MASTERBAKER's African American History

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HISTORY DEPT.
The Forgotten Story of How 13 Black Men Broke the Navy’s Toughest Color Barrier
During World War II, a group of African American sailors was chosen to integrate the Naval Officer Corps, forever changing what was possible in the U.S. Navy.
Naval officers in February 1944

National Archives
By DAN GOLDBERG
05/25/2020 06:30 AM EDT
Dan Goldberg is a health care reporter for POLITICO Pro. He is the author of The Golden Thirteen: How Black Men Won the Right to Wear Navy Gold, which was released May 19.
Sam Barnes racked his brain one chilly morning in January 1944, wondering what he might have done wrong. Barnes, a popular African American petty officer working at Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois, had been in the Navy for 15 months and had never been disciplined. Why, he wondered, was he being ordered to the white side of the segregated station, a command usually reserved for sailors who were in trouble?
The 28-year old Ohio native walked the mile from Camp Robert Smalls, the black-only camp at the northwest corner of the station, to the main offices and found several other black men waiting. He recognized a few faces, but most were new to him and none could say why they had been summoned.
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Commander Daniel W. Armstrong, a tall, handsome, aristocratic-looking man with an upright gait and an immaculate uniform, looked the 16 black men over. He was the white officer in charge of the black camp, a man whose willingness to work with African American enlistees earned praise from the higher-ups in Washington.

“Do you know why you are here?” he asked.
Silence.
“Well, the Navy has decided to commission Negroes as officers in the United States Navy, and you have been selected to attend an officer indoctrination school,” Armstrong went on, as Barnes later recalled in an oral history edited by Paul Stillwell, a retired Navy officer, historian and author.
Sam Barnes

Sam Barnes | National Archives
The statement was matter-of-fact, unemotional. Armstrong did not congratulate; he did not encourage; he made no comment about historical significance. And yet his simple sentence marked one of the most radical decisions the Navy had ever made. Officer positions in the U.S. Navy had previously been off limits to black men, and these 16 enlistees had been summoned from training schools and shore installations across the United States to break that color barrier. They were going to attempt to integrate the officer corps.

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For the 16 men, the stakes could not have been higher. There were nearly 100,000 black men in the Navy. If any of them were ever to wear an officer’s uniform, if any were ever to command a ship or graduate from the Naval Academy, if any were ever to lead white men in battle, then these 16 would have to succeed. These men, who before the war had been metalsmiths, teachers, lawyers and college students—the children and grandchildren of slaves who had seen a family member lynched and been denied jobs because of their skin color—would have to prove that black men had the temperament for command and the leadership qualities necessary to wear the gold stripes.
The story of the Navy’s first black officers—told in full for the first time in my book The Golden Thirteen: How Black Men Won the Right to Wear Navy Gold, drawing from Stillwell’s oral histories, original interviews, archival records and news clippings—remains little known, overshadowed by the heroics of the Tuskegee Airmen and Patton’s Panthers. But their success, both as candidates and as officers, forever changed what was possible for African American sailors and anticipated the coming civil rights movement. Americans may have fought against racism abroad during World War II, but one of the most consequential battles in the war for equality took place 35 miles north of Chicago, in a Spartan barracks that held 16 cots, 16 chairs and one long table.
The decision to train black Naval officers was the culmination of a four-year campaign that began alongside the country’s preparations for war. When President Franklin Roosevelt in 1940 called upon the U.S. to become an “arsenal of democracy” and defend democratic ideals, he was referring to guns, ships and planes. Civil rights leaders and activists heard a call for something less tangible but no less critical: equality. From 1940 to 1944, thousands of Americans marched and protested, wrote letters and signed petitions, beseeching their congressmen and begging the president to let black men serve equally in the U.S. Navy. How could the United States preach and defend equality around the globe, they asked, and yet discriminate so outrageously in its own Navy? Even America’s war enemies, the Japanese, claimed that the so-called freedoms America espoused were for white men only.
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Racism existed throughout the armed services at the time, but the Navy, whose leaders feared mixing races in the close quarters aboard ship could disrupt cohesion and damage morale, was especially hostile to people of color. The first black Army officer graduated West Point in 1877, and by World War II, the Army already had a black general. The Navy, on the other hand, had suspended enlistment of blacks altogether from 1919 to 1933, and at the start of World War II, still denied black men entry into the general service, refusing to train them as electricians or machinists and insisting they work as messmen, where they were limited to serving meals and shining shoes. When civil rights leaders demanded fairer treatment they were confronted with an intransigent bureaucracy that was far more concerned with efficiency than with equality, by a Navy secretary who was certain that integration would bring disaster and by admirals who were adamant that worthy black men could not be found in the whole of the United States.

New recruits receive their first lecture on Naval procedure. Chief Specialist R. W. Wsllid, in khaki, demonstrates the proper way to wear a Navy hat. 9-9-42

New recruits receive their first lecture on Naval procedure. Chief Specialist R. W. Wsllid, in khaki, demonstrates the proper way to wear a Navy hat. | National Archives
In January 1942, one month after Pearl Harbor, the Navy’s General Board, a group of admirals who advised the secretary of the Navy, met in Washington to discuss the possibility of black men training for the general service-ratings, allowing them to do more than cook meals and clean floors.
It was an idea that the NAACP, civil rights leaders and black columnists said was necessary if the United States were truly to stand on the side of democracy. And it was an idea the Navy’s top brass considered a definite step backward. Major General Thomas Holcomb, commandant of the Marine Corps, called the enlistment of black men “absolutely tragic,” and told the General Board that African Americans had every opportunity “to satisfy their aspiration to serve in the Army.” Their desire to enter the naval service, he said, was largely an effort “to break into a club that doesn’t want them.”
Just six days after the General Board released its report saying it could not comply with a request to enlist 5,000 black men into the Navy’s general service, Roosevelt, criticized in recent years by historians who believe he could have been more aggressive on civil rights, overruled his admirals and his Navy secretary. The president wrote that complete desegregation “would seriously impair the general average efficiency of the Navy” but also insisted that there were some additional tasks black men could perform in the general service without hurting cohesion aboard ships.
Over the next 18 months, thousands of black men would train as quartermasters, machinists and electricians, learning skills that would boost black employment and prosperity after the war.
But even as some barriers fell, one remained: At the end of 1943, there were still no black officers. There was also growing political pressure on the president and the Navy secretary to rectify what seemed to many a glaring blemish. Adlai Stevenson, the future two-time Democratic nominee for president, convinced Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox that the situation was untenable. Stevenson, at the time Knox’s speechwriter and confidant, told his boss, an efficiency expert, that keeping black men out of the officer corps was now unquestionably inefficient.

From right: Nathaniel O. Dyson, Richard Hubbard, and John W. Reagan, three electrician’s mates, listen as Chief Electrician’s Mate John E. Taylor explains the workings of the power system that they would be working with when serving aboard the USS Mason. Reagan would be diverted to officer candidate school shortly after this photo was taken.

From right: Nathaniel O. Dyson, Richard Hubbard, and John W. Reagan, three electrician’s mates, listen as Chief Electrician’s Mate John E. Taylor explains the workings of the power system that they would be working with when serving aboard the USS Mason. Reagan would be diverted to officer candidate school shortly after this photo was taken. | National Archives
There were 60,000 black men in the Navy, and 12,000 more were entering every month, Stevenson wrote to Knox on September 29, 1943. “Obviously, this cannot go on indefinitely without accepting some officers or trying to explain why we don’t,” Stevenson said. “I feel very emphatically that we should commission a few negroes.”

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Knox assented. Three months later, Barnes and his comrades were in Armstrong’s office, learning they were going to make history. Many of Barnes’ fellow officer trainees were cynical, not yet willing to believe the Navy would really allow black officers, even after they completed their training. But each man swore he’d give it his all anyway. “We believed there were people who hoped we’d fail,” Barnes later recalled. “We were determined to succeed in spite of the burden that was being placed on our shoulders.”
Giving black men a chance did not mean they’d be given equal treatment. Great Lakes Naval Training Station was home to an elite service school with plenty of equipment that could aid their training. But the 16 candidates saw almost none of that. They trained separately from all other sailors, drilled apart, and ate alone, living in their own barracks in the segregated section of the station, essentially under house arrest. The officer corps was ready to be integrated. Great Lakes Naval Training Station was not.
Many in this first group recalled in interviews and oral histories that their white instructors weren’t all that interested in whether the men passed, failed or learned anything at all. Some instructors, it seemed to the officer candidates, acted as if this whole exercise was a waste of time. Lt. Paul Richmond, who designed the curriculum, was particularly hard on the men, they later said. Richmond, in his own oral history, said he had no malicious intent. He wanted to make the course as tough as he could because he knew the men would be scrutinized once they graduated, and because he had so much to teach in such a short period of time. Richmond, who at age 23 was younger than all of the men taking the course, relied on his experience at the Naval Academy to build the program. Making it difficult—being gruff, callous, even indifferent—was how you molded men into officers. And, he said, if he scared them a little by telling them that they weren’t up to snuff or that they weren’t going to make it, it was only to motivate them.
Regardless of his intent, Richmond’s attitude made the group even more determined. They were going to show him and every other Richmond-like figure they’d ever met.
And so they did.
Jesse Arbor

Jesse Arbor | National Archives
The men were supposed to be in bed with the lights out at 10:30 p.m., but well past that hour, they sat together in the bathroom, flashlights in hand, studying the lessons of the past day and preparing for the day ahead. They draped sheets over the windows so no one outside would notice the light. They were intent on proving that their “selection was justified,” Barnes said, “and that we weren’t a party to tokenism.”

