They would be kept separate from white Marines and would not be given advanced infantry training. New recruits form ranks for inspection at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. (The Marines in World War II did accept some Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans-the “Code Talkers.”)Īs more African American Marine recruits arrived and climbed down from trains and buses, much of the site was still a construction zone, in the process of expanding from its original 110,000 acres of land to today’s 244 square miles. Perry of Charlotte, North Carolina, appeared at Camp Lejeune’s gates, quickly followed by 12 others. Although at least a dozen black Marines had served with the Marines during the Revolutionary War, the Corps went lily white from 1798 until August 26, 1942, when Howard P. Lejeune, the Corps’ 13th commandant).Ĭamp Lejeune became the home for the Corps’ future 10,000 African American recruits. With war on the horizon, in September 1941 the government began constructing a new training facility for an expected increase in Marine recruits it would be another year before Marine Barracks, New River, North Carolina, would become known as Camp Lejeune (named for the World War I Lt. Price’s prejudices raised the legitimate question: Who would fight and perhaps die in a war for a country under those conditions?īut the wheels of at least partial integration had been set in motion. Price refused to allow them to disembark, keeping them aboard ship for two days before sending them away. In spite of that, in October 1943, a ship carrying two African American ammunition companies pulled into port. When notified that an African American unit was bound for his area, Price flat out refused to accept it. Charles Fredrick Berthold Price graduated from Pennsylvania Military College and became a Marine in 1906. One Marine senior commander had his own viewpoint on these racial issues as the Pacific War widened. African American noncommissioned officers could only direct African American Marines, and black Marines had to follow all orders of any NCO outranking them. If a black buck-sergeant came upon a white private first class, that private would not have to do a thing that sergeant told him. The bottom line from Robinson was, “Eleanor says we gotta take in Negroes.” Succumbing to pressure from on high, Holcomb made his own preparations for their admittance with his March 1943 “Letter of Instructions #421,” in which he made it clear no African American Marine would ever become an officer, nor would any black Marine outrank any white Marine. Robinson said, “It just scared us to death we’ve never had any. He had to follow the traditions of his era when Jim Crow spoke aloud with timeworn prejudices. In charge of those affairs was a University of Southern California graduate, Colonel Ray Albert Robinson, a resident of Los Angeles, California.Ĭonsidering his background, Robinson had little acquaintance with Jim Crow laws that had dominated America’s southern states since Reconstruction. Attempting to integrate African Americans became an overwhelming challenge for the Marine Corps’ Division of Plans and Policies as part of its Personnel Services branch. With the Corps responding as an offshoot to Navy authority, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox agreed. ![]() Army as an inferior, poorly trained, lesser-motivated service (but one that was accepting black draftees and enlistees in segregated units), Holcomb declared, “The Negro race has every opportunity now to satisfy its aspirations for combat in the Army.” Like most white officers, Holcomb rigidly insisted that blacks had no place in his Corps as they tried to “break into a club that doesn’t want them.” As the Corps frowned upon the U.S. In 1936, 57-year-old, four-star general Thomas Holcomb became the Corps’ 17th commandant, beginning his seven-year reign over all things Marine Corps. Marine Corps would be receiving black Americans. For the first time in 167 years, the U.S. ![]() Roosevelt with a massive march on Washington to protest the military’s policy of racial segregation, America’s commander-in-chief (with his wife’s urging), signed Executive Order #8802 mandating that all services accept qualified African American enlistees-draftees. Philip Randolph threatened to embarrass President Franklin D. On June 25, 1941, after black labor activist A. The Army, too, thought they were only good enough to tackle menial duties and perform manual labor. The Navy barely tolerated them in restricted capacities as cooks, waiters, servants for officers, and dockside stevedores. Prior to the summer of 1941, the United States Marine Corps did not want them.
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