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history

In Arizona, Destinations, France, United States on
April 25, 2019

Travel is the Vehicle that Connects Past, Present, and Future

Black Arizona landforms against a vibrant, flaming sunset

A 5 minute read

While road tripping in 2016 to complete my “All 50 States” tour, I pulled over along a desolate highway. The sunset views against Arizona’s Painted Desert deserved so much more than a passing glance as I drove through. I got out of my car and stood amidst absolute, complete silence and watched nature take place.

I’d never seen anything like it. Iridescence cascaded into/like an overture/coloratura across the sky.  The sun painted murals on rock formations. Fallen, petrified trees from the late Triassic period, 225 million years ago interspersed throughout the barren landscapes soon gave way to majestic silhouettes accented by stars that seemed close enough to pull right out of the sky.

There I stood, somewhere between, “the bright blessed day and dark sacred night” that inspired Armstrong’s crooning and led him to rejoice, “What a wonderful world.” Wonderful world, indeed.

Engulfed in awe of the creator’s innovation, my heart overflowed with gratitude that the composer saw fit to share this masterpiece with me.
At the moment, an elucidation that captured this experience from Forest Gump, long buried in the depths of my mind, rose to the surface, “In the desert, when the sun comes up, I couldn’t tell where heaven stopped, and Earth began. It was so beautiful.” At this moment, I too struggled to distinguish Heaven from Earth. For the first time, I understood.

Surrounded by both vast nothingness and the density of significance at once, all of the people I love came to mind. I wanted them to have a moment like this. I wished they could witness this. I craved for them to feel all of this.  

desert sunrise with beautiful artistic hues of pinks, purples, and blues.
                       I want you to know how these colors feel.

I view the world through a historical lens. Whereas an engineer may look at something and ask how it works, I look for clues left by previous generations to learn the story of why and document to provide clues for the next.  I travel in order to cover as much ground as possible to increase the probability that I trace the steps of my progenitors but also, lay a path for descendants.  I try to have many unique experiences so when others experience the same, it bridges a gap of understanding in a way that it couldn’t by being explained.

For example, I grew up in a military family. Saturday mornings often started with a G.I. Party (the military community knows, this is not an exciting event) and getting ready for school came with the expectation that it only takes three minutes to do the  Three S’s. After 22 years of growing up in that environment, it wasn’t until I experienced military training for myself that I learned it is indeed possible to get ready in three minutes (which is 90 seconds more than what’s actually needed).  That experience helps me relate to every American warfighter that has come before me in a way I couldn’t before.  Visiting Charleston, I was filled with an enormous sense of family connection. Although I don’t know for sure, the statistics make it highly probable that someone from my family’s past walked the same streets centuries before. Even after reading Little Women multiple times and watching both versions of the movie, it wasn’t until visiting the March family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Mass that I felt that I really got to know the family.  Tracing the steps of James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Lois Mailou Jones in Paris’ Latin Quarter helps to understand their muses and inspires creativity of one’s own. The same goes for visiting the homes and frequented localities of all historical figures. It gives a snapshot of the surroundings of the historical figure, how they lived, and what influenced their thoughts. It helps to understand how they worked through some of their decisions and thought processes. I know, from visiting the Kennedy Library and Museum that Jacqueline took a cruise to Paris with friends while in college and it was the best year of her life. But I don’t know any such information about anyone in my family.

I’d like to able to know and connect with my family in the same way, but so much of my family’s history went undocumented. I do have some say over the documentation prepared for the future of my family to be able to know and connect in the same way that I do historical figures.

So I travel. I do things. I search out a diversity of experiences, not only so I can find some commonality with people I come in contact with today, and so I can relate to people of yesteryear, but also for those who come next will be able to identify with me in some way.

Regardless of France’s past and current transgressions as colonizers, and irrespective of the more impactful uses of contribution money, Notre Dame’s burning is a loss.  The losses of St Mary Baptist, Greater Union Baptist, and Mount Pleasant Baptist in Louisiana and the several mosques also burning at the same time does not detract from the loss of this Catholic Church in France. It is a loss of history — literary history, architectural history, religious history, cultural history, and personal history. And it is a loss of a future. Three generations of women in my family explored this site together during a wonderful summer trip, and now, our future generations will not see it as we saw it.

The backs of a small crowd watch Notre Dame durn from afar on a hill.
I can only imagine what it would be like: To be going about my day, look up, and see the smoke, then realize it’s Notre Dame burning.

In the wake of the devasting fire to Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral, social media users flooded their timelines with the nostalgia of Paris vacations.  Criticisms grew that this act was merely bragging.  When we grieve the loss of a pet, it is common to remember by showing pictures of the memories with them. When we mourn the loss of a loved one, we do the same thing. When a home full of warm memories is lost, we often use pictures to help us remember those memories and grieve. And in the most heartbreaking occasions, when a dream is lost, one of the ways we grieve is by looking at pictures of that dream.  Have we gotten so cynical and disconnected from humanity that we confuse the human emotion of grief for bragging? And really, isn’t that the central focus on social media? A platform to draw attention to yourself?

