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[[image - black & white photograph of a Navy recruiter explaining a document to William Baldwin]] 
[[caption]] WILLIAM BALDWIN, FIRST NEGRO TO BE INDUCTED IN THE NAVY UNDER THE NEW ENLISTMENT PROGRAM [[caption/]]

[[image - black & white photograph of a Admiral Nimitz pinning the Navy Cross on Dorie Miller]]
[[Caption]] ADMIRAL C. W. NIMITZ DECORATING DORIE MILLER, HERO OF PEARL HARBOR, WITH THE NAVY CROSS [[Caption/]]

[[image - black & white photograph of a Negro member of the Coast Guard signaling with two flags]]
[[caption]] COAST GUARDSMAN FROM THE PEA ISLAND STATION NEAR NORFOLK WHICH IS MANNED ENTIRELY BY NEGROES [[caption/]]

For a number of years the United States Navy permitted the enlistment of Negroes only as mess attendants and in a few other capacities. This policy was changed on April 7, 1942, when Secretary of the Navy Knox announced that thereafter Negroes would be accepted as seamen in the Naval Reserve and given duty which included service on mine sweepers, tankers, and in shore establishments. Contingents of these seamen train at Camp Smalls, Great Lakes Naval Training Station, which is named for Captain Robert Smalls, Negro naval hero of the Civil War.
[[Bibliography]] Sources of Photographs: Acme; A.P.; Blackstone; Harris & Euing; International; N.Y. Public Library Picture Collection; P.M.; M. Smith; Time, Inc.; U.S. Army Air Corps; U.S. Army Signal Corps; U.S. Farm Security Administration: U.S. Office of War Information; U.S. Navy; Valente: Vandamm.