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Jesse Arbor, a quartermaster, taught semaphore and Morse code. He’d give a prompt, Barnes remembered, such as “a ship approaching on such-and-such side.” The men would tap it out on the wall of the restroom. If they got it wrong, they’d start again. Even their toughest instructors weren’t as demanding as they were of themselves. When the men went to class the next day there was little a teacher could do to catch them off guard.
Despite the 20-hour days, the ridicule and the racism, the 16 candidates never outwardly showed any sign of dissent. They knew that losing their temper could give credence to the pervasive belief that black men lacked the demeanor necessary for command.
Once, the officer candidates were lined up for a medical exam. “All right, you boys, strip down,” someone yelled. “Everything off. Strip down.” “Stand over there,” came another order. “Stand at attention.”
Arbor had white splotches on the skin near the top of his penis. A white pharmacist’s mate grabbed a 36-inch ruler and yelled out, “Look at this, look at this. Here’s this Negro here. Look at this man, half white and half black.” As he spoke, he rapped Arbor’s penis with the ruler, causing him to wince with each whack.
His comrades were certain a riot was about to start. This was it. This was the moment they would surely be kicked out.
“Hey, boy, where did you get this thing from?” the pharmacist’s mate asked, still whacking Arbor’s penis.
Arbor looked him directly in the eye, just the way the Navy had taught.
“Well, you see, sir, I was raised in a white neighborhood.”
Nothing more than a snicker escaped his peers’ lips, and the white men, furious that they could not get a rise out of the officer candidates, stormed off.
Their restraint was not an accident. These men had been winnowed from hundreds of potential candidates, chosen because the Navy deemed them not too extreme in their attitudes. Like Jackie Robinson, who would break baseball’s color barrier three years later, these men were chosen because they were expected to suffer these indignities quietly and gracefully.

A cargo net is used to teach recruits to climb ship ladders.

A cargo net is used to teach recruits to climb ship ladders. | National Archives
As their training drew to a close in March 1944, the group was posting grades like no other officer class in history. Their marks were so good that some in Washington did not believe they could be real. The men were forced to take some exams again. They scored even higher the second time, eventually earning a collective 3.89 out of 4.0 for the entire course.

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Toward the end of their 10-week course, when it became obvious that all of them would not only pass but pass with flying colors, the Navy said it would commission only 12 of the 16 men and a 13th would be made a warrant officer, meaning he’d be above noncommissioned men but still below ensigns, the lowest officer rank. No official explanation was given for this decision. Whatever the reason, the result was that the first black class, a group that had posted higher marks than any class before it, would have the same pass rate as an average class of white officer candidates.
The 16 men were told that three would be dropped, but not which three. Instead, men were excused to be processed into officer ranks one by one, while the others sat, nervous and dejected, waiting to see who would be cast off. Armstrong never said why three of the men were not commissioned. They simply disappeared from the group and returned to enlisted duty.
When Arbor walked into Armstrong’s office, he remembered the commander looking him over. “Now, in the event that you would be in a position where there was a colored sailor and a white sailor in a fight, whose side would you take,” Armstrong asked, according to Arbor.
“Sir, I have to wait until that occasion arises.”
Armstrong stared at Arbor. He waited.
“The first thing I would think of to do is as an officer, as has been taught to me,” Arbor continued. “It’s the only thing I could rely on. My personal judgment would not enter into the case.”
“Well, that sounds pretty good,” Armstrong said. “Now you know there are no quarters for you.” Arbor hadn’t known. Since there were no segregated officer quarters, he and the men would have to live off base. They were also denied entry into officers’ clubs.
It was the first of many times these newly commissioned black officers would learn that they may wear the same stripes as white men, but they would not be given the same privileges. In fact, their commissions came with far more warnings and admonishments than respect and plaudits.

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Combat remained out of the question. The Navy would not have black men commanding white men in battle. Instead, the first black officers were given make-work jobs—running drills, giving lectures on venereal disease and patrolling the waters off the California coast in a converted yacht. They were ignored and disrespected at every turn. Still, they knew that they must keep their heads held high. They had a responsibility to be the first, not the last. “We were the hopes and aspirations of the blacks in the Navy,” William Sylvester White recalled. “We were the forerunners. What we did or did not do determined whether the program expanded or failed.”
Two months after the first ensigns graduated, the Navy commissioned 10 more men. This second group of officers proved just as capable as the first 13.
But the Navy never promoted the achievements of those first 13 officers who had broken one of the branch’s most intractable color barriers. For three decades, they were known only as “those Negro naval officers” or, later, as “those black naval officers,” Stillwell wrote in the introduction to his oral history collection. But by the late 1970s, a decade after the civil rights movement had forever changed the status of black people in the United States, the Navy was newly proud of their accomplishment and ready to show them off. The surviving officers were feted as a symbol of racial integration, of progress, of pride, a recruiting tool to inspire a new generation.

Marva Louis, wife of heavyweight champion Joe Louis, entertained some two thousand black men in April 1944 at the Naval Training Station, Great Lakes. She is shown here with Ensign Sam Barnes and Willie Smith, musician second class, a nationally known saxophone player.

Marva Louis, wife of heavyweight champion Joe Louis, entertained some two thousand black men in April 1944 at the Naval Training Station, Great Lakes. She is shown here with Ensign Sam Barnes and Willie Smith, musician second class, a nationally known saxophone player. | National Archives
The first reunion for the surviving members of the first 13 was held in Berkeley, California, in 1977. Captain Edward Sechrest, a Vietnam veteran who was assigned to the Navy Recruiting Command, coined the term “Golden Thirteen,” a bit of ingenious PR that gave the group a catchy nickname the Navy could use to tout their achievements.

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It was during this first reunion that the Golden Thirteen first came face to face with their legacy. Most of them had never seen more than a handful of black officers in one room, but at the get-together in Berkeley, there were dozens of black faces—lieutenants, captains, even an admiral.
And they all walked over to the Golden Thirteen to pay their respects and salute these trailblazers.
“We owe it all to you,” one after the next said. “If it hadn’t been for you guys, we wouldn’t be here.”
 

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Reverend Al Sharpton

3h ·
My friend, role model, and activist extraordinaire has passed. Congressman John Lewis taught us how to be an activist. He changed the world without hate, rancor or arrogance. A rare and great man. Rest in Power and may God finally give you peace.
#RIPJohnLewis
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Civil rights legend Rep. John Lewis dead at 80
By Suzanne Malveaux, Lauren Fox, Faith Karimi and Brandon Griggs, CNN

Updated 12:47 AM ET, Sat July 18, 2020


(CNN)John Robert Lewis, the son of sharecroppers who survived a brutal beating by police during a landmark 1965 march in Selma, Alabama, to become a towering figure of the civil rights movement and a longtime US congressman, has died after a six-month battle with cancer. He was 80.
"It is with inconsolable grief and enduring sadness that we announce the passing of U.S. Rep. John Lewis," his family said in a statement. "He was honored and respected as the conscience of the US Congress and an icon of American history, but we knew him as a loving father and brother. He was a stalwart champion in the on-going struggle to demand respect for the dignity and worth of every human being. He dedicated his entire life to non-violent activism and was an outspoken advocate in the struggle for equal justice in America. He will be deeply missed."
Lewis died on the same day as civil rights leader the Rev. Cordy Tindell "C.T." Vivian, who was 95. The dual deaths of the civil rights icons come as the nation is still grappling with racial upheaval in the wake of the death of George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests that have swept the nation.
It's another heartbreak in a year filled with them, as America mourns the deaths of nearly 140,000 Americans from Covid-19 and struggles to bring the virus under control.


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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced his death in a statement.
"Today, America mourns the loss of one of the greatest heroes of American history: Congressman John Lewis, the Conscience of the Congress," the California Democrat said.
Lewis had vowed to fight the disease after announcing in late December 2019 that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, which was discovered as a result of a routine medical visit and subsequent testing.
"I have been in some kind of fight -- for freedom, equality, basic human rights -- for nearly my entire life. I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now," he said in a statement at the time.
Lewis, a Democrat who served as the US representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district for more than three decades, was widely seen as a moral conscience of Congress because of his decades-long embodiment of nonviolent fight for civil rights. His passionate oratory was backed by a long record of action that included, by his count, more than 40 arrests while demonstrating against racial and social injustice.
A follower and colleague of Martin Luther King Jr., he participated in lunch counter sit-ins, joined the Freedom Riders in challenging segregated buses and -- at the age of 23 -- was a keynote speaker at the historic 1963 March on Washington.
"Sometimes when I look back and think about it, how did we do what we did? How did we succeed? We didn't have a website. We didn't have a cellular telephone," Lewis has said of the civil rights movement.
"But I felt when we were sitting in at those lunch counter stools, or going on the Freedom Ride, or marching from Selma to Montgomery, there was a power and a force. God Almighty was there with us."
Lewis has said King inspired his activism. Angered by the unfairness of the Jim Crow South, he launched what he called "good trouble" with organized protests and sit-ins. In the early 1960s, he was a Freedom Rider, challenging segregation at interstate bus terminals across the South and in the nation's capital.
"We do not want our freedom gradual; we want to be free now," he said at the time.
At age 25, Lewis helped lead a march for voting rights on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where he and other marchers were met by heavily armed state and local police who attacked them with clubs, fracturing Lewis' skull. Images from that "Bloody Sunday" shocked the nation and galvanized support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
"I gave a little blood on that bridge," he said years later. "I thought I was going to die. I thought I saw death."
Despite the attack and other beatings, Lewis never lost his activist spirit, taking it from protests to politics. He was elected to the Atlanta city council in 1981, then to Congress six years later.
Once in Washington, he focused on fighting against poverty and helping younger generations by improving education and health care. He also co-wrote a series of graphic novels about the civil rights movement, which won him a National Book Award.
Born on a Troy, Alabama, cotton farm into a segregated America on February 21, 1940, Lewis lived to see an African American elected president, a moment he said he never thought would come despite his decades long fight for equality.
He described attending President Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration as an "out-of-body" experience.
"When we were organizing voter-registration drives, going on the Freedom Rides, sitting in, coming here to Washington for the first time, getting arrested, going to jail, being beaten, I never thought — I never dreamed — of the possibility that an African-American would one day be elected president of the United States," he said at the time.
In 2011, after more than 50 years on the front lines of the civil rights movement, Lewis received the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, placed round his neck by America's first black president.
Ahead of the inauguration of Donald Trump in 2017, Lewis said he did not consider him to be a "legitimate" president, an astonishing rebuke by a sitting member of Congress toward an incoming president.
"I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton," Lewis said.
Trump fired back, calling Lewis "all talk" and "no action" and saying he should focus more on "fixing and helping" his district rather than "complaining" about Russia.
Lewis skipped Trump's inauguration.
"I've said to students, 'When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation to do something, to say something,'" Lewis said in spring 2018. "And Dr. King inspired us to do just that."
Lewis also believed in forgiveness.
He once described an incident when, as a young man, he was beaten bloody by members of the Ku Klux Klan after attempting to enter a "white waiting room."
"Many years later, in February of '09, one of the men that had beaten us came to my Capitol Hill office -- he was in his 70's, with his son in his 40's -- and he said, 'Mr. Lewis, I am one of the people who beat you and your seat mate'" on a bus, Lewis said, adding the man said he had been in the KKK. "He said, 'I want to apologize. Will you accept my apology?'"
After accepting his apology and hugging the father and son, the three cried together, Lewis remembered.
"It is the power in the way of peace, the way of love," Lewis said. "We must never, ever hate. The way of love is a better way."
This story has been updated with additional developments Saturday morning
CNN's Jim Acosta and Haley Byrd contributed to this report.
 