The places we travel become the setting for the story of our lives.  Perhaps, my progeny won’t give their ancestors a second thought, but at least if they do, the more places I travel, the easier it will become for those who come after me to visit and find a connection if they so wished. When they find themselves randomly out in the middle of the desert, witnessing all its glory, and they’re longing for someone to share it with, they’ll know they had an adventurous ancestor who sent everywhere and saw everything and likely witnessed it and felt the same way too.  Perhaps, if the Earth is still around, four generations from now,  my offspring will visit France’s capital. Perhaps they’ll respond just like me and marvel at finally witnessing the architecture discussed in classes first hand. Perhaps they’ll be like some of my travel companions and be underwhelmed.  Perhaps, if it is rebuilt, they’ll climb the tower. Perhaps if restored properly, they won’t have to climb the steps and take the elevator instead. Maybe my future offspring will see the cathedral for the first time with friends. Perhaps they’ll make their mark on eternity and get engaged right next to the Charlemagne statute, under the shade of the trees.  At the very least, perhaps those scions will at least have the primary source document that shows four generations of women in their family have gone to Paris, strolled the narrow alleyways, delighted in the cuisine, and had their picture taken in front of La Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris.

In Assignments, Destinations, United States on
February 4, 2019

Make Charleston Your Black History Month Destination

Charneice stands between two iron gates and a stately home, smartly dressed, welcoming visitors.

Come feel the omnipresent spirit of African Ancestors in Charleston.

When I planned my weekend getaway to Charleston, I fully intended on basking in all the southern-ness I’d been yearning for while living in Boston. I’d chat with gracious southerners with incomparable etiquette. I’d dine on delectable southern cuisine.  Most of all, I intended on giving my ears a break from the harshness of the Bostonian accent to capture the sweetest of twang.  Charleston is, after all, the crown jewel of the south. Its timeless allure is immortalized in American folklore and literature. It is where you go when you need a super does of southern charm.  Although I went to Charleston for its southern-ness, I never expected that I’d be surrounded by its African-ness as well. All-the-while the city is touted as the epicenter of quintessential southern gentry, I’ve rarely heard it positioned as a starting point of Africans in American. Yet, when I visited, I was constantly surrounded by the works and stories that drew a bridge to my own past.

This history and culture of Charleston is the history of the African majority who built and developed the city from the colonial era onward.  It is impossible to separate the history of Charleston from the history of the Africans that populated the city for over 300 years. You don’t have to go looking for the history of Black Americans in South Carolina — it hits you right in the face. The African people of Charleston are not an aside to the city, or a footnote. Charleston was not influenced by Africans, but built by Africans in every way. They were and still are the heart of the city.  

All this southern charm captured by Lindsay Pennell @taylor.grace.photography

My first stop of the weekend was Fort Sumter. Etched into memory from history class, it’s always been on my list of places to see. Being the hyper planner that I am, I arrived as their first customer of the morning. I purchased my ticket for the ferry across the bay but it didn’t leave until another two hours at 11.   That gave me time to check out the Old Slave Mart Museum.

While touring the Old Slave Mart, or Ryan’s Mart as it was called in the days of slavery, I learned an estimated 80 percent of African Americans today had at least one ancestor who was kidnapped from the Senegambia region then quarantined at Sullivan Island, often for over a month, before being brought into the city.  While I can’t know for sure, it is reasonable to believe, that I have some ancestor, from some branch of the family tree that came through this seaport. Considering that probability, the city became more personalized. This wasn’t just a trendy southern city. I was no longer just a history tourist on the outside looking in at a foreign history.  This city provides clues to my family’s potential first steps in America.    

Old slave mart museum - stone building with the words "Mart" inscribed. Three arched doorways on the first floor show symetry to the same archways over doors on the second floor.
The museum is reading intensive and emotional. It’s not recommended for children…especially rambunctious ones.

Initially, Charleston didn’t have a designated spot for the sale of Africans. It was customary for Europeans to buy and sell African people randomly on sidewalks all over town. These spontaneous sales drew inconvenient crowds for pedestrians and carts trying to make their way around town. Ryan’s Mart was built in 1856 to alleviate the sidewalk congestion. Now, Charleston had undergone series of legislation banning the public sale of humans in 1839 as a way of being discrete. That law was overturned a decade later by anti-abolitionists as a way of doubling down on their shamelessness of the institution.  

Looking at the cobble stone roads, I wondered if any of my family members, or people who knew my family were creepily inspected on the side of the roads to be bought and sold like a used futon prior to the mart’s construction.  Or perhaps someone who cross paths with my ancestors survived time spent in the barracoon of the slave mart.  Could all the trauma and heartbreak contained in this concrete cell be part of my family’s initial experience in this country?  Through these walls, mamas, most certainly clinging to their little girls knowing the fate of adolescent girls being considered the property of ruthless men.  Young sweethearts, crazy in love, waited for the impeding separation, never to see each other again. Mothers never knew what became of their toddlers and children never knew if they had other brothers and sisters out there.  

