It stayed that way until December 1944, when the government ordered the plant to fully integrate. After the protest, the plant announced that it would hire blacks to run one of the production lines, keeping black and white production workers segregated.
One week earlier, the plant had laid off 148 blacks after their work as landscapers was completed. The plant employed blacks for janitorial and other support jobs. Some of the 300 black protesters who marched along Goodfellow Boulevard in front of the Ordnance Plant on June 20, 1942, seeking better-paying production jobs.