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MASTERBAKER

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Dr. Harold Franklin, 86, has finally received his master’s degree from Auburn University!
In 1964, Franklin, a Talladega native, was the first African-American student to integrate Auburn University. Initially, Franklin said Auburn denied him admission to the university and a dorm room on campus. Franklin added he and long-time civil rights attorney Fred Gray defeated Auburn twice in federal court. In 1969, the young Alabama State University graduate ran into barriers at Auburn when he submitted his thesis to get his master's degree. The roadblocks ultimately kept Franklin from graduating from Auburn. He left and got his master's degree from the University of Denver. Auburn University invited Franklin to come back to the university in February to finally defend his thesis. He was set to walk across the stage in May but that didn’t happen due to COVID-19. His degree came in the mail last week.

STORY: https://www.wvtm13.com/…/auburn-university-s-firs…/33504680…
 

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Private First Class Dan Bullock joined the Marines, deployed to Vietnam, and was killed in action less than one month after arriving in country. Astonishingly, he was only 15 years old...
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Bullock wanted to join so bad that he altered his birth certificate in order to enlist. Given his larger height and weight, his age wasn't questioned. He arrived in Vietnam with 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines in May 1969. On The night of June 6-7, shortly after midnight, the NVA launched an assault on An Hoa Combat base where Bullock’s company was stationed. Bullock made several trips bringing ammo to the front lines for his fellow Marines. On one of these journeys, he was struck by a burst of small arms fire and killed. After Bullock’s death, his true age was discovered. He was the youngest US service member killed the in the Vietnam War.
 

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He is buried in Goldsboro, NC.
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Families continue their fight for WWII all-Black female battalion to be remembered






Updated: August 16, 2020 - 9:15 AM

You’ve heard stories about the heroes from World War II. But you’ve likely never heard about a battalion that carried out a very important task.
The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion made history in its first mission supporting soldiers in England. Decades later, the members’ families are still fighting for their recognition.
Channel 2 anchor Jovita Moore spoke with one member’s daughter about their fight. Brenda Brown can’t hide her pride when it comes to talking about her mother Willie Belle Irvin.
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“I was so blown away with emotions because I never knew I was raised by a history maker,” Brown said. “There was little money, very little money and there was not enough to send her to school. So she ended up with a plan B.”
Plan B got Irvin out of the southwest Georgia fields and placed her right in the middle of World War II. She was part of a new battalion.

On Feb. 3, 1945, they boarded a ship for their first mission, heading overseas for World War II.
“I still am so emotional about their story,” Brown said.
The battalion headed to Birmingham, England to process a backlog of mail.
“Years and year of back mail and the morale of the soldiers were so low,” Brown said. “Mail was packed to the ceiling. The conditions were bad, rat infested. You know just dirty.”
In 1945, sorting a warehouse filled with mail for thousands of soldiers was no easy task. The women worked three shifts to clear the backlog.
“Most of the people back in those days would write to their sons and they would just say ‘to junior.’ Can you imagine picking up papers saying ‘To Junior, United States Army?‘” Brown told Moore.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave six months to fix it. They did the job in three months and raised morale among the soldiers.
“They were able to put together a plan where they could separate all these juniors and get them to the right people,” Brown said.
Despite their success, they could not escape the problems their brothers and sisters encountered back home in America.
“They faced discrimination at home and abroad,” Brown said.
That’s why 75 years later, family members say the women of the 6888th haven’t gotten the recognition they deserve.
“Brave. I don’t think they knew they were making history. I know my mother didn’t,” Brown said. “I would love to see them in a history book.”
In 2018, living members of the battalion and their families gathered at Ft. Leavenworth Kansas to celebrate a monument built to honor the 855 women.
“These women demanded change. They weren’t pushovers. In their own way, they got what they wanted. They worked hard. They didn’t get recognized, but they weren’t pushovers.”
Willie Irvin died in 1990 and was honored during the 2018 ceremony in Kansas.
The Sixth Cavalry Museum in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia received a $28,000 grant to install a permanent exhibit to honor the 6888th. The battalion trained at the Third Army Women’s Army Corps Training Center at Fort Oglethorpe to complete their overseas training.
 

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Here is a wonderful street scene of life in Harlem in 1939
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Harlem Renaissance
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One of the finest stories of New York City's past..


 

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71114166_2434615499979208_6608217500301656064_n.jpg

"On August 25, 1959, the great Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis was beaten by New York City police officers, that’s why he’s covered in blood. Davis was finishing a two-week stint at the famous Birdland Jazz Club.

While taking a break, Davis escorted a young white woman outside where they could smoke. A white police officer ordered him to “move on.” Davis replied, “For what? I'm performing here.” The officer decided to arrest him, a physical struggle ensued and three detectives joined in and began beating Davis in the stomach and on the head with billy clubs. A crowd of 200 people quickly appeared. Davis was subsequently acquitted of the charges of disorderly conduct and assaulting an officer. The story, complete with pictures, received wide news media coverage and served to dramatize the simmering issue of racism in the New York City Police Department.

The case dramatized the pattern of police harassment of African-Americans for behavior that is not an offense (standing on the corner smoking a cigarette) and the escalation of such incidents into the use of force by the police.

In comparison to these modern times,
nothing has changed except the year."
 

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knightmelodic

American fruit, Afrikan root.
BGOL Investor
As an *ahem* young lad, I used to love going to the Panther Headquarters. Listening to the old (to me) cats spit about the pigs and the man and our true history was exhilarating. But the sisters always had on minis and wasn't a bra in sight. I might have had a few fantasies.
 

dasmybikepunk

Wait for it.....
OG Investor
:bravo: :smh: racist ass college, they was happy they could get away with finally mailing it and not having to publicly acknowledge their racist system.
 

