Quotes by James Williams

And when I went to Yale, the only segregation was in housing. I was in the W's, so the only black in my squadron was me; the rest were whites. I also want to mention that I was one of the 101 that they arrested in 1945 - when we refused to sign a statement that we would not go into a white officers' club, the tennis courts, and swimming pool.

At Boca Raton, when I got down there, they didn't segregate us - until they saw some other blacks - then they put the blacks in the rooms together.

At that time, I knew that there were no blacks in the Marine Corps; and the only thing a black did in the Navy - he was a mess attendant.

I was one of 101 black officers arrested. And this was April 12th of 1945; they charged us with the 69th article of war - which is treason during wartime. Actually, what we did helped to get Colonel Davis back to command the group - the composite group here in the states. And also helped integrate the Air Force and the rest of the Armed Forces.

They trained 26 black cadets there. And I think of about, close to 15,000 cadets trained at Yale; but 26 of them were black.

Well, about five years ago, when I was invited to the Pentagon, they were still saying that, only 1.5% of the male pilots in the Air Force were black - and they still had a problem with some of the instructors saying blacks were not qualified to fly - blacks didn't have enough brains to fly. I mean, that was existing five years ago.