According to displays in the museum, Ryan’s Mart was advertised in newspapers across the south. Even enslavers in Mobile, AL would know when an auction was scheduled and pay a dealer to purchase and deliver people who were enslaved. Those people would be marched in shackles from Charleston to Mobile while the white deliverer would ride alongside of them.  If you could imagine…that’s a 9-hour drive on the highway today but walking back then would take weeks. This job illustrates that even individuals that might not have “owned” African people as property, their livelihood still depended on the propagation of the slave industry. Being in the Old Slave Mart connected dots on possible stories of my family’s history. My family has lived an hour’s drive north of Mobile since the end of the Civil War. While Mobile Bay was a significant slave port, most of those enslaved African people had been brought over after being “seasoned” for slave life in the Caribbean.  I pondered if my people were part of that crew or the Charleston set? Or both?

   After an hour and a half, the museum stimulated my curiosity and provided more data to use for research. I dashed back to my rental parked in two-hour parking right outside the museum then headed back to Fort Sumter National Monument.

The National Parks Department curated a small but impactful museum in the ferry waiting area that doesn’t gloss over some of the less touted realities of antebellum life that history books often omit. Founded in 1663, Charleston became predominantly black by the first decade of the 1700s.  By 1770, the Charleston harbor was the nation’s fourth largest port after Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.  At the end of the century, Charleston distinguished itself as the wealthiest city in British North America (including the Caribbean). All of its wealth was made possible by its slave industry. Of America’s major cities, Charleston was the only one with a history of having the majority of its residents enslaved.  In fact, the majority of all South Carolina residents were enslaved. The irony… South Carolina, a state in America — the bastion of freedom, enslaved most of its residents. The city stayed predominately African until the great migration during the industrial revolution of the early 20th century.

Charneice stands on the fort's island in front of "Fort Sumter National Monument" welcome sign. Grass and the bay is in the background.
The Fort is free but the 30-minute ferry ride is a small fee. You’re welcome to visit on your own boat if you’d like. Keep your eyes out for dolphins!

Once out on the island fort, the park ranger gave a spill on the history of Ft Sumter. He was a high energy, charismatic, retired Marine Colonel who implored the visitors to use our imaginations to put ourselves in the shoes of the people of Charleston at the start of the Civil War.  Empathy, he contended, was vital to the study of history and human understanding. Just like current events of today, that time period had so many perspectives to consider.  With that in mind, I considered what I’d be thinking if I was a young, enlisted soldier doing my daily duties while gearing up for the impending battle. I measured my priorities if I was the commander of the fort, knowing supplies were low and the confederates were getting hostile. I imagined being one of the aristocrats watching the battle from the porch of my ocean-side home. But what I pondered most was the perspective I’d have if I were one of the enslaved people who laid the bricks to build the fortress. I wondered if the hands of one of my ancestors built the bricks that now surrounded me. I ran my hands across as many as I could just in case.

Back shot of a 19th century cannon looking out porthole.
Use from the Ft Sumter National Monument website.

The prevailing viewpoint is the realization that all the grandeur of the city of Charleston depended on the wealth made possible by forced, African labor. With the federal government placing bans on the peculiar institution, the source of income of southerners would be gone (…with the wind).  That meant no more fashionable gowns imported from Europe. No more life of leisure, porch sitting. Cultural developments such as America’s first theater building, Dock Street Theater (1736), was made possible by the wealth of the slave economy.  The city’s first libraries came from slave money. Every nicety enjoyed by the Charleston elite life came from the work of the kidnapped and enslaved African majority.  So it’s understandable that people, reluctant to change, would hold on to the last of their livelihood as long as possible. It’s not unlike folks of today holding on to fleeting or dangerous economies (Coal. Guns. etc).

              Two and half hours later I was back in the city and starving.  At the recommendation of a friend, a South Carolina native, I ate my fill of mac & cheese and dirty grits (In Charleston they called the dish shrimp ‘n grits…but once you add the sausage and gravy…they qualify as dirty grits) at Poogin’s Porch.  The two sites I’d just visited framed my point of reference and my approach to absorbing historical Charleston. The cityscape captured my imagination of what used to be. Roaming the streets, I envisioned some distant relative once traveled the same path as me. I reckoned they probably looked at the same exchange building or churches I passed.  Gadsden Wharf was the busiest port for the nation’s slave trade capitol. But on this day, I watched an energetic fitness influencer pose for a photoshoot.  

