The Chicago Star

AVC raps Illinois
Guard for 'race bias'

Protesting racial segregation policies in the National Guard, the Area Council of the American Veterans Committee has urged the War Department to withhold recognition in states where the National Guard has policies of discrimination or segregation.

The AVC Council endorsed unanimously a strong resolution presented by Hugh Will, recently-elected member of AVC's National Planning Committee.

The statement placed heavy emphasis on the report of the President's Advisory Commission on Universal Military Training, which says "considers harmful the policies of the states that exclude Negroes from their National Guard units" and that "civilian components should include all segments of our population without segregation or discrimination."

AVC points out that Negroes are accepted at present for only one unit of the Illinois National Guard, the 178th Regimental Combat Team.

During the war, Negroes were trained and fought in many varying kinds of units, and those who enlist in the National Guard should be placed wherever their skills are most appropriate, the resolution states.

Addressing Governor Green and the state Adjutant General, AVC says that racial segregation policies in the Illinois National Guard are a serious failure to maintain democratic standards and are a "gratuitous insult to thousands of citizens who died in World War II without regard to race, religion or national origin."