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Two-Gun Pete, the real Dirty Harry.
Written by William Lee of the Chicago Tribune.
A look back at the career of Sylvester "Two-Gun Pete" Washington, a legendary Chicago police officer who is said to be responsible for over 20,000 arrests on his South Side beat between 1933 and 1951.
The legend of "Two-Gun Pete," the coldblooded cop who shot at least nine men dead on the South Side, began with a gun battle eight decades ago.
Just six months into his rookie year in April 1934, he caught 27-year-old Ben Harold red-handed during an armed robbery near 51st and State streets. What followed was a shootout that brought several bullets dangerously close to the young stockyard-worker-turned-policeman.
When the smoke cleared, four of the cop's five shots had hit their mark, tearing through Harold's torso. He staggered several steps before falling dead in a doorway.
After nearly emptying his six-shooter, Pete started carrying a second handgun for backup. He eventually swapped his .38-caliber revolvers for more powerful .357 Magnums, and his reputation grew.
Though he was one of the deadliest police officers in Chicago history, few people without a longtime South Side connection have ever heard of Two-Gun Pete, or the enigmatic man behind the nickname, Sylvester Washington.
The Tribune set out to bring his story to a wider audience, separating facts from myth. The newspaper examined official records, talked to police veterans who knew him and interviewed his third wife, who was a DuSable High School student when they secretly wed in the 1960s. The Tribune also found a woman who says she owns one of Washington's guns.
Two-Gun started as an anonymous bluecoat walking a beat, but he ended up as a ghetto superstar -- a flamboyant, crooked, braggadocious, womanizing, hard-drinking, foul-mouthed police detective.
He was tasked with clearing out bad elements from every nightclub, flophouse and pool hall in what was then called Black Metropolis, a South Side community mired in poverty and violence, yet bouncing to a jazzy beat.
Washington spent most of his career working out of the old Wabash Avenue police station at 48th Street and Wabash. By the mid-1940s, his 5th District, with a population of 200,000, led the city in slayings, robberies and rapes, and was nicknamed the "Bucket of Blood."
But the mention of Two-Gun Pete's name could clear a street corner in seconds.
"Everybody knew Sylvester Washington," said Rudy Nimocks, a former deputy police superintendent. "They knew his car. And the prostitutes would go hide someplace when they saw him. He was something else."
Facing criticism that police were failing to protect black residents, Chicago's top brass looked to Washington and other tough black cops to get a hold on crime. But the bosses may have made a pact with the devil, entrusting citizens' safety to a profoundly violent man.
"He was the meanest, cruelest person that I have ever seen in my entire life," said his third wife, Roslyn Washington Banks.
Pete augmented his fierce reputation with the tools of his trade: a nightstick and meaty hands that he used to slap grown men to the ground like small children.
And there were his sidearms -- pearl-handled .357 Magnum revolvers. One had a long barrel, the other a short barrel. Each pistol was holstered in its own belt around his hips, both pearl handles pointing right for the right-handed gunslinger.
"I seldom miss the mark with them," Washington bragged to Ebony magazine. "I can put 14 bullseyes into a target out of 15 shots, and have made a marksmanship record of 147 out of a possible 150."
Police officials told the newspapers that Pete had gunned down nine men by 1945. He later claimed the career total was 11. And even later, he added one more body to the pile, telling a young reporter named Mike Royko: "I kept my own count and I counted 12."
Depending on which number is accurate, Pete was either the deadliest police officer in Chicago history or tied with Frank Pape, a North Side cop who started on the force three months before Pete and killed nine men.
Washington liked to cite other numbers, too, claiming 20,000 arrests in his career. He also earned three cash bonuses for shooting car thieves.
As Pete's reputation grew, he was promoted from patrol officer to detective. The two guns stayed, but the blue uniform and cap were replaced with silk suits and fedoras.
Pete became a police celebrity, getting special assignments, such as protecting Jackie Robinson at Wrigley Field and guarding the free ice cream for children at the Bud Billiken Parade. He and his pistols were even featured in a small photo in a 1947 issue of Life magazine.
At the height of his legend, he didn't even have to unholster his guns. He would send troublemakers unescorted to the police station, and they would go, preferring not to have Pete come looking for them later.
A request for Chicago police documents on Washington yielded only two, showing his years of service and listing his commendations and service bonuses. Because of the lack of documents, his chain of victims is difficult to track down. But the Tribune did secure the death records of several men he gunned down.
Two-Gun Pete didn't fit the central casting description of a Chicago cop, standing about 5-foot-9, with a mustache, and pushing 225 pounds. With cigar smoke billowing from his pencil-thin lips and those two heavy rods on his hips, he may have resembled a locomotive on wobbly tracks as he strutted down the street.
His sad eyes and beer gut disguised a hair-trigger temper that ignited for even minor slights.
Washington shot and killed Willie Lee Matthews in August 1941 as they passed in a narrow passageway near Garfield Boulevard. Washington later claimed Matthews, 33, had tried to grab his gun, though it wasn't clear why Matthews, a hotel bellman, would have tried to disarm Two-Gun Pete. Still, a coroner's jury ruled the slaying a justifiable homicide.
More common were the street beatings that Washington handed out, primarily to criminals caught in the act or wisecracking teenagers.
"The real Dirty Harry was Two-Gun Pete," said playwright and actor Jerry Jones, who wrote a self-published book about Washington in 1988.
As Nimocks put it, Two-Gun Pete "kind of epitomized the worst of policing, where police officers were totally brutal and had no regard whatsoever for some of the professionalism that people demand now. You'd crack a guy, you'd smack some guy in the mouth. You'd knock them down the second they disrespected you."
Take the night in fall 1945 when Two-Gun Pete was dining at a 63rd Street restaurant and used the butt of his revolver to batter a drunk in front of horrified patrons, according to news reports. The beaten man was charged with felony assault, accused of stabbing Washington. But the judge dropped the charges after three witnesses labeled Two-Gun as the aggressor.
In the black press like the Chicago Defender and Ebony, such negative stories about Washington rarely made it into print. He was portrayed as straight-shooting, fearless and incorruptible. The Afro-American newspaper of Baltimore called him "the fabulous Two-Gun Pete."
But Washington was decidedly corrupt. He was known to raid nightspots on successive nights only to show up a third night looking for a loan. Then there was that business of his fancy suits and the expensive cars he drove on duty.
Learning the drill:
As the Great Migration brought tens of thousands of Southern blacks to Chicago, part of Pete's job was teaching the customs of the big city to "country Negroes," as the Defender called them. The Southern tradition of neighbors chatting by the side of the road was a no-no, as it was believed to foster crime.
Two-Gun Pete was a product of the migration himself, having come to Chicago from Terry, Miss., with his family at age 14 in 1920. But he had no tolerance for people who hung out on the sidewalk.
"He would come down here and say, 'Every living ass off the street.' And I mean everybody faded. He had no (compassion), no pity, you couldn't say a word to him. He'd beat the people unmercifully," former Bronzeville resident Marion Hummons said in an oral history of the neighborhood.
Former Cook County Commissioner Chuck Bowen, a former prosecutor, remembers the day Washington approached him and several others standing on a corner in 1948.
"He said, 'When I come back here, I don't want to see you all standing on this corner,' " Bowen recalled. "He turned his back and ... his nightstick was hidden behind his back. When he turned around, he said, 'I'm back!' "
By the time he started swinging his club, Bowen and his friends were running in every direction.
At age 84, Nimocks remembers racking pool balls as a teenager in a pool hall near 39th and Cottage Grove when Two-Gun Pete strolled in. Knowing the drill, Nimocks and the others turned, spread-eagle, toward the wall to be searched.
"We were all terrified because we knew who he was," Nimocks said. "He came in. That's the first time I had seen him. And he had on a leopard-skin jacket. I'll never forget it."
Crowds outside the hottest spots on the South Side -- the Cafe Rhumboogie, Club DeLisa and the Palm Tavern -- parted like the Red Sea when Pete's Mercury coupe pulled up.
One night he came to the rescue of actor Canada Lee, who starred in Orson Welles' Broadway adaptation of Richard Wright's "Native Son." Lee and his date were being hassled by young toughs at a cabaret when Pete intervened.
According to Lee biographer Mona Z. Smith, Pete shouted: "You think you can come in here and spoil things for this man who is an artist? If I hear you doing anything to Mr. Lee, I will kill you!"
Milton Deas, 93, a retired police commander who met Washington after joining the department in 1946, said the times were tough and a cop had to be tougher. Otherwise, he said, the officer would be branded a "punk."
Music legend Quincy Jones, a Chicago native, was less sympathetic.
"Every weekend we watched a legendary black cop named Two-Gun Pete who carried two pearl-handled revolvers shoot black kids in the back in broad daylight, right in front of a Walgreens drugstore -- the kids dropped like potato sacks," Jones wrote in his autobiography. "We fantasized about making Two-Gun Pete pay."
The outcry against Pete became louder as more regular citizens became victims of his wrath.
"I know a person is liable to be beaten by hoodlums and thugs, but not when police beat up citizens in the street," William H. Knight wrote in a letter to the Defender in 1940, claiming Washington assaulted him as he was getting a phone number from a friend under the 58th Street "L."
The final straw may have come in May 1951, when Washington was called before a grand jury to explain how a cop who made $3,600 a year could afford the down payment on a $40,000 building.
Washington gladly showed jurors his diamond ring and his guns, but he bristled when a prosecutor compared his stylish dress to that of New York crime boss Frank Costello.
"When you talk of Costello, you talk of a hoodlum," Washington said. "I'm a law enforcement officer, the greatest."
The HillTop Lounge:
On Oct. 15, 1951, just two days after marking his 18th year on the job, Washington gave up the badge, but he kept the guns.:
On the ground floor of his newly purchased building, Washington opened the infamous HillTop Lounge -- a dive bar on East Oakwood Boulevard. Behind the bar was a cigar box full of bullet fragments pulled from Pete's victims. The box was next to the billy club and sawed-off shotgun he kept for extra protection.
Cops and judges frequently stopped by, but most patrons became hip to one of his scams: If you bought a beer and paid with a $5 bill or larger denomination, your change also paid for Pete's drink. This practice made bluesman Muddy Waters stop going to the HillTop.
Washington's short fuse frequently got the better of him.
"He'd get drunk, and I have seen him many times take his open hand and slap a man off the bar stool on the floor," said his third wife, Rosyln Washington Banks.
She married Pete in the early 1960s when she was 16 and living with her family above the HillTop. He was 58 and had been through two failed marriages -- to Rose, who bore him five children, and to professional dancer Lloraine Brown, who filed for divorce after four years, citing his "cruelty," according to news reports.
Attempts to locate relatives from Pete's first two marriages were unsuccessful. His third wife, Rosyln, had two children with Washington, and she remarried after his death. The Tribune found the retired respiratory therapist living in Bronzeville.
Though the fate of Pete's pearl-handled revolvers is unknown, Washington gave one of his other Magnums to Larry Givens, a friend and gang unit officer, according to Givens' daughter, Camille Givens. She says the pistol passed to her after her father's death in 2000. She keeps the gun's location a secret, saying only that it is "outside the city."
She recalled a story that her father told after visiting Washington at Michael Reese Hospital in 1971, shortly before Pete's death of cirrhosis.
Sitting in his hospital bed, Washington had a vision. "They're dancing on my bed, Larry," he said.
"Wash, what are you talking about?" Givens said.
"The 11 men," he said.
Two-Gun Pete was again face to face with the men he had killed, Camille Givens said.
"He saw them dancing at the foot of his bed."
 

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The full title of this documentary, released on VHS videotape in 2000, is "The Invisible Soldiers: Unheard Voices," and it tells the stories of the more than one million African-American soldiers who served in the United States armed forces during World War II.
 

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TUSKEGEE AIRMEN HISTORIC SITE IS BEING HONORED WITH QUARTER BY U.S. MINT
18th January 2021 by BOTWC Staff
Tuskegee Airmen Historic Site Is Being Honored With Quarter By U.S. Mint


A lucky coin!

The Tuskegee Airmen historic site in Alabama is being honored with a new quarter by the U.S. Mint, Alabama News Center reports.
The Mint recently released the new 2021 America The Beautiful Quarter paying homage to the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site. The America The Beautiful Quarters Program launched in 2010 and consists of "56 quarters depicting national parks and other national sites." This quarter commemorating the Tuskegee Airmen is the final quarter of the collection.

