Executive Order 9981

Executive Order 9981 was an executive order issued on July 26, 1948, by President Harry S. Truman. It abolished discrimination "on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin" in the United States Armed Forces. The Order led to the re-integration of the services during the Korean War (1950–1953).^[1] It was a crucial event in the post-World War II civil rights movement and a major achievement of Truman's presidency.^[2][3]

For Truman, Executive Order 9981 was inspired, in part, by an attack on Isaac Woodard who was an American soldier and African American World War II veteran. On February 12, 1946, hours after being honorably discharged from the United States Army, he was attacked while still in uniform by South Carolina police as he was taking a bus home. The attack left Woodard completely and permanently blind. President Harry S. Truman ordered a federal investigation. Truman also established the President's Committee on Civil Rights, whose report, To Secure These Rights, condemned the state of civil rights in the nation and recommended actions to correct these failures. He then made an historic speech to the NAACP and the nation in June 1947 in which he described civil rights as a moral imperative, submitted a comprehensive civil rights bill to Congress in February 1948, and issued Executive Orders 9980 and 9981 on June 26, 1948, desegregating the armed forces and promoting anti-discrimination throughout the federal government.