As I wandered the streets, words from Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography came to mind, “We are almost a nation of dancers, musicians, and poets,” he wrote.  The beautiful, ornamental wrought iron work featured prominently around the city were designed and created by talented African blacksmiths.  The sweet grass baskets that Charleston is famous for (and charges a small fortune), are the handicrafts of West Africa.  The bricks that line the streets, make up the stately antebellum homes, and hold up Fort Sumter were all made by enslaved Africans.  The food culture of Charleston was made famous by African cooks, chefs, and caterers like Nat Fuller and Sally Seymour.  The beautiful gowns seen painted in portraits likely designed and stitched by African seamstresses, made out of African cultivated cotton, and all financed through African labor.   Any building, church, home, artifact of the period in the town, was either created by the wealth of enslaved African labor or physically built by the Africans themselves.  Even modern buildings were likely built from local revenue which continues to profit off of the antebellum history tourism (i.e. plantation weddings and tours). Equiano’s words were omnipresent as I wandered the painstakingly preserved French quarter streets.  This nation too, was full of talented African artisans and craftsmen. Every street I turned down I was surrounded by the works of my ancestors.

Charneice, with her back to the camera, leaps streight up on a cobblestone street and an ally of spanish moss draped live oak, and iron gates ahead.
At this moment, I was carefree, walking in my ancestor’s footsteps

The last stop of my Saturday was the ancestral plantations of the Drayton family at Magnolia Plantation.  Just six years ago, the plantation started to acknowledge the overlooked narrative of all the people who lived on this plantation. It offers a “From Slavery to Freedom” tour. I was suspicious of the how the plantation would approach this narrative when I bought my ticket. But my suspicions were alleviated by the tactful docent who led the tour with the dignity and respect the stories deserved.  The original slave shacks remaining on the plantation tell the stories of five different time periods.  The descendants of enslaved people lived in these cabins and took care of the grounds until the late 1990s when the last passed away.  I had been under the impression enslavers didn’t document where the people that they enslaved came from. But they did. In fact, in Charleston, they were very particular about where they seized people. Africans from the Senegambia region were specifically targeted for their rice cultivation skills. Before cotton became king in the south, rice was the cash crop of coastal South Carolina.  Charleston enslavers had been primarily familiar with rice farmers until they took hold of Angolan warriors. The warriors were transported over, said, “Oh hell nah,” then killed everybody at Stono Rebellion (also called Cato’s Conspiracy) just a little way outside of Charleston.  At the time, 40 percent of Africans in Charleston were kidnapped from the region now recognized as Angola.  After the revolt, a decade-long hiatus in abductions from Angola, among other preventative measures, took effect.

An original small, one room slave shack with one door, one window, and a chimny sits around vegitation
These confined shelters that once housed over 10 people per night humbled me.  

              The Year 2019 marks the 400th year that the ship, White Lion, docked in Virginia carrying the first people who were enslaved in America.  Ghana has declared 2019 as “The Year of Return” and invites all people of African descent to visit the West African nation.  If visiting your ancestral lands in Africa isn’t an option, Charleston makes a more accessible option. Even if your ancestors didn’t arrive in America this way, Charleston is steeped in the details that you can’t learn from textbooks and still worth the visit. Even after majoring in history, this weekend tourist trip to Charleston willed in so many gaps in the lessons I learned in school. If you’re looking for something more international, but closer than Africa, The Bahamas, Barbados, St. Kitts, Haiti, and Jamaica are other, closer options for a Black History Month getaway with deeply rooted African history that connects the stories of America’s African history as well.

It’s What Americans Do

A social media dispute leads to a history lesson remembering black veterans who survived war but died at the hand of their countrymen

A Memorial Day Tribute To The Veterans Who Survived War Only to Die at the Hands of Their Countrymen

 
“There is no, ‘yea but…’ response to this article. Only an ‘Ah-ha’ or ‘Dang, that’s messed up.’ This author has a history education. The entire piece is quotable.”
 
Then I selected two of the most paradigm-shifting quotes from the article discussing America’s history with violent protests.
 
The responses to the post were very emotional and continued for days after. Although the very second paragraph of the article discouraged the lecturing by white people on, “the proper response to police brutality, economic devastation, and perpetual marginality, having ourselves rarely been the targets of any of these,” individuals still felt inclined. They told me that the proper response to the constant threat of violence is to be more understanding of the perpetrators, more loving, non-violent, and by “living the Bible.”  That way,  gradually, after some generations, the senseless killings of blacks in our country would end. I liken that advice to child-free individuals spouting parenting advice. Such people do not have the necessary credentials of lived experience to give advice.  People verbally assaulted me rather than the article. They twisted my words and attempted to smear my character. In fact, during their assault, the article was scarcely even referenced. The most peculiar personal attack came from a fellow service member whom I attended professional military education. He stated:
 
    “And I’m astonished that someone who so strongly feels this country is systemically racist would willingly serve on its behalf in uniform.”
 
Then later,
 
     “And I renew my astonishment that you would serve a country whose people, by and large, you believe to be all subconsciously racist, regardless of the words in their Constitution.*”

The service member ended his monologue by saying the only racism he sees is from people pointing out racism like me (insert thinking emoji on how that works).

