March 10, 1944

The Private Papers of a Cub Reporter

From Miami Beach: At the graduation exercises of Officers Candidate school one of the brand-new lieutenants was a Negro. Which meant he had to be good because while they are fair there a colored boy doesn’t exactly have a bed of roses.

As you know, it is the custom for the girlfriends of the new lieutenants to pin their bars on. But there were, here in the very deep South, no colored girls sitting in the grandstand. So at the Big Moment the girls all rushed out and decorated the shoulders of the new officers. And the colored boy stood there in a little pool of silence and loneliness. After a long instant, however, a little Army nurse dashed out, pinned on his shining bars, smiled sweetly at him and returned to the stand. The colored boy’s big smile was a thing to see! Isn’t this democracy at its most spontaneous best?

From the St. Petersburg Times.