Patterson worked to promote more black participation and promotion with in the military, specifically during the late stages of World War II. He was instrumental in creating an African-American fighter group, known now as the Tuskegee airmen.[7] While sympathetic to black grievances, aspirations, and recommendations he was concerned that radical change would impede military preparedness during war.[8] After the war the "Board for Utilization of Negro Manpower" (or Gillem Board). released a report,[9] "Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army Policy", in April 1946. that was signed off by Patterson: it recommended the retention of segregation, as that was a policy external to the military, but that the military introduce equal opportunity, as that would be the best use of military manpower. Patterson served until 1947.[1]
Later career
After declining an offer by President Truman to be reappointed to his former judgeship,[citation needed] Patterson returned to private practice in New York City from 1947 to 1952.[1] Later he became the President of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and the President of the Council on Foreign Relations.[10] Governor Thomas E. Dewey appointed Patterson along with New York City’s construction coordinator Robert Moses and former Justice Charles C. Lockwood as a member of the Temporary Long Island Railroad Commission, installed after the Richmond Hill train crash on November 22, 1950, that claimed 79 lives.[11] The Commission recommended the state purchase and operation by non-profit public authority of the railway service.[12]
Personal life
On January 3, 1920, Patterson married Margaret Tarleton Winchester (1897–1988); they had four children: Robert P. Patterson, Jr., Aileen W. Patterson, Susan H. Patterson and Virginia D. Patterson.[citation needed]Robert P. Patterson Jr. was a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, until his death in 2015.[13]
In 2012, the University of Tennessee Press published The World War I Memoirs of Robert P. Patterson: A Captain in the Great War, edited by J. Garry Clifford.[citation needed]
In 2014, the University of Tennessee Press published his previously unpublished 1947 memoir Arming the Nation for War, with a foreword by Robert M. Morgenthau, former Manhattan district attorney, and edited by Brian Waddell, associate professor at the University of Connecticut.[citation needed]
The World War I Memoirs of Robert P. Patterson: A Captain in the Great War (2012)
Arming the Nation for War: Mobilization, Supply, and the American War Effort in World War II (2014)
Legacy
In 1953, Union College named liberal arts scholarships in the memory of Patterson.[15] An army reserve building on the Bronx campus of New York University was named after Patterson in 1953.[16]
^Herman, Arthur. Fredom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II, pp. 157, 161, 165–166, 175, 236, 238–239, 284–285, 288, Random House, New York, 2012. ISBN978-1-4000-6964-4.
^Marbury, Jr., William L. (1981). "The Hiss-Chambers Libel Suit". Maryland Historical Magazine. 76 (1): 74 (Georgetown), 76 (UN job). Retrieved 23 November 2016.
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