Being a historian, I’m mindful of General Custer’s lesson on wise battle picking. However, with the odds weighed, I figure it’s worth the effort to address because I find it strange such a statement would be made by an educated military officer. Perhaps other military members have the same view. For the sake of their black troops, they need some cross-cultural awareness. I believe a thorough, unsanitized history education would solve many of our nation’s problems.  So, in homage to the nearing Memorial Day holiday, I’d like to offer some Black American Military history.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a black military service member who does not believe America has a systemic problem with racism.  To suggest that people not serve their country because they are aware of systemic racism exists in their country illustrates the exact sort of naiveté discussed in the article.  It also demonstrates a lack of history.  It shouldn’t be too astonishing that a black American would serve their country and still recognize the country’s struggles with racism.  Considering we have examples of black Americans fighting for liberty since at least 1754, during a time of race-based slavery, it is safe to say each black warfighter knew racism existed. Are people being taught that heralded Generals Benjamin O. Davis Jr. and Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. were without beliefs that systemic racism? Do people think James Webster Smith, Henry O. Flipper, Carl Brashear, Robert Smalls, Alix Pasquet, Martin Delany, Charles McGee, Isaac Woodward, and Lee Archer didn’t recognize the systemic racism of America? Do we believe the Tuskegee Airmen, Buffalo Soldiers, or the first black Marines (who are just now being acknowledged) were aloof to the presence of endemic racism?

Two Airmen representing WWII and Operation Enduring Freedom. Picture circa 2009.
 
If any military person needs to look at any of these names up to know who they are, you are exemplifying systemic racism in military history education.  If you can name more Confederate soldiers than historical American black soldiers, you are evidence that prejudice and racial bias exists in one of the most common facets of American life, education.  If you don’t recognize any of the names I mentioned and choose to continue to be ignorant of the contributions they made to America’s freedom, that is the biggest misfortune. You don’t know, and you don’t want to know. That’s the root of the problem.
 
Revolutionary War Minuteman, Lemuel Haynes wrote, “Liberty is equally as precious to a black man, as it is to a white one, and bondage as equally as intolerable to the one as it is to the other.” 
 
He shared similar views as me on racism and military service, yet when King George dared tax America, he soldiered up.  I think it goes without saying that every black soldier during the Civil War “strongly feels this country is systemically racist” so we won’t delve into that war, but let’s learn the stories of black vets during the 20th century. 
 
World War I
The song, “How Ya Gonna Keep Em Down on the Farm After They’ve seen Paris” describes Black soldiers returning home from WWI. Through their experiences in France, where no one told them where they couldn’t go and what they couldn’t do, Black American soldiers began to recognize how oppressive life in America was.  This is an experience still felt by Black American military members today when they are stationed abroad and return home to America.
 
The year after WWI, the KKK grew and more, “than seventy Black Americans were lynched during the first year following the war, some of them were returned soldiers still in uniform.”   You can find stories of black soldiers returning home from war, readying to hug their parents only to find out they had one parent left because their one of their parents had been lynched while they were fighting a war against tyranny.  With all of this direct contact with racial oppression of previous black service members, somehow modern-day service members believe that the belief in the existence of systemic racism and military service are mutually exclusive?http://www.americansc.org.uk/Online/Woodland.htm
 
George Dorsey, a decorated Bronze Star veteran, was lynched in Monroe, Georgia with his wife and another black couple.
 
World War II
 
 
During the Second World War, black soldiers strove for the Double V—victory at home and abroad; Democracy at home and overseas. Victory in America seemed to be a greater struggle than success against the Nazis. Countless black veterans were lynched, castrated, dismembered, and burned alive post-WWII. The United States Military or government did nothing to support their black veterans.  They came back, too hoo-rah’ed up, too proud to be American. Their fellow countrymen reminded them that they did not regard black people as fellow Americans. Without provocation, racist white Americans gouged out the eyes of twenty-seven-year-old black WWII vet, Sergeant Isaac Woodward, in Georgia while still in his Class As. 
Roy Wright, one of the Scottsboro Boys, was 12-years-old when Alabama’s criminal justice system accused and convicted him of raping a white girl. Even though 1931 DNA evidence easily proved otherwise, he narrowly escaped the death sentence that the rest of his peers received. Even after this racial injustice he still volunteered to serve in the Army. 
 
 
My grandparents circa 1942. Coming home from Ft Knox at the end of the duty day, my grandpa was stopped and told to get away from that “white woman” by an ignorant fool who couldn’t tell his wife wasn’t white.  They couldn’t sit together at the movies. He still served.
 
Thirty-year Congressman Charles Diggs was subjected to Jim Crow treatment while attending the trial of Emmett Till’s murderers. Based on his position as the founding chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus and his leadership the boycott of President Nixon’s State of the Union address after Nixon refused to meet and discuss relevant issues of black American people, it’s safe to say Congressman Diggs was well aware of America’s problem with institutional racism. Yet, he still served in the army during World War II.
 
