Black soldiers were awarded Medals of Honor in the Civil War, charged German trenches in World War I and later fought the Nazis, but they were still serving in a segregated military.

On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, which declared that “there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.” Officially, the United States’ armed services were desegregated.

But in the early 1960s, the military was still rife with discrimination, particularly off base.

The change came slowly, according to Douglas Bristol, a fellow of the Dale Center for the Study of War and Society and a history professor at the University of Southern Mississippi. “This is a very gradual thing,” Professor Bristol said. “Most bases are in the South. You can train year round. The congressmen there get re-elected forever, so they have tremendous clout. And in the South, segregation is the law.”

With such issues in mind, President John F. Kennedy convened the President’s Committee on Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces, known as the Gesell Committee . The panel of civil rights leaders and lawyers met officially only seven times. The rest of the time, they operated in a “shirt sleeve,” nose-to-the-grindstone manner, out of a small office near the White House, aided by four staff members who brought them reams of data on integration in the armed forces.