The National Historic Site at Moton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama, honors the men and women who trained there during World War II. It also highlights their contribution to winning the war and paving the way for Black pilots in the U.S. military. The Tuskegee Airmen are a distinguished group of men and women, including more than 1,000 pilots and 15,000 support staff held in high regard for their service, the U.S. Mint reports. Throughout history, this group continues to be celebrated, from Congressional medals to jets named in their honor.
The Mint news released a statement about the quarters' intricate design, saying, "The pilot looks upward with pride and confidence as two P-51 Mustangs pass overhead. The inscription 'THEY FOUGHT TWO WARS' is arced across the top as a reference to the dual battles the Tuskegee Airmen fought - fascism abroad and racial discrimination at home."

The "heads" side of the quarter still depicts George Washington's portrait, but the "tails" side features the new design with the Moton Field control tower's image behind the pilot. The quarter was designed by Chris Costello of the Artistic Infusion Program and sculpted by Phebe Hemphill, a medallic artist.
Tuskegee_Airmen_Quarter_2_480x480.jpg
Photo Courtesy of The U.S. Mint/Alabama News Center

"It is fitting that such a significant historic site will complete this successful coin program. The Mint is proud to honor the men and women who overcame segregation and prejudice to become one of the most highly respected fighter groups of World War II," Mint Director David J. Ryder said.
We honor all the Tuskegee Airmen. Because of you, we can.
Photo Courtesy of The U.S. Mint/Library of Congress
 

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militaryvideocom
militaryvideocom
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This is a preview of a new 72 minute video that provides an overview of African American activities during the vietnam war. To purchase the entire video go to https://militaryvideo.com/ The video weaves excellent combat footage with interviews and comments made during the war. Includes footage of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen in Vietnam and Thailand. The video also addresses racial issues African Americans faced while in-country. Combat scenes of African Americans fighting at Fire Support Base Ripcord, Operation MacArthur, Con Thien, Dak To, Battle for Hue City, Operation Buffalo, Siege at Khe Sanh, TET 1968 (attack on Tan Son Nhut Air Base) and more. Includes on camera interviews shot in-country with African American soldiers, Marines and airmen. Video includes a "rap session," filmed at Long Binh in 1971, with white and black soldiers discussing racial problems on the base. There is a segment devoted to the lack of Soul Music on the bases in Vietnam. Video also includes remarks made by Air Force General Daniel "Chappie" James Jr.
 

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Spirit of Youth

Spirit of the Youth (1938)
Spirit of the Youth (1938). Check out Joe Louis starring in a biography about himself. Also starring a very good cast of Clarence Muse, Edna Mae Harris, Mae Turner, Cleo Desmond, Mantan Moreland, and Clarence Brooks.
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And remember, Joe Louis was a professional boxer; not an actor
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#BlackHistory #BlackHistory365
This cautionary morality fable features real-life champion Joe Louis stretching his acting chops as up-and-coming boxer Joe Thomas. Mantan Moreland co-stars as Thomas' best friend and moral compass. Tempted and seduced by quick money, easy women, and fast times, Thomas falls victim to the corruption of fame only to repent in the arms of his loving childhood sweetheart.
https://www.daarac.ngo
https://www.daaracarchive.org/.../spirit-of-youth-1938.html
DVD is easily available on Amazon. You may also check it out on YouTube.
 

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How Patton’s All-Black Tank Battalion Took the Fight to the Nazis
BlackPanthers-1200x0-c-default.jpg

With the blessing of General George S. Patton, the 761st Tank Battalion, also known as the Black Panthers, became the first all-black tank unit to see combat during WWII.

Courtesy of the Patton Museum

Joseph E. Wilson Jr.
January 1998

The 761st “Black Panther” Tank Battalion was the first African American armored unit to see combat.
Before and during mobilization for World War II, officials in Washington, D.C., debated whether or not African American soldiers should be used in armored units. Many military men and politicians believed that blacks did not have the brains, quickness or moral stamina to fight in a war.
Referring to his World War I experiences, Colonel James A. Moss, commander of the 367th Infantry Regiment, 92nd Division, stated, “As fighting troops, the Negro must be rated as second-class material, this primarily to his inferior intelligence and lack of mental and moral qualities.” Colonel Perry L. Miles, commander of the 371st Infantry Regiment, 93rd Division, voiced a similar opinion: “In a future war, the main use of the Negro should be in labor organizations.” General George S. Patton Jr., in a letter to his wife, wrote that “a colored soldier cannot think fast enough to fight in armor.”
The armed forces embraced these beliefs even though African Americans had fought with courage and distinction in the Revolutionary War and every other war ever waged by the United States. These commanders overlooked the fact that during World War I, four regiments of the 93rd Division had served with the French. Their valiant efforts were recognized by the French government, who awarded the coveted Croix de Guerre to three of the four regiments and to a company of the fourth, as well as to the 1st Battalion, 367th Infantry Regiment, 92nd Division.
Lieutenant General Leslie J. McNair, chief of the U.S. Army ground forces, was the main reason African Americans were allowed to serve in armored units. He believed his nation could ill afford to exclude such a potentially important source of manpower. The black press, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Congress of Racial Equality also placed increasing pressure on the War Department and President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration to allow black soldiers to serve on an equal footing with white soldiers.
In the summer of 1940, Congress passed into law the Selective Training and Service Act, which said, “In the selection and training of men under this act, there shall be no discrimination against any person on account of race and color.” In October, however, the White House issued a statement saying that, while “the services of Negroes would be utilized on a fair and equitable basis,” the policy of segregation in the armed forces would continue.
In March 1941, 98 black enlisted men reported to Fort Knox, Kentucky, from Fort Custer, Michigan, for armored warfare training with the 758th Tank Battalion (light). The pioneer black tankers trained in light tank operations, mechanics and related phases of mechanized warfare, as enlisted men from other Army units joined their ranks.
The 758th trained on the M-5 light tank, which carried a crew of four. Powered by twin Cadillac engines, it could reach a maximum speed of 40 mph and had an open-road cruising range of 172 miles. It was armed with a .30 caliber machine gun mounted to fire along the same axis as the tank’s main armament, a 37mm cannon. When the tracer bullets from the .30 caliber registered on a target, the cannon would be fired, hopefully scoring a direct hit. The M-5 was also armed with two more .30-caliber machine guns, one on the turret and one in the bow. The light tank was employed to provide fire support, mobility and crew protection in screening and reconnaissance missions.
The 5th Tank Group, commanded by Colonel LeRoy Nichols, was to be made up of black enlisted personnel and white officers. With the 758th Tank Battalion in place, two more tank battalions were needed to complete the 5th Tank Group.
On March 15, 1942, the War Department ordered the activation of the 761st Tank Battalion (light) at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, with an authorized strength of 36 officers and 593 enlisted men. (The final battalion—the 784th—would be activated on April 1, 1943.) On September 15, 1943, the 761st Battalion moved to Camp Hood, Texas, for advanced training; there they changed from light to medium tanks.
On July 6, 1944, one of the 761st’s few black officers, Lieutenant Jackie Robinson, was riding a civilian bus from Camp Hood to the nearby town of Belton. He refused to move to the back of the bus when told to do so by the driver. Court-martial charges ensued but could not proceed because the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Paul L. Bates, would not consent to the charges. The top brass at Camp Hood then transferred Robinson to the 758th Tank Battalion, whose commander immediately signed the court-martial consent.
The lieutenant’s trial opened on August 2 and lasted for 17 days, during which time the 761st departed Camp Hood. Robinson was charged with violating the 63rd and 64th Articles of War. The first charge specified, “Lieutenant Robinson behaved with disrespect toward Captain Gerald M. Bear, Corps Military Police, by contemptuously bowing to him and giving several sloppy salutes while repeating, O’kay Sir, O’kay Sir, in an insolent, impertinent and rude manner.” The second charge stipulated, “Lieutenant Robinson having received a lawful command by Captain Bear to remain in a receiving room at the MP station disobeyed such order.” Robinson was eventually acquitted, and he was not charged for his actions on the bus. Three years later, Robinson was riding buses in the major leagues after breaking baseball’s color barrier.
In October 1944, after two years of intense armored training, the 761st Tank Battalion, known as the “Black Panthers,” landed in France. The tankers received a welcome from the Third Army commander, Lieutenant General George S. Patton Jr., who had observed the 761st conducting training maneuvers in the States: “Men, you’re the first Negro tankers to ever fight in the American Army. I would never have asked for you if you weren’t good. I have nothing but the best in my Army. I don’t care what color you are as long as you go up there and kill those Kraut sons of bitches. Everyone has their eyes on you and is expecting great things from you. Most of all your race is looking forward to you. Don’t let them down and damn you, don’t let me down!”
On November 8, 1944, the Black Panthers became the first African American armored unit to enter combat, smashing into the towns of Moyenvic and Vic-sur-Seille. During the attack, Staff Sergeant Ruben Rivers, in Able Company’s lead tank, encountered a roadblock that held up the advance. With utter disregard for his personal safety, he courageously climbed out of his tank under direct enemy fire, attached a cable to the roadblock and removed it. His prompt action prevented a serious delay in the offensive and was instrumental in the success of the attack.
SSgtRubenRivers-210x300.jpg

