Editor,
America is once again preparing to pay tribute to the contributions of its African-American citizens. Great men and women such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. will have their stories told and their legacies celebrated, and rightly so.
This year, however, with American forces heavily committed in Iraq - and the Marine Corps at the forefront of our nation's battles yet again - it'd be appropriate to remember the contributions of a lesser-known group of black pioneers as well: the Montford Point Marines.
Today, Marines serve in a fully integrated corps in which African-Americans comprise one-fifth of the troop strength. African-American officers, noncommissioned officers and enlisted personnel are omnipresent - their service such a normal part of Marine life that it escapes notice. The fact that this was not always so should not be overlooked.
In the months before Pearl Harbor, as the nation's attention became increasingly drawn to the horrors gripping Europe and the Pacific, President Franklin Roosevelt - at the urging of his wife, Eleanor, and faced with the threat of a march on Washington by civil rights activist Asa Philip Randolph - signed Executive Order 8802, establishing the Fair Employment Practice Commission and prohibiting racial discrimination by any government agency.
With a stroke of his pen, Roosevelt opened to African-Americans positions in the post office and other federal bureaucracies and also in one of the most celebrated all-white bastions - the U.S. Marine Corps.
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In compliance with the order - which was controversial to say the least - the Marine Corps began recruitment of African-Americans on June 1, 1942, at Camp Montford Point, which was then little more than a field carved out of a dense North Carolina forest. Camp Montford Point would become the recruitment and advanced training facility for all African-American Marine enlistees from 1942-49, when the practice of fielding completely segregated units would be dropped in favor of the fully integrated force we know today.
James E. "Jimmy" Stewart Sr., my father, of Oklahoma City, Okla., was responsible for the first African-American man being recruited, one minute after midnight, and sworn in the U.S. Marine Corps. Stewart enlisted shortly after. He volunteered for the Marine Corps in 1942 and served with the first battalion of Black Marines. He was discharged in 1945 with the rank of Technical Sergeant and returned to Oklahoma City.
From its humble beginnings, Camp Montford Point would rise to the occasion and pass more than 20,000 African-Americans through its grounds, and men would go on to serve their country with honor and distinction during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and beyond.
This year, with our nation again looking toward the Corps for its defense, I hope we are encouraged to remember, honor and learn about the stories of this collection of men - men who helped defend and carry the promise of America abroad, even while, for them, it hadn't been fully realized at home.
James Stewart Jr.
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