 Aaron Henry was born in Jim Crow-reigning, Dublin, Mississippi in 1922. After enlisting in the Army and serving overseas, Henry realized the racism he endured in his hometown was not normal!  When Henry came home, he learned veteran’s benefits, like being poll tax-exempt, didn’t apply to black veterans. Bigots chained him to a garbage truck and led through the streets of Clarksdale, MS. with legal impunity. Best believe he believed this veteran knew racism existed. 
 
 Sammy Younge, Jr. volunteered to serve in the Navy right after high school.  After his discharge, he enrolled at Tuskegee Institute as a Poli-sci major and got involved in SNCC and was on Pettus Bridge when Alabama police attacked on Bloody Sunday. Suffice that enough to say that Younge was a firm believer in the institutional racism of America.   He was murdered in 1966 for using a white bathroom in Tuskeegee, Alabama.
 Louis Allen served during World War II and was harassed by the KKK after witnessing them murder another man.  When he reached out to his government (FBI) for help, the FBI alerted the police/KKK, assisting the plot to have him shot in the head twice on his own property with a shotgun.  Silas Hunt, the first black student to integrate the University of Arkansas and the first-ever admitted to a professional program ever in the south, was a Battle of the Bulge Purple Heart vet. He didn’t go through life without dealing with racism.
 
Lyman T. Johnson, who integrated the University of Kentucky six years before Brown challenged the Topeka’s Board of Ed,  was a WWII Navy Officer. Because he enlisted with more education than the white officers appointed over him, he commissioned as an officer, but it was made clear that the Navy would refuse to promote and that his unit wouldn’t be making any more black ensigns.  Pretty sure he received the message was loud and clear that racial inequality was at play.
 
A Tuskegee Airman I once met while I served  Alabama made history more relatable when encouraging me to remember he wasn’t always old. He was once a young, 20-something-year-old pilot, with the same hopes, dreams, and confidence of young pilots today. He explained how he and his fellow airmen strutted around Fort Knox Kentucky in their flight jackets. However, when it came time to ride the bus home, he was in the back.  When it came time to grab lunch, he had to go around back from grab and go. Heck, Tuskegee was a research project of the Army War College to try to prove blacks were unfit to fly.  Talk about systemic racism. Even so, black folks volunteered to be part of the experiment by the hundreds.

 

Tuskegee Airmen signing my gear summer 2008.
 
For Memorial Day 2013, I had the privilege of visiting Épinal American Cemetery in France.   Since the cemetery was without tourists, I got a very personal tour by the caretaker. He told the story of a black gold-star mother of a WWII soldier visiting her son’s gravesite. She waited until all the white gold-star mothers were directed to their child’s plot before asking, “Where is the colored cemetery? Or the colored section.” When the groundskeeper told her that they don’t do colored cemeteries, all soldiers are buried next to their comrades in arms, she was so overwhelmed that her son received the same honor in death as everyone else.
 
Is it any surprise that a soldier, whose mother expected that racism would still exist even in death, and a soldier who couldn’t fight a war in an integrated unit, would have the illusion that his country was without institutional racism? You could place a safe bet that her son was aware of the institutional racism in his country.
 
This Airman lived, fought, and died in a segregated unit but buried in an
integrated cemetery. Another black airman’s gold star mother came to visit her son’s grave and was surprised her son was not relegated to an unkempt corner of the cemetery but honored with the dignity he deserved. (Photo from Épinal, France)
 
Thurgood Marshall was nearly lynched when he attempted to represent black war vets during the Columbia, Tennessee Race Riots that all started when a black Navy man told a white man it was not acceptable to threaten his mother. You best believe all those vets and Marshall believed there was something gravely wrong with their homeland and they still served.
 
 
Jewish-American warrior served under General George Patton, a known anti-semantic bigot (Photo from Normandy).

Mom and pops checking out General Patton’s grave at Luxembourg American Cemetery.
 
Korean War
The military employed racism toward Koreans during the Korean War as war propaganda to motivate white American troops to be ruthless toward the enemy. Black forces, acutely aware of anti-black racism, and not motivated to fight, lost faith in their leadership. Anti-black racism in the Korean War led to a lack of confidence and respect between black troops and white commanders.  It led to failed missions and failed units.  Military education and training often sanitize the story of Chappie James. “He experienced racism first hand” is as detailed as the military is will to get.  Then military history education spins it as an example of, “you too can work your way out of racism just like Chappie James.” The thing is, black people have always been hard workers, but has never stopped racism.
 

Vietnam

Although Vietnam was America’s first racially integrated conflict, the war was rife with racial strife.    Troops still experienced segregated quarters and units. Black soldiers identified more with the oppression of the Vietcong than America’s championing of democracy abroad.  Although black men and women made up 11% of the US population at the time and 9% of the military community, they made up 50% of front line infantry, in June 1969,  41% of recruits, and 20% of the war deaths. Forty percent of black soldiers returned home with PTSD compared to 20% of white soldiers. Coincidence?  With the draft, black panthers were put in situations where they needed to depend on Klansmen as battle buddies, often with disastrous outcomes.