Staff Sergeant Ruben Rivers was fatally wounded providing cover fire while his men retreated from an enemy attack. (U.S. Army)
On November 9, Charlie Company ran into an antitank ditch near Morville. The crack German 11th Panzer Division began to knock out tanks one by one down the line. The tankers crawled through the freezing muddy waters of the ditch under pelting rain and snow while hot shell fragments fell all around them. When German artillery began to walk a line toward the ditch, the tankers’ situation looked hopeless.
After exiting his burning tank, 1st Sergeant Samuel Turley organized a dismounted combat team. When the team found itself pinned down by a counterattack and unable to return fire, Turley ordered his men to retreat, climbed from the ditch and provided covering fire that allowed them to escape.
Correspondent Trezzvant Anderson described Turley’s devotion to duty: “Standing behind the ditch, straight up, with a machine gun and an ammo belt around his neck, Turley was spraying the enemy with machine-gun shots as fast as they could come out of the muzzle of the red-hot barrel. He stood there covering for his men, and then fell, cut through the middle by German machine-gun bullets that ripped through his body as he stood there firing the M.G. to the last. That’s how Turley went down and his body crumpled to the earth, his fingers still gripped that trigger….But we made it!”
On November 10, Sergeant Warren G.H. Crecy fought through enemy positions to aid his men until his tank was destroyed. He immediately took command of another vehicle, armed with only a .30-caliber machine gun, and liquidated the enemy position that had destroyed his tank. Still under heavy fire, he helped eliminate the enemy forward observers who were directing the artillery fire that had been pinning down the American infantry.
The next day, Crecy’s tank became bogged down in the mud. He dismounted and fearlessly faced antitank, artillery and machine-gun fire as he extricated his tank. While freeing his tank, he saw that the accompanying infantry was pinned down and that the enemy had begun a counterattack. Crecy climbed up on the rear of his immobilized tank and held off the Germans with his .50-caliber machine gun while the foot soldiers withdrew. Later that day, he again exposed himself to enemy fire as he wiped out several machine-gun nests and an antitank position with only his machine gun. The more fire he drew, the harder he fought. After the battle, Crecy had to be pried away from his machine gun.
crecy_warren_g_h.jpg

William G.H. Crecy fearlessly fought the Nazis, drawing enemy fire and wiping out machine-gun nests. “You’d never think that here was a ‘killer,’ who had slain more of the enemy than any man in the 761st.” wrote correspondent Trezzvant Anderson. (HistoryNet Archives)
Trezzvant Anderson said of Sergeant Crecy: “To look at Warren G.H. Crecy (the G.H. stands for Gamaliel Harding) you’d never think that here was a ‘killer,’ who had slain more of the enemy than any man in the 761st. He extracted a toll of lives from the enemy that would have formed the composition of 3 or 4 companies, with his machine guns alone. And yet, he is such a quiet, easy-going, meek-looking fellow, that you’d think that the fuzz which a youngster tries to cultivate for a mustache would never grow on his baby-skinned chin. And that he’d never use a word stronger than ‘damn.’ But here was a youth who went so primitively savage on the battlefield that his only thought was to ‘kill, kill, kill,’ and he poured his rain of death pellets into German bodies with so much reckless abandon and joy that he was the nemesis of all the foes of the 761st. And other men craved to ride with Crecy and share the reckless thrill of killing the hated enemy that had killed their comrades. And he is now living on borrowed time. By all human equations Warren G.H. Crecy should have been dead long ago, and should have had the Congressional Medal of Honor, at least!”
The Black Panthers pushed on. It was rough going through the rain, mud, cold and driving sleet, fighting an enemy who bitterly contested every inch of ground. The 761st smashed through the French towns of Obreck, Dedeline and Château Voue with Rivers leading the way for Able Company.
Rivers, a tank platoon sergeant, became adept at liquidating the enemy with his .50-caliber machine gun. The dashing young fighter from Oklahoma was soon a legend in the battalion. One lieutenant recalled telling Rivers, via radio, “Don’t go into that town, Sergeant, it’s too hot in there.” Rivers respectfully replied, “I’m sorry, sir, I’m already through that town!”
On the way to Guebling, France, on November 16, 1944, Rivers’ tank ran over a Teller antitank mine. The explosion blew off the right track, the volute springs and the undercarriage, hurling the tank sideways. When the medical team arrived, they found Rivers behind his tank holding one leg, which was ripped to the bone. There was a hole in his leg where part of his knee had been, and bone protruded through his trousers. The medics cleansed and dressed the wound and attempted to inject Rivers with morphine, but he refused. He wanted to remain alert. The medics informed River’s commanding officer, Captain David J. Williams II, that Rivers should be evacuated immediately. Rivers refused. Pulling himself to his feet, he pushed past the captain and took over a second tank. At that moment a hail of enemy fire came in. The captain gave orders to disperse and take cover.
The 761st was to cross a river into Guebling, after combat engineers constructed a Bailey bridge. The Germans tried desperately to stop the construction, but the Black Panthers held them off. The bridge was completed on the afternoon of November 17. Rivers led the way across, and the Black Panthers took up positions in and around Guebling. On the way into town, Rivers, despite his wounds, engaged two German tanks and disabled them both. Still in great pain, he took on two more tanks and forced them to withdraw. The Black Panthers spent that evening in continuous combat.
Before dawn on November 18, the captain and the medical team visited each tank. When they reached Rivers, it was obvious that he was in extreme pain. Rivers’ leg was reexamined and found to be infected. The medical team said that if he was not evacuated immediately, the leg would have to be amputated. Rivers still insisted that he would not abandon his men. Throughout the day, both sides held and defended their positions.
At dawn on November 19, the 761st began an assault on the village of Bougaltroff. When the Black Panthers emerged from cover, the morning air outside Guebling lit up with tracers from enemy guns. Rivers spotted the antitank guns and directed a concentrated barrage on them, allowing his trapped comrades to escape with their lives.
Rivers continued to fire until several tracers were seen going into his turret. “From a comparatively close range of 200 yards, the Germans threw in two H.E. [high explosive] shots that scored,” Anderson wrote. “The first shot hit near the front of the tank, and penetrated with ricocheting fragments confined inside its steel walls. The second scored inside the tank. The first shot had blown Rivers’ brains out against the back of the tank, and the second went into his head, emerging from the rear, and the intrepid leader, the fearless, daring fighter was no more.”
Ruben Rivers did not have to die on that cold, dreary November morning in France. Three days earlier, he had received what GIs called a “million-dollar wound.” He could have been evacuated to the rear and gone home a war hero with his Silver Star and Purple Heart, knowing that the Black Panthers loved and respected him as an outstanding soldier and comrade. But he stayed—and he died.
The Black Panthers pushed on. From December 31, 1944, to February 2, 1945, the 761st took part in the American counteroffensive following the Battle of the Bulge. In a major battle at Tillet, Belgium, the 761st operated for two continuous days against German panzer and infantry units, who withdrew in the face of the Black Panthers’ attack. The operations of the 761st in the Bulge split the enemy lines at three points—the Houffalize–Bastogne road, the St. Vith–Bastogne highway, and the St. Vith–Trier road—preventing the resupply of German forces encircling American troops at Bastogne.
Later, as the armored spearhead for the 103rd Infantry Division, the 761st took part in assaults that resulted in the breech of the Siegfried Line. From March 20 to 23, 1945, operating far in advance of friendly artillery and in the face of vicious German resistance, elements of the 761st attacked and destroyed many defensive positions along the Siegfried Line. The 761st captured seven German towns, more than 400 vehicles, 80 heavy weapons, 200 horses and thousands of small arms. During that three-day period, the battalion inflicted more than 4,000 casualties on the German army. It was later determined that the 761st had fought against elements of 14 German divisions.
The Black Panthers were also among the first American units to link up with Soviet forces. On May 5, 1945, the 761st reached Steyr, Austria, on the Enns River, where they joined the Russians.
Through six months of battle, without relief, the 761st Tank Battalion served as a separate battalion with the 26th, 71st, 79th, 87th, 95th and 103rd Infantry divisions and the 17th Airborne Division. Assigned at various times to the Third, Seventh and Ninth armies, the Black Panthers fought major engagements in six European countries and participated in four major Allied campaigns. During that time, the unit inflicted 130,000 casualties on the German army and captured, destroyed or aided in the liberation of more than 30 towns, several concentration camps, four airfields, three ammunition supply dumps, 461 wheeled vehicles, 34 tanks, 113 large guns, and thousands of individual and crew-served weapons. This was accomplished in spite of extremely adverse weather conditions, difficult terrain not suited to armor, heavily fortified enemy positions, extreme shortages of replacement personnel and equipment, an overall casualty rate approaching 50 percent and the loss of 71 tanks.
In 1978—33 years after the end of World War II—the 761st Tank Battalion received a Presidential Unit Citation. In 1997, 53 years after giving his life on the battlefield, Sergeant Ruben Rivers was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. The motto of the 761st Tank Battalion has always been “Come Out Fighting.” In World War II, that is exactly what the Black Panthers did.

This article was written by Joseph E. Wilson, Jr. and originally published in World War II magazine in January 1998. For more great articles subscribe to World War II magazine today!
 

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I went to the WWII museum in New Orleans over the weekend and was disappointed in the lack of representation of Black soldiers in that museum. I know 5 or 6 Black soldiers from that war.... about 5 or 6 of my great uncles were soldiers were in that war.
 

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In 1959, police were called to a segregated library when a Black 9-year old boy trying to check out books refused to leave after being told the library was not for Black people. The boy, Ronald McNair, went on to get a PhD in physics from MIT and become an astronaut. The library that refused to lend him books is now named after him.
#blackhistory365 #blackhistory #blackgenius
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They were called "The Sheep-Headed Men," "The White Ecuadorian Cannibals Eko and Iko," and "The Ambassadors From Mars." But when they weren't being forced to perform for gawking crowds on sideshow stages, they were simply George and Willie Muse of Roanoke, Virginia — and their real story was far more tragic than those circus tent onlookers would ever know.

Born both Black and albino in the Jim Crow South of the 1890s, the Muse brothers were given not a shred of respect or acceptance from the very beginning. When they were just small children, they were already toiling in the tobacco fields from dawn til dusk.

It was there, in 1899, that a traveling "freak hunter" named James "Candy" Shelton" spotted them, offered them some candy, then kidnapped them in order to force them into being sideshow performers. Soon, "The Men From Mars" were being presented as the missing link between apes and humans while white audience members tugged on their hair in disbelief that it was real.

All the while, the Muse brothers' white handlers raked in untold sums as "The Men From Mars" became unprecedented stars capable of drawing in audiences as large as 10,000. But through it all, the Muse brothers never saw a dime. Their years of forced performance only ended when the circus found its way back to Roanoke in 1927 and their mother stepped to the front of the crowd and recognized the sons she'd lost all those years before — and took them back.

