![]() ![]() This discussion will investigate the numerous examples of Black military service, with Black Americans fighting in every United States conflict from the American War for Independence to present day. With the recent events in 2020, it is important to look back over the events that have been pivotal in breaking down racial barriers. By 1944, more than 18,000 Marines had trained at Montford Point and 12,000 were stationed overseas.JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. ![]() Despite the racism black Marines encountered, they distinguished themselves in the battles of Peleliu, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. In North Carolina, a policeman slapped Edgar Cole‘s official orders out of his hand and told Cole that he was not allowed to wait on the street corner for a Marine driver to pick him up and take him to Montford Point. The police officers did not know African American Marines existed. Wood was even arrested for impersonating a Marine when he traveled home on leave to Cleveland, Ohio. The Marine Corps Commandant, Major General Thomas Holcomb, resented being forced to accept African Americans into the Corps, and unlike the Army, the Marine Corps did not permit any Black men to become officers until November 1945. Although the “Montford Point Marines” excelled at gunnery and drill, they too faced the same segregation and hostility as men and women in the other branches. These Marines trained at Montford Point, North Carolina. When the US Marine Corps began recruiting a contingent of black Marines in June 1942, men from across the country flocked to enlist. ![]() Various accounts relate how German prisoners of war could enter facilities reserved for white Americans that black servicemen could not patronize. This willingness on the part of African American soldiers to sacrifice their lives for a country that treated them as second-class citizens is remarkable. ![]() Soldiers of the 93rd Division advance through the jungle on Bougainville, May 1, 1944. ![]()
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