On this Day in 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed executive order 9981, which desegregated the U.S. military
General Colin Powell, speaking on the 50th anniversary of the executive order, remarked on the measure: “The military was the only institution in all of America—because of Harry Truman—where a young Black kid, now 21 years old, could dream the dream he dared not think about at age 11. It was the one place where […]