With an executive order from President Franklin Roosevelt in 1941, the United States Marine Corps--the last all-white branch of the U.S. military--was forced to begin recruiting and enlisting African Americans. The first black recruits received basic training at the segregated Camp Montford Point, adjacent to Camp Lejeune, near Jacksonville, North Carolina. Between 1942 and 1949 (when the base was closed as a result of President Truman's 1948 order fully desegregating all military forces) more than 20,000 men trained at Montford Point, most of them going on to serve in the Pacific Theatre in World War II as members of support units. This book, in conjunction with the documentary film of the same name, tells the story of these Marines for the first time. Drawing from interviews with 60 veterans, The Marines of Montford Point relates the experiences of these pioneers in their own words. From their stories, we learn about their reasons for enlisting; their arrival at Montford Point and the training they received there; their lives in a segregated military and in the Jim Crow South; their experiences of combat and service in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam; and their legacy. The Marines speak with flashes of anger and humor, sometimes with sorrow, sometimes with great wisdom, and always with a pride fostered by incredible accomplishment in the face of adversity. This book serves to recognize and to honor the men who desegregated the Marine Corps and loyally served their country in three major wars.

On June 1, 1942, the United States Marine Corps broke a 144-year tradition and enlisted the first black Marines. Three months later, more than 400 black volunteers began their training as members of the 51st Composite Defense Battalion at Montford Point, a Marine camp of over five square miles located within Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Informed by personal interviews, this volume takes an in-depth look at the men who braved the color barrier and became the first black Marines. Beginning with a look at the pre-World War II Marine Corps, it examines the creed and contemporary image of the USMC. The main focus is the experiences of the new black Marines. Additional topics include internal Marine perspectives on the admittance of blacks, initially enforced quotas, and the difficulties of segregation. Appendices provide information regarding monthly inductions into the Marine Corps from 1941 to 1945; rank and pay structure; depot and ammunition companies from 1943 to 1946; and Pacific Ocean area units of fire for ground weapons.

When this monograph was published almost 30 years ago, then History and Museums Director Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons wrote: "Today's generation of Marines serve in a fully integrated Corps where blacks constitute almost one-fifth of our strength. Black officers, noncommissioned officers, and privates are omnipresent, their service so normal a part of Marine life that it escapes special notice. The fact that this was not always so and that as little as 34 years ago (in 1941) there were no black Marines deserves explanation." This statement holds true for this edition of Blacks in the Marine Corps, which has already gone through several previous reprintings. What has occurred since the first edition of Blacks in the Marine Corps has been considerable scholarship and additional writing on the subject that deserve mention to a new generation of readers, both in and outside the Corps. First and foremost is Morris J. MacGregor, Jr.'s Integration of the Armed Forces 1940-1965 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981) that documents the Armed Forces efforts as part of the Defense Studies Series. The volume is an excellent history of a social topic often difficult for Service historical offices to deal with.

"Like many 18-year-olds who sign up to serve with the U.S. Navy, Petersen was looking for adventure when he enlisted. The difference between him and the average kid of 1950, when he enlisted, was that Petersen was African American. At the time military opportunities were limited for blacks, so it was remarkable that Petersen, revealed here as an intense go-getter, was admitted to the highly competitive naval aviation cadet program. He would go on to become the first African American pilot, then flag officer, then three-star general in the deeply conservative Marine Corps. Assisted by veteran biographer Phelps, Petersen relates his personal and career trajectory from wide-eyed kid to seasoned combatant. Although the presentation at times is overly detailed, with recollections of Petersen's acquaintances sprinkled liberally throughout. This work offers valuable insight into the evolution of both the military and the society at large through the experience of one man and his family. It's hard not to wince when Petersen describes being stopped for impersonating a military officer at a time when blacks in the service were presumed to be enlisted men. Other anecdotes are more benign, such as the time a puzzled young Korean woman tried to wipe the color from his face. To Petersen's credit, he includes much commentary from his first wife, Ellie, who is candid about the toll of being married to an ambitious pioneer. Through her, readers see the mettle of that rare breed of social groundbreakers." — Publishers Weekly

In Separate Pasts Melton A. McLaurin honestly and plainly recalls his boyhood during the 1950s, an era when segregation existed unchallenged in the rural South. In his small hometown of Wade, North Carolina, whites and blacks lived and worked within each other's shadows, yet were separated by the history they shared. Separate Pasts is the moving story of the bonds McLaurin formed with friends of both races—a testament to the power of human relationships to overcome even the most ingrained systems of oppression. A new afterword provides historical context for the development of segregation in North Carolina. In his poignant portrayal of contemporary Wade, McLaurin shows that, despite integration and the election of a black mayor, the legacy of racism remains.

Nearly 900 African Americans fought in the Battle of Iwo Jima, but accounts of their service have gone largely unrecorded. This book seeks to correct that omission for the sake of the brave Americans who served and for the sake of a more inclusive American history. Eleven veterans contribute their memories and experiences, starting with their youth in the Depression, their enlistment, the battle itself, and their experience of returning to a nation that continued to treat them as second-class citizens. Appendices include a history of the Montford Point Marines, a history of the Army's 476th Amphibian Truck Company, a chronology of the Battle of Iwo Jima and a task organization chart for the participating U.S. forces.

From 1898 onward, the expansion of American militarism and empire abroad increasingly relied on black labor, even as policy remained inflected both by scientific racism and by fears of contagion. Black men and women were mobilized for service in the Spanish-Cuban-American War under the War Department's belief that southern blacks carried an immunity against tropical diseases. Later, in World Wars I and II, black troops were stigmatized as members of a contagious "venereal race" and were subjected to experimental medical treatments meant to curtail their sexual desires. By turns feared as contagious and at other times valued for their immunity, black men and women played an important part in the U.S. military's conscription of racial, gender, and sexual difference, even as they exercised their embattled agency at home and abroad. By following the scientific, medical, and cultural history of African American enlistment through the archive of American militarism, this book traces the black subjects and agents of empire as they came into contact with a world globalized by warfare.

Keith B. Bickel challenges a host of military and strategic theories that treat particular bureaucratic structures, large organizations, and elites as the progenitors of doctrine. This timely study of how the military draws lessons from interventions focuses on the overlooked role that mid-level combat officers play in creating military doctrine. Mars Learning closely evaluates Marine civil and military pacification operations in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua, and illuminates the debates surrounding the development of Marine Corps' small wars doctrine between 1915 and 1940. The result is compelling evidence of how field experience obtained before 1940 played a role in shaping the Marine Corps' Small Wars Manual and elements of doctrine that exist today. How the Marines organized lessons at that time provides important insights into how doctrine is likely to be generated today in response to post-Cold War interventions around the globe.

Dixon provides the first comprehensive study of African American military and social experiences during the Pacific War.

This memoir was written by one of the few remaining Montford Point Marines. Captain Eddie Q Hicks served honorably from April 1948 to October 1972. This first-person account of his experiences reveals his reasons for enlisting; his arrival at Montford Point and revelations about the segregated military and the Jim Crow South; his experiences of combat and service in Korea, and Vietnam; and the his legacy.