Alabamians blazed trails, fought discrimination as the first African-American Marines
Montford Point Marines, including those from Alabama, are being honored with a new memorial. (contributed)
The stories and heroics of the Tuskegee Airmen and the Buffalo Soldiers are well known. Lesser know are the Montford Point Marines.
They were 20,000 African-American Marine recruits. More than13,000 went on to serve as Marines in Europe and Guadalcanal during World War II and in Korea. Of those, 11 Montford Pointers have been documented in Alabama, but there are many more who served and haven’t been recognized.
In August, the first phase of a monument to those men will be unveiled on the grounds where they once trained.
Imagine the camp, located on New River in eastern North Carolina. It was 1942, the year after President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the Marines to begin recruiting African-American men. Original Montford Pointers served between 1942 and 1949, the year the camp was closed after President Harry S. Truman ordered the desegregation of the military.
Instead of sending them to established bases in the Carolinas and California, they were sent to Camp Montford Point, a segregated camp in eastern North Carolina near Camp Lejeune.
The thousands of men who traveled from across the country to training included sharecroppers and steelworkers, doctors and attorneys. Summertime at the camp promised exceptionally humid and hot weather with plenty of mosquitoes. There were snakes and bears in the nearby woods. The men not only endured arduous training, they also had to live with the reality that at that time, no matter how hard they worked, they would be restricted to specific support jobs and not allowed to rise in rank to command troops, black or white.
It was considered the hell hole of the Marine Corps, but things continue to change.
“Now it will be more sacred, more hallowed ground,” said Cynthia House, a Mobile, native who is a retired Marine master gunnery sergeant and director of the organization’s journal.
Alabama roots run deep among Montford Pointers, past and present.
In 1974, Camp Montford Point, a satellite camp of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, was renamed for a Mount Hebron, native, Gilbert H. Johnson. He, along with Edgar Huff of Mobile, were among of the first blacks to enlist in the Marine Corps and became two of the first trained as drill sergeants.
Johnson was among the first to earn the rank of sergeant major. He died in 1972.
Now Camp Johnson is home to the Marine Corps Combat Service Support Schools where Marines go for training in such military occupational specialties as administration, supply, logistics, finance and motor transport maintenance.
A look at the Montford Point Marines Memorial from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.
Forest Spencer, president of the National Montford Point Marine Association, also grew up in Mobile. He joined the Marines in 1986. He is inspired by their sacrifices and their grace under pressure. After all, the desegregation of the military hinged on their conduct, even when faced with humiliation of segregation in the U.S. and abroad.
“They had to fight to join, fight to stay, and to get into the unit to fight abroad,” he said. “When they returned and they were successful, they still had to fight segregation. They had to fight on both shores.”
That is why the organization works to find and recognize those surviving Marines. The youngest among them would be in their early 80s today.
“We’re always looking for Montford Pointers,” Spencer said. “Our problem was that the records were not as well kept as other ethnicities within the Marine Corps with proper documentation. They may not know they are Congressional Gold Medal awardees.”
Montford Pointers were collectively awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2011. Marines or their next of kin are eligible for a bronze version of the medal. For information on how to apply, or to purchase a commemorative brick to be displayed at the Montford Point Marines monument, visit the web site.
Contact the Mobile chapter of the National Montford Point Marine Association mpma33.mobile.al@gmail.com
Nichele Hoskins, a freelance writer and editor, is the granddaughter of the late Clarence P. Jones, who trained at Camp Montford Point in 1943.