 Jimmy Lee Jackson served his country in Vietnam —before the draft (volunteered)…then went on to serve his country in the battle for civil rights.  While demonstrating his desire to utilize his constitutional rights to vote by walking in circles around the Selma courthouse, police started beating his 80+-year-old grandpa (the state of Alabama didn’t record the births of black folks back then, so we’re not sure of the grandfather’s exact age) and mother with clubs.   Jimmy led his family to safety, but a bigot shot him in the stomach with his frail grandpa and mother as witnesses.   While the 26-years-old clung life in the hospital for the rest of the week, Alabama police served him an arrest warrant. He lost that battle and his grandparents buried in the old slave cemetery beside his dad. You best believe a young black man from rural Alabama knew first-hand institutional racism existed more than anyone else in the country.  He still volunteered to serve his country.

White Vietnam War soldiers refused to allow black soldiers in their jeeps.  Race riots broke out on Navy ships. White soldiers could wave their confederate flags (and no, it wasn’t to preserve their heritage) but a black soldier had to remove a “black is beautiful” poster. Senior officers ignored white soldiers with “F*ck the war” sentiments. However, senior officers punished black soldiers with the same sentiments whereas enforcement of standards of dress and grooming overlooked white troops with long, hippie-like, surfer-style hair.  Army barbers couldn’t or wouldn’t cut black hair, yet the slightest appearance of an afro sent them to jail. Having to see, “I’d rather kill a nigger than a gook” graffiti in barracks and stalls made it challenging to differentiate enemy from countrymen. The Vietcong were quick to detect and exploit the racial weakness within the US forces with psychological operations using authentic images of US police n officers beating black civil rights workers back home to weaken morale. That happened. MLK, Jr. challenged LBJ that he could send troops to Vietnam but not to Alabama and that was a shared concept across black America.  Still,  all those back Americans performed their duty.

Universities
After being repeatedly rejected, 19-year-old, Hamilton Holmes finally registered for classes at the University of Georgia to chants of “2-4-6-8 we don’t want to integrate” and of course, the predictable racial epitaphs.  UGA’s admission staff went on to interrogate Charlayne Hunter, an 18-year-old who integrated  UGA with Holmes,  about any illegitimate children she might have if she had ever been a prostitute, the STD history of her family, and all the speeding tickets of her family before they would admit her to the school. None of these questions were asked of white students or had any bearing on her academic capabilities. The University of Georgia suspended the two black students after the white student body engaged in a hate-filled race riot outside their dorm. After integrating the 175-year-old University of Georgia, Hamilton Holmes went on to integrate Emery Medical. Even after all the strife that his countrymen put him through on his quest to higher education, and although he had a distinguished medical career, Hamilton decided to serve his country as an Army Doc (starting his career off as a Major).

After serving in the Air Force for nearly a decade, James Meredith applied to Ol’ Miss. With his stellar academic credentials from Jackson State, he was accepted, based on merit. That is until Ol’ Miss became aware of his brown skin.  Even after almost a decade of “separate but equal” policy change, the policy of Ol’ Miss remained the same.  It took 500 US Marshalls, the US Army, and the US border patrol for James Meredith to register for classes. James Meredith led the  “March Against Fear.”  As he walked from Memphis to Jackson, racists shot him on the second day of the march.  It’s no doubt with the race riots that ensued after he started school and his shooting left no doubt in his mind that his country had a culture of racism, and yet, he still made the decision to serve.

Donald Sampson was a First Lieutenant in the Army throughout WWII, attended Temple University School of Law after the war, and dedicated the rest of his life to leading educational integration in South Carolina. He was a leader in the Army, leader in multiple civic organizations in his community, and active in his church. 

James L. Solomon, who integrated the University of South Carolina in 1963, also served in the United States Air Force. Suffice the experience of having to integrate a university, proves he was aware of systemic racism.

Medgar Evers was part of the supply convoy of D-Day+1.   He survived Nazi Germany but couldn’t escape Jim Crow, Mississippi.  He knew America had institutional racism and still served in the military without benefits.
 Born on a plantation in the Mississippi Delta, Amzie More worked alongside Aaron Henry and Medgar Evers. His work in securing the freedoms for the black Americans that came after him indicates that he was not clueless to the race relations in the U.S. Still served in the United States Army.

Muhammad Ali took jail over war. Other, affluent (white) Americans took Switzerland or Canada. Ali was not offered a special duty to entertain troops like Elvis.

21st Century

IF you ask service members today their dealings with racism within the service branches you are going to get stories for days.  A report recently just came out about how the Air Force hides documents to conceal its consistent racism toward black Airmen, and it surprised no one. IT only validated our experiences.

