-
Introduction
- The University of North Carolina Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Introduction The men who reported for duty at Camp Montford Point in August 1942 were the first African Americans to serve their nation as Marines since the American Revolution. Theirs is a story of honor, duty, and patriotism, characteristic of what has come to be known as the Greatest Generation. It is also the story of achievement and ultimate triumph in the face of unrelenting racial prejudice, of an unyielding determination to prove their mettle as fighting men to a nation that endorsed a policy of segregation based upon the doctrine of white supremacy. Even the Marine Corps they joined did not welcome them. Theirs is a significant American story, a major episode in the country’s military and civil rights history, a story that reveals much about the price individual African Americans paid to gain acceptance into one of the nation’s most hallowed institutions. It is also a story that remains largely unknown, except to those who lived it. African Americans fought to be accepted into military service throughout the history of the nation, although they have always served their country. During the American Revolution the British promised male slaves freedom in exchange for their support, a position the United States never adopted. Despite the obvious gap between America’s rhetoric of freedom and equality and its practice of legitimizing a form of chattel slavery based upon race, some African Americans, both free and slave, joined the armed forces of the United States. Many joined in the hope that their loyalty would earn them their freedom. While some states outlawed slavery during the Revolution , the new nation did not. Slavery, and the racial ideology upon which it rested, were integral to both the economic and social systems of the fledgling United States. With independence, the racial ideology and economic realities of slavery prevented the new nation from fully redeeming its promises of equality and freedom. The Constitution of the United States, ratified in 1789, protected the institution of slavery, and prejudice against blacks was widespread even within states that had rejected slavery. This prejudice was written into federal military policy when, in 1792, Congress limited service in state militias to ‘‘free able bodied white male citizens.’’ Six years later, the secretary of war declared that ‘‘no Negro, Mulatto or Indian’’ could enlist in the United States Navy or Marines. The Army and the Marines retained their ban on black enlistments. Desperate for men who would serve under the appalling conditions of life at sea, the Navy began to accept limited numbers of free black sailors, especially after 1798, as the United States attempted to protect its shipping from both the French and the British, who were embroiled in a worldwide battle for naval supremacy. With the outbreak of the War of 1812, once again British military might threatened the young nation’s survival, and the nation altered its racial policies to enlist the aid of black Americans to avoid defeat. Finding sailors for the young American fleet again proved a difficult task, and the Navy again responded by enlisting free blacks; more than a hundred of them served in Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s fleet of nine ships that repelled a potential invasion by defeating the British fleet in the Battle of Lake Erie on September 10, 1813. Free black sailors also served under Lieutenant Thomas McDonough in his victory over the British on Lake Champlain on September 11, 1814. Free blacks fought as well under General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans in the first week of January 1815. They did so, however, not as members of the American army, which continued to bar African Americans from enlistment. Instead, Jackson employed a Louisiana militia unit from New Orleans, the Battalion of the Free Men of Color. Louisiana had banned blacks from militia service after it became an American possession with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, but the new British threat dictated a change in policy. Organized as a segregated unit, the Battalion of Free Men of Color boasted three black officers and drew many of its members from black refugees who had supported the French during the Haitian Revolution . It also contained crewmen from the fleet of the notorious pirate captain Jean Lafitte. The 500 blacks in Jackson’s 6,000-man army fought gallantly , engaging in hand-to-hand combat with the British and sustaining heavy casualties. When the war ended in a virtual stalemate and a peace agreement...