From the tragic to the astounding, discover more of the true stories behind the sideshow performers of decades past: https://bit.ly/2XpMaKM
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Though she was born into utter poverty in 1902, Sarah Rector became a millionaire by the time she was 18 years old.

Growing up in Oklahoma, Rector was the descendent of African people who had once been enslaved by the Muscogee Nation. But her ancestors had been freed after the Treaty of 1866 following the Civil War. This made Rector a member of the Muscogee Nation herself — and thus eligible to receive land from the federal government when Oklahoma became a state in 1907. Authorities assumed that Rector's land was "undesirable," but little did they know that valuable oil was lurking beneath the surface.

When the land was given to Rector, it was worth less than $600. And since her family struggled to pay its $30 per year property tax, they decided to lease it to an oil company. Then, in 1913, oil was discovered on the property — making Rector the "richest Black girl in America." Soon, she was making more than $300 per day — $8,000 in today's dollars. Rector eventually became so wealthy that the Oklahoma State Legislature legally declared her white so that she could enjoy the full benefits of her money.

Learn more about the incredible story of Sarah Rector: https://bit.ly/3wN9qlI
 

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1966 - NYPD Lieutenant Lloyd Gittens - desk Lt in the 41 Precinct at 1086 Simpson St, the Bronx. As a forgotten fact, he is credited for the precinct's nom de guerre "Fort Apache".

Appointed to the NYPD on September 21, 1946 with shield #4048, Gittens became a Detective in 1951 and later assigned to the 32 Pct Squad. On July 1, 1955 was promoted to Sergeant and sent to the 40 Pct, making him the 1st black patrol sergeant ever assigned to the Bronx. Gittens later was promoted to Lt and sent to the 41 Pct.

As the story goes - in the summer of 1971, Gittens was the 41 Pct desk Lt and when a large crowd attempted to storm the stationhouse. He called the borough command and told them "you better get us some help down here". When asked how bad it was, Gitten replied "It's like Fort Apache! They're all over us!".

A book and Paul Newman's 1981 movie followed.
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How an all-Black, female battalion helped save the morale of troops in Europe in WWII

BY ELEANOR WATSON
NOVEMBER 11, 2021 / 1:25 PM / CBS NEWS



Rat-infested boxes of stale cakes baked for U.S. troops littered the piles of backlogged mail before an all-Black female battalion stepped up to sort through the postal bags and packages. The 855 women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion deployed to Europe in 1945, charged with making sure troops received correspondence from their loved ones.


They cut through the two- to three-year backlog of mail in just three months, surpassing the goal of six months set by U.S. Army leaders who felt the lack of mail was hurting the war effort — "no mail, low morale" was the mantra the women employed.

Finally, more than 75 years after completing their World War II mission, the women of the 6888th are close to receiving the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the nation's highest civilian honors.


The battalion was initially deployed to Birmingham, England, and after their success there, they received follow-on missions in Rouen, France, and Paris to clear mail backlogs. The unit disbanded in 1946, and the women came home quietly without any parades or awards to welcome them.

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The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion in France in 1945.NATIONAL ARCHIVES
The Congressional Gold Medal requires legislation passed by at least two-thirds of the Senate and two-thirds of the House. A bill to award the 6888 the Congressional Gold Medal passed the Senate, and needs 32 more cosponsors in the House.

The 855 women of the 6888th were members of the only all-Black Women's Army Corps unit to serve overseas in World War II. Like the rest of the Army, Women's Army Corps units were segregated. The women worked through racism and sexism against fascism to deliver the mail.

There are only seven members of the estimated 855 members of the 6888 alive today to receive the belated gratitude.

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In the weeks leading up Veterans Day, CBS News spoke to one of the living veterans, as well as several family members of the women who have died.

Charity Adams Earley, the unit's commander, died in 2002. Her son, Stanley Earley, told CBS News in an interview his mom throughout her life was proud of her role in the unit and of the other women who together successfully helped the country during World War II.

"She also felt like they were in a situation where they needed to succeed," Stanley Earley said.

"They needed to succeed because the task was critical and because they were the only Black battalion deployed overseas, and it was important they prove people wrong," according to Earley.

"But mostly they needed to succeed because the task needed to be done," he added.

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Charity E. Adams inspects members of the 6888 assigned to overseas service. NATIONAL ARCHIVES"Over my dead body, sir"
The battalion arrived in Birmingham, England, in February of 1945, greeted by piles of mail bags stacked to the ceiling in airport hangars. Many bags contained Christmas letters, gifts, and packages of food that had not made it to the intended U.S. troops in time for the holidays.

The Battle of the Bulge, the last major German offensive, lasted from December 1944 to January 1945 and had exponentially increased the backlog of mail. All of the mail shipped to the continent for U.S. troops had been routed back to England because the fighting during the battle was so severe and the final outcome was unclear.


The first priority the unit took on was delivering the Christmas packages and letters stacked up from Christmas 1944.Then, they moved on to sort through the rest of the piles of mail.

The women worked through the freezing cold and damp airport hangars in eight-hour shifts, sorting through an average 65,000 pieces of mail per shift.

A database of about seven million locator cards contributed to the success of the unit. The women kept track of service members by maintaining and updating the cards identifying where service members were stationed. The cards included serial numbers to distinguish between service members who had the same name, which allowed for faster sorting and delivering.

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Black Women's Army Corps Unit handling the mailNATIONAL ARCHIVES
The women worked in shifts around the clock in cold and dark airport hangars and slept when they could. The task was in such constant motion that a general was denied a chance to inspect the full unit because it would've diminished their productivity.

A general came to inspect the unit, and the unit's leader, Charity Adams, a major at the time, wouldn't let him into the quarters where some of the women were sleeping. She explained the unit worked in three eight-hour shifts, so the women were sleeping before their next shift.

The general threatened to send a "White first lieutenant" to show her how to command the unit.

"Over my dead body, sir," was Major Adams' reply. He later grew to respect her, according to an account in Adams' memoir.


6888 credited with saving marriages, families
The work of Adams and the women of the 6888 is credited with ensuring aid got to the frontlines, comforting mothers and saving marriages.

In particular, Republican Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas thanked the women of the 6888 for keeping his parents together by enabling their correspondence during the war.

"Their efforts made certain that people like my mom and dad, two people that loved each other dearly, were able to communicate throughout the war while my dad was overseas, just like so many other Kansans and Americans who were separated from their loved ones," Moran said, after his bill to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the 6888 passed the Senate.

Many of the women in the 6888 were just beginning their own lives. Several were only in their late teens or early twenties when they set off for Europe with limited previous travel experience.

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The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion in England in February 1945.NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Lydia Thornton was just 19 years old when she left Arizona for Europe. Her daughters remember the stories she told about the life lessons she picked up from other women in the 6888 who were older, or just a little more street-smart from living in cities.

"There were women who mentored her because there are certain things a woman away from home should know, like how to get around or what to do if a strange man approaches you on the street," Rosenda Moore, one of Thornton's daughters, said in an interview with CBS News.

Thornton was biracial African American and Mexican. She could have served in a White unit but chose to join the Black unit because of the shared community, according to her daughters.


Thornton would go on throughout her life to apply the lessons she learned from mentors in the 6888 to help other women in L.A. She taught language classes to mostly young Latinas learning English and encouraged them to make the most of their lives.

Legacy of the 6888
The road to the Congressional Gold Medal and recognition has been paved in large part by Retired Army Colonel Edna Cummings, a citizen advocate for the 6888.

She co-produced the documentary, "The Six Triple Eight," highlighting the unit's achievements, and helped erect a monument at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas that lists 841 veterans of the 6888. She has helped identify 849 veterans and is looking for the remaining six.

One of the living veterans, Lena King, spoke to CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod in 2019 when the effort to award the 6888 the Congressional Gold Medal started receiving attention.

King told Axelrod she was proud of her service, saying, "That made me feel good, that I had done my part."

Children of 6888 veterans told CBS News in interviews this year their mothers didn't make a big deal of their service in the war and would be surprised to receive the Congressional Gold Medal.

"In fact, if she were here today, she would say something like, 'I don't know what all the fuss is about,'" Alva Stevenson said of her mother Lydia Thornton, who died in 2011.


Despite their modesty about their success overseas, the women of the 6888 instilled values in their children that inspired them to follow paths similar to the ones taken by their mothers.

Lieutenant Colonel (Ret) Rodger M. Matthews, the son of 6888 veteran Vashti Murphy, didn't hear many stories about the 6888, but when he went to college, his mother encouraged him to join the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, known as ROTC.

"The only thing that she was adamant about is, "This is what you're going to do, based on my experience,'" Matthews said. He went on to serve 24 years in the Army. Following his mother's advice to join ROTC, Matthews says now, was the "smartest thing" he ever did.

Janice Banyard, the daughter of 6888 veteran Anna Robertson, worked in the U.S. Postal Service for 24 years.

"I've always been a people-orientated person, and I knew I couldn't do the Army, and I always wanted to follow in my mother's footsteps," Banyard said in an interview. "So then the Postal Service offered the job. And then I thought, what better way to help people and keep the lines of communication open."
 

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The Hidden History of the First Black Women to Serve in the U.S. Navy
The Golden Fourteen were largely forgotten—but a few veterans and descendants could change that.
BY GIULIA HEYWARDDECEMBER 15, 2020
Researchers and descendants are working to dust off the stories of the Golden Fourteen.

Researchers and descendants are working to dust off the stories of the Golden Fourteen. ALL ILLUSTRATIONS: DELPHINE LEE FOR ATLAS OBSCURA


WHEN JERRI BELL FIRST WROTE about the Golden Fourteen, their story only took up a sentence. These 14 Black women were the first to serve in the U.S. Navy, and Bell, a former naval officer and historian with the Veteran’s Writing Project, included them in a book about women’s contributions in every American war, co-written with a former Marine. But even after the book was published, Bell couldn’t get their story out of her head.
“It made me kind of mad,” Bell says. “Here are these women, and they were the first! But I think there was also a general attitude at the time that the accomplishments of women were not a big deal. Women were not going to brag.”




