Fahy, Charles Papers

Chairman, President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 1949-1950

The papers of Charles Fahy consist of correspondence, minutes of meetings, printed materials, drafts of reports, press releases, and other documents relating to his service as chairman of the committee established by President Truman to help bring about "equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin."

Size: 2.4 linear feet (about 4,800 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: No donation of copyright was received with this collection. Documents created by employees of the U.S. Government in the course of their official duties are in the public domain. Copyright interest in other documents in the collection presumably belongs to the creators of those documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: C. W. Ohrvall (1971); Randy Sowell (2024).

Charles Fahy was born in Rome, Georgia on August 27, 1892. After graduating from the University of Notre Dame and Georgetown University Law School, he practiced law in Washington, D.C. and Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was awarded the Navy Cross for his service as an aviator during World War I. Fahy returned to Washington in 1933 and held several posts in the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He served as Solicitor General of the United States from 1941 to 1945. Fahy returned to government service in 1948 when President Harry S. Truman appointed him chairman of the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. The Committee’s report, Freedom to Serve, was published in 1950. President Truman appointed Fahy to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1949. He served as a judge and senior judge of the court until his death in Washington on September 17, 1979.

The papers of Charles Fahy consist of correspondence, minutes of meetings, printed materials, drafts of reports, press releases, and other documents relating to his service as chairman of the committee established by President Truman to help bring about "equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin."

The President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services was created by Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948. Its purpose was to investigate the policies of the armed forces and make recommendations aimed at bringing an end to racial segregation and discrimination in the military. Fahy’s papers include information about such issues as the morale of military personnel, the elimination of racial quotas, and the establishment of standards that would apply to all members of the armed services, regardless of race. The papers also include information about the Committee’s staff and procedures.

Much of the correspondence in the collection is between Fahy and the Committee’s executive secretary, E. W. Kenworthy. There is also correspondence with the other six members of the Committee, President Truman and members of the White House staff, the Secretary of Defense and other Defense Department officials, and high-ranking officers of the armed forces.

The collection includes minutes of meetings held by the Committee between January and April of 1949; drafts of the Committee’s final report, To Secure These Rights; reports by the executive secretary on his visits to military installations; statements made to the Committee; and information concerning the Gillem Board, which issued a report during World War II recommending the continuation of the Army’s policy of racial segregation. A “Documents File” contains mimeographed copies of important correspondence, reports, and press releases relating to the Committee’s work. The printed materials include newspaper and magazine articles concerning the Committee and race relations in the armed forces.

The Truman Library also has the Records of the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment in the Armed Services (Record Group 220). Many of the records in that collection are duplicates of materials that can also be found in Fahy’s papers.