Hill, 2007) rescue African American men’s military participation from obscurity by documenting the participation and perspective of black enlistees in what had been the last all-white branch of the U.S. military to integrate. Alex Albright’s The Forgotten First: B-l and the Integration of the Modern Navy is a commendable addition to this historical trend. Using oral interviews, Albright documents the rise of B-l, one of the navy’s two all-black pre-flight training school bands, and the experiences of the talented musicians who volunteered for service in April 1942. The dawn of the twentieth century, noted by Rayford W. Logan as the “nadir” of race relations in the country (see The Negro in American Life and Thought: The Nadir, 1877-1901 [New York, 1954]), effectively marked the “re-segregation” of naval forces (p. 25). While in the last half of the nineteenth century, blacks represented 20-30 percent of navy enlistees, “[b]y 1920, blacks accounted for less than 1/2 of 1 [percent] of the total Navy force” (p. 25). Twenty years later, 4,007 blacks made up 2.3 percent of the navy, of which the majority were “messmen and steward’s mates” or ‘”seagoing bellhops,'” according to the black press (p. 29). Into this racial milieu was bom B-l.

Focusing on the navy’s eastern regional training school, located on the campus of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), Albright deftly mediates the national, state, and regional racial and sociopolitical landscapes that framed the lives of bandsmen. The U.S. Navy B-l Band, composed of forty-eight men, was organized at North Carolina Agricultural and Mechanical College (now University). These African Americans were the first band members to serve in the navy not as “seagoing bellhops” but as “‘the best, most talented musicians in North Carolina'” (p. 13). This particular achievement, in large part, is credited to the type of men recruited for B-1. They tended to be young, smart men “in college or about to enroll” (p. 49). The men’s marching band experience reflected their ability to take orders, a critical skill to marshal in an environment that publicly endorsed the maintenance of separate-butequal doctrine. The B-l men were transported to Norfolk, Virginia, for training before their deployment to UNC, where they were housed in a recreation center outside the Carolina campus. B-l members withstood racial epithets from drill sergeants and other naval officials but also gained experience performing for bond rallies in what would become their chief wartime role. In Chapel Hill, B-l’s presence on the UNC campus provided a boost in morale for the local black community while also demonstrating the potential for racial change. For example, bassist Charles Woods was the only African American in an integrated jive quartet that included Bill Maxted, formerly of Benny Goodman’s orchestra. The B-l in 1944 shipped out to Hawaii to be stationed at Manana. The Manana Meteors, a swing band that formed out of B-l, became immensely popular on the island. Like in Norfolk, the men were subjected to racism in Hawaii, but they never sought violent retaliation. Albright’s work is a fitting testament to B-l’s service and legacy.

–Hornsby-Gutting, Angela. The Journal of Southern History; Athens Vol. 81, Iss. 2,  (May 2015): 505-506.

AuthorAffiliation: Missouri State University 

‒Angela Hornsby-Gutting