Integrating the Navy with Jazz:
The Great Lakes Experience, 1942-1945

The US military is often held up as a vanguard of racial equality and opportunity, but before 1948 segregation was the rule. Although President Truman ordered formal integration, his predecessor Franklin Roosevelt opened the door in 1942 -- by suggesting that the Navy create black bands to elevate the status of black Navy men.

Two recent articles shined some light on this largely unknown chapter of military -- and musical -- history. On April 9, 2003, the New York Times featured Von Freeman, still going strong at 80 and one of the 5,000 black musicians who took part in the "Great Lakes Experience," as the experiment was known.

Freeman grew up on the South Side of Chicago and was drafted into World War II. A high school graduate, he arrived at boot camp with a letter of recommendation from his band instructor and was sent to the Great Lakes training station in nearby Waukegan. There he became a member of one of the many 25-piece bands the Navy sent to entertain at their bases all over the US.

Freeman still lives on the South Side, and he still performs his tenor sax on Tuesday nights at the New Apartment Lounge. He recalls his Navy years as "a tearful experience," but also a "cheerful experience… We endured because we knew we were part of a movement. We felt like it was something that had to be done."

A fellow alumnus of the Great Lakes Experience is the great jazz trumpeter Clark Terry, who recalls that "There was a white Navy and a black Navy... We were literally the forerunners to Rosa Parks."

In March, 22 of the program's surviving alumni gathered for a reunion and concert. A March 13, 2003 release from the Great Lakes Naval Training Center described it as "a tribute to the Navy's first black musicians" as part of Black History Month. "What a great way to celebrate our Navy and our nation," said Rear Adm. Ann Rondeau, commander Naval Service Training Command, who presented Navy ballcaps to the honored guests. "These are great artists who all began like us -- as Sailors," she said. "Thanks for what you have done for our country."

"It was great playing with this band," said Clark Terry, who has worked with jazz greats Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Oscar Peterson and Dizzy Gillespie. Serving as a Navy musician was an opportunity, Terry noted. "Instead of coming in as cooks, we could come in as yeoman and other ratings. It was all open."

Read more about the Great Lakes Experience as compiled by the Center for Black Music Research

Read the complete March 13, 2003 story from the public affairs office of the Naval Training Center - Great Lakes.

Read the April 9, 2003 New York Times article [fee required]