Speakers discuss integration history

By Mr. Robert Timmons (IMCOM)February 15, 2017

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1 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Dr. Andrew Myers, author of Black, White and Olive Drab watches as Dr.
Galen Grant, Fort Jackson's first female drill sergeant of the year answers
questions during the post's penultimate event in the Centennial Lecture
Series Feb. 10 at the NCO Club.... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army)
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2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Dr. Galen Grant, left, and Dr. Andrew Myers, right, listen as attendees
at Fort Jackson's Centennial Lecture Series ask them questions about racial
and gender integration to Basic Combat Training. Myers spoke about racial
integration at Fort Jackson,... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army)
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Throughout Fort Jackson's 100-year history there have been a series of events that have transformed the post into the premier training installation in the Army. Included in these is the desegregation of basic training and the integration of female Soldiers into basic training platoons.

At Fort Jackson's penultimate lecture in its centennial series Feb. 10, attendees learned how the post "mixed it up" from author and scholar Dr. Andrew Myers, and the installation's first female drill sergeant of the year, Dr. Galen Grant.

Since 1917, African-Americans and women have served in various capacities on Fort Jackson but it wasn't until after President Harry Truman ended military segregation with Executive Order No. 9981 that all races trained and served together.

Myers, author of the book Black, White and Olive Drab, said integrated training didn't start immediately. It was the massive influx of trainees to Fort Jackson during the Korean War that forced the integration to step up.

He wrote in his book about the racial integration of Fort Jackson that "the inability to provide basic training for these nearly 10,000 black Soldiers was the crucial factor in deciding to mix the races."

Commanders at all levels helped propel integration in Fort Jackson.

"Leadership from the top helped make integration at Fort Jackson possible, but it would not have been successful without leadership at the lower echelons as well," he said.

The effort to integrate men and women into basic training companies began in 1976 it wasn't until 1994 that the total integration of Army training was made permanent.

Grant had a front row seat to the integration of women into the Army. Her first duty station was at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point the year female cadets were first accepted. She also spent two tours as a drill sergeant at Fort Jackson.

She saw how the female cadets were treated with open hostility by faculty, peers and the public but kept soldiering on.

"Although I had other rewarding assignments, I had none that I valued or cherished as much or that I felt more challenged by" my time as a drill sergeant, Grant said of her time on the trail. In 1983 she was named Fort Jackson's Drill Sergeant of the Year.

Grant credited some of her success to her mentor, "a man who believed women should serve."

"He taught me how to be an effective leader, a great leader, without having to be punitive, aggressive or obnoxious," she said. "He told me, 'Soldiers would only be as good as you were. And we owe them being great.'"

The final lecture in the series titled, "Looking to the future" will be held at 3 p.m. June 1 at Fort Jackson's NCO Club.