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Bell was one of a few researchers who have been able to track down documents that acknowledge the lives and work of these Black women. She knew that during World War I, the Fourteen had somehow found employment in the muster roll unit of the U.S. Navy in Washington, D.C., under officer John T. Risher. One was Risher’s sister-in-law and distant cousin, Armelda Hattie Greene.



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The Golden Fourteen worked as yeomen and were tasked with handling administrative and clerical work. They had access to official military records, including the work assignments and locations of sailors. At the time, Black men who enlisted in the Navy could only work as messmen, stewards, or in the engine room, shoveling coal into the furnace. They performed menial labor and weren’t given opportunities to rise in rank.
The Golden Fourteen tackled administrative and clerical work.
The Golden Fourteen tackled administrative and clerical work. KELLY MILLER’S HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
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Bell wasn’t surprised to learn about the barriers faced by service members of color. She knew that Josephus Daniels, the Secretary of the Navy at the time, was a documented white supremacist with ties to the Wilmington Massacre, in which a white mob overthrew a local Reconstruction-era government and murdered Black residents. During the First World War, the U.S. Navy maintained the status quo of racism that continued long after. Many Black service members were also targeted by white mobs after the war.
What was surprising was that a legal technicality had paved the way for Black women to work for the Navy more than a century ago. A shortage of clerical workers led then-president Woodrow Wilson to pass the Naval Reserve Act of 1916, which asked for “all persons who may be capable of performing special useful services for coastal defense.” The Golden Fourteen were part of a larger group of over 11,000 women, almost all of them white, who were able to join the navy as yeomanettes, the title given to female yeomen.
Of the few archival records that exist of the Golden Fourteen, one thing is clear: In a period when stepping out of line could have violent repercussions for Black women, they worked without drawing attention to themselves.

“This is quite a novel experiment,” wrote the sociologist Kelly Miller in The History of the World War for Human Rights, published in 1919. “As it is the first time in the history of the navy of the United States that colored women have been employed in any clerical capacity … It was reserved to young colored women to invade successfully the yeoman branch, hereby establishing a precedent.”
Bell’s fascination with the Golden Fourteen only deepened. She is now writing a book about them, and has spent more than four and a half years, as well as thousands of dollars, collecting archival materials. She’s waited patiently to get military and civilian personnel records from the National Archives, which can often take years, and has combed through historical accounts that have not been digitized. She’s looked at photos and spoken with the last living descendant of the Risher family, who says that his aunt, Greene, never spoke of her naval service.
The memory keepers who tell the story of the Golden Fourteen are almost all veterans. Researchers like Bell have the personal connection and the professional knowledge to recover what fragments remain. She feels a powerful responsibility, to the point that she missed the first deadline for her manuscript nine months ago. Because she is telling a story that has been so thoroughly forgotten—and arguably erased—she wants her research to be truly comprehensive. “I just discovered some documents that I need to physically go to another state to get access to,” Bell says. “I couldn’t turn in the manuscript before. I know I owe these women more than that.”
In terms of race and sex, the Golden Fourteen were anomalies in the Navy.
In terms of race and sex, the Golden Fourteen were anomalies in the Navy.
THERE IS ONE OTHER PLACE where stories of the Golden Fourteen have been passed down: in family histories. When Tracey L. Brown was 10 years old, she looked through her family photo album and saw a light-skinned woman she didn’t recognize. Her grandmother, Nan, told her that the woman with the blonde hair and hazel eyes was Brown’s great-grandmother, Ruth Ann Welborn. Welborn was one of the Golden Fourteen. Though she seemed to pass as white, she, like Brown, was African-American.
“I had known that she was one of very few Black women there,” Brown says. “But I didn’t know that there had been 14—I wasn’t expecting that many. I remember hearing about that, as a child, that there was some sort of scheme in how they were even able to enlist. I know it wasn’t simple.”
Although Brown grew up understanding who her great-grandmother had been, she didn’t grasp the magnitude of what Welborn and the other women had done until she was much older. Now a practicing attorney in a New York law firm, Brown started to dig deeper after her father, Ronald H. Brown, who had served as Secretary of Commerce under President Bill Clinton, died in 1996. In her grief, she decided to write a memoir about him. “It was sort of the perfect storm,” Brown says. “I had just lost him, so I was really committed to telling his story.”

Brown talked to friends, family, and even President Clinton himself. After interviews with her grandmother, she finally began to unearth more about Ruth Welborn. “It was so exciting to even begin pursuing these stories,” Brown says. “There have been so many stories that have been lost in our community, and it was nice to be able to have a little slice.”
Ruth was the daughter of Walter Welborn, the son of a white merchant, Johnson W. Welborn, and a woman he enslaved at his house in Clinton, Mississippi, whose name and date of birth remain unknown. In 1863, during the chaos of conscription riots that followed the Emancipation Proclamation, Walter and his brother Eugene escaped from the biological father who had enslaved them. According to Brown’s memoir, their mother dressed them in Confederate uniforms, and perhaps thanks to the fair skin they had inherited, they were able to escape onto a train to Washington.
In Washington, Walter Welborn was a free man, and he married Elexine Beckley, who came from a well-educated and affluent Black family. Their five daughters inherited Walter’s fair skin, blonde hair, and hazel eyes. Like their mother, the five daughters graduated from the best schools available to Black children at the time.

In 1918, after graduating from Dunbar High School, Ruth decided to join the Naval Reserve, becoming one of the Golden Fourteen. “Ruth seemed very stern,” Brown says. “She was a stoic person: In every picture, her posture is perfect. She looks very commanding, and I can’t imagine playing with her like I had with my great-grandmother on my mother’s side.” She and Brown’s father were both buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Although Brown is one of the few to write about the Golden Fourteen, she is not alone. The Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy wrote about Sara Davis Taylor, another yeomanette, in 1992. Taylor reportedly tried to join the Navy even before 1917. She and other Black women were turned away by military doctors, Milloy writes, because “they all allegedly had flat feet.” Only after President Wilson’s 1916 law were they assigned to Risher’s muster roll unit.
Relatively few of these stories have been passed on. Brown’s memoir is now out of print, and, according to Milloy’s column, Taylor and her husband did not have children. Richard E. Miller, a naval veteran and historian, laments in an article that many details may remain a mystery. “It is believed that all of the Black Navy women from the First World War have now passed away,” Miller writes. “Regrettably, the ‘golden’ place they deserved as pioneers in the annals of Afro-American, as well as naval and women’s history, was never accorded them during their lifetimes; except perhaps within their immediate family circles.”
Racism and sexism were overt and systematized—but the Golden Fourteen entered the Naval ranks.
Racism and sexism were overt and systematized—but the Golden Fourteen entered the Naval ranks.
NO ONE IS QUITE SURE how the Golden Fourteen convinced a segregated military to hire them, years before women could vote and half a century before the end of Jim Crow. Some historians theorize that all 14 worked in the same office, where white supervisors could monitor and protect them. Others suggest that most of the Golden Fourteen had light enough complexions to pass for white—though photographs suggest that this was not the case for all of them.
These questions have bothered Regina Akers, a historian with the Naval History and Heritage Command, for years. Akers, who is Black, has made a name for herself by centering Black women in military history. “To learn of these women was exciting, and also frustrating,” Akers says. “There are some sources out there that mention them, but it’s always done in such a tangential way.”
The historical backdrop makes the achievements of the Golden Fourteen all the more surprising. “Lynchings were a popular occurrence; they were carried out with little threat of reprisal,” Akers says. “ If a black person approached a white person, they either moved aside, or they understood that you didn’t look them in the face, and just called them ma’am or sir.”

The U.S. military remains a site of systemic racism. This summer, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force released a video describing the racism he’s experienced during his career. When the Military Times surveyed hundreds of its readers in 2018, more than half of respondents of color said that they had witnessed white nationalism or racism from their peers.
Such stories have led Bell, who is white, to reflect on her own career as a naval officer. “I would ask Black colleagues, some working under me, about their experience as Black sailors in the Navy,” she says. “I realize that whatever my intentions may have been, they did not trust me to tell me what was really going on. People say that once you’re in uniform, no one looks at the color of your skin—but that’s crap.”
For Akers, the Golden Fourteen are compelling not because they are unique, but because they shared the struggles of so many Black Americans who have fought for equality. “I think it’s important to remember that the efforts to bring about equal opportunity are part of the larger civil rights movement of that time period,” Akers says. “There has always been a civil rights movement in the U.S., because there have always been people advocating for change and fighting for their rights.”
 

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THE GIRL FROM ROOM 20 (1946) is a film directed by Spencer Williams and stars Geraldine Brock, Spencer Williams, R. Jore, E. Celese Allen, July Jones, and Howard Galloway. Williams did all his directing in the 1940s. Most of his films seem to be fairly hip to the times. This particular film is fairly entertaining although the musical arrangements are not nearly as hip as some of his other films (JUKE JOINT and MARCHING ON! for example).
Small-town Texas girl leaves home, family, and boyfriend to seek her dream of singing professionally in New York City. She's befriended by a cabby (Spencer Williams) who keeps an eye on her. She eventually, but innocently, gets wrapped up with a married man. His wife shows up and accidentally shoots the young girl. The cabby calls her boyfriend in Texas to come to New York to assist her. She recovers, sings and her boyfriend takes her and her good friends back to Texas.
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https://www.daaracarchive.org/.../the-girl-in-room-20...

This film is fairly easy to find on DVD and is available on Youtube. Picture quality of the film may vary.
 

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Jet Magazine promoting Roots: The Saga of an African American family. The series first aired on ABC-TV, January 23, 1977 to January 30, 1977.
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