This film is about more than segregation in the Army (1944), and certainly about more than either prejudice, but also the fact that some African-Americans had (and still have) a problem with bringing their own race into line. It is a story about authority, both misused, as well as misunderstood. Of course, at the surface, this is a "whodunit". Who shot Sergeant Waters. It is also a "whydunit". Why was he shot, and is there any sort of justification for it? More than that, the white superior officers and the white townsfolk resent having "Negroes" in their part of the country, and, to some degree, even eligible to fight and die for their country.
It is, of course, a known fact that segregation existed in the Army. To some degree, it still does. Japanese-Americans had their own army units. The Navy had Filipinos who did nothing but be mess stewards on board. Yet, in this instance, it is interesting that the Army sent a black officer, a black lawyer, rather than someone white. Why? Underneath, the idea was to show the black "grunts" that blacks could rise to become professionals, as well as officer material. What makes this such a multi-level film is that one can bring one's own prejudices to the meaning: minorities do not respond well to authority put in the hands of their own. Or, those in charge want to make those under them work harder to prove that authority can work. And, the point of the film is also the suspicion the ordinary minority recruit (black in this case) has about anyone of their own race who is put into positions of power.
One certainly is, as the white colonel said, in this part of the country, white people aren't overly concerned with the death of a Negro. The fact that white pencil pushers in Washington dispatched a black captain to look into the murder doesn't sit well with this Southern colonel who, so he said "has commanded Negro
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