During the Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts, some white Mississippians and Louisianians preferred to suffer on their rooftops than to be rescued by black National Guard heroes. But that’s not a story that often gets told. After returning home from a year deployment, I had my Fourth Amendment denied with a 2.5-hour-long stop-and-search for “looking suspicious” while driving to my new duty assignment. I couldn’t help but think how black Enduring Freedom troops share a common history of racism as every other Black American troop returning home from war.  When I found out one of my troop’s mom stopped sending cookies while we deployed because she found out his boss was Black and subordinates were Latino, it didn’t even surprise me (or disappoint me…she didn’t like brown people or brown sugar, and it showed in her baking). Even now, I fear for myself, my friends, and my future husband when being sent to a diversity deprived town in the US on military duty more than by terrorists while deployed.

I vowed to support and defend the Constitution of America against those who want to betray it. I believe in the principals of the Constitution so much that I believe ALL Americans should experience the freedoms guaranteed by each article. I never vowed to deny my American experiences or the experiences of others. Desiring liberty for all Americans is only natural for someone who pledges to support and defend the constitution. 

 Denying institutional racism exists is like denying wind exists or denying your own mother exists.  You see it and feel it every day so denying it is just a weird thing to do. To deny racism exists is to deny my life-long American experience.  Neither are prerequisites to military service.  Acknowledging the damaging effects racism has on American society does not preclude military service.  Because I can recognize that everyone has a different American experience makes me better able to identify with those I lead. Officers who dismiss the prevalence of institutionalized racism have never listened to their experiences of their troops or peers. They haven’t asked. They aren’t curious. They don’t care.  Pity the troop who follows a leader who refuses to acknowledge their different experiences.

 
This is the beach from the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan. Astonishingly, a source of so much destruction could be renewed. June 6, 1944, the beach was covered in blood as men watched their best friends die. On June 6, 2012, the beach was covered in love while a mother-daughter due of Air Force officers enjoyed a French picnic.
 
Some people have the character that dictates that they must be treated a certain way before they are willing to help. It must be perplexing as to why someone would prepare to answer their nation’s call when that nation doesn’t reciprocate that call. However, stepping up, even without reciprocity is the very embodiment of selfless service. It’s asking what can I do for my nation rather than what has my government done for me. If that were the question Black Americans asked before serving, this nation would have fallen to the French and Indians in 1755 and the British in 1775.
 
However, if a person’s character demonstrates grace, has the heart to serve, the belief one can affect change and have an “ask what you can do for your country” mentality, then you serve despite the current conditions. Surely every American has something they don’t like about their country. They know America has space for improvement. However, no one says that if another believes so strongly in immigration issues, they shouldn’t be a service member. No one dare tells another American that if they feel so strongly reproductive rights, education reform, gay rights, recreational marijuana, then they shouldn’t serve, or maybe they should leave America. Constant critique of America is where improvement begins. 
 
 What a peculiar thing to say.  I find it perplexing that one would be astonished that someone who recognizes and opposes systematic racism still chooses to serve in uniform.
 
Chaplain George Prioleau, during the Spanish American War, noted, “The men are anxious to go. The country will then hear and know of their bravery. The American Negro is always ready and willing to take up arms to fight and lay down his life in defense of his country’s honor.”
 
So why would black Americans, who experience institutional racism daily, be so willing to do such a thing as answer their nation’s call during a time of war, my comrade asks? The answer to the question is the same today, as it was during Chaplain Prioleau’s day—Because we are American! That’s what Americans do! It has become a cultural trait to uphold the blessings of liberty. To hold America accountable to its principals. 
 
 
Bluntly cut trees to symbolize lives cut short by war.  These trees are at Normandy, but you see the same style in American Cemeteries across Europe.
 
Service members are leaders, and getting involved and leading change is what they do.  Individuals like Jimmy Lee Jackson, Sammy Younge Jr., Medgar Evers, and George Dorsey championed the ideals of freedom at home and abroad and gave the ultimate sacrifice for it.  They experienced the same beliefs and struggles as the Black service members before them and after them. This isn’t obscure history. All it takes is an interest in the American experience. People lead and serve, not because life has been one giant crystal escalator, but because they believe in the ideals of America and have the hope that they can affect change from within and make life better. And then they do.
 
This Memorial Day, in addition to comrades who fell on foreign battlefields, I’ll be memorializing the freedom defenders, the heroes, and the leaders who survived Nazi Germany but became casualties of Jim Crow in their American hometowns. The battle for the blessings of liberty in America is the most enduring battle, and it is a privilege to continue the charge.
 
picture of Medgar Evers' grave in arlington with rocks of remembrance on ton. It's a sunny, summer day, partially in the shade.

Medgar Evers didn’t have to be drafted. He volunteered to service during Vietnam only to be gunned down in his dry way in front of his family by a white supremacist. His body rests in Arlington.

 

* Please note, I never said all Americans are subconsciously racist as accused in a FB spat. Someone was telling me what he thought I believed rather than listening to learn.