Montford Point Marines Provide Living Black History Lesson to Students
Message becomes more urgent in anti-DEI climate cultivated by Trump
Veterans with the Montford Point Marine Association, a nonprofit that celebrates the legacy of America’s first Black Americans to serve in the Marine Corps, brought Black history alive for students at Tuckaseegee Elementary School on Friday, Feb. 21.
Veterans shared the story of the Montford Point Marines, a segregated unit from North Carolina that played a key role in winning the war in the Pacific theater. In addition to fighting the Axis Powers in the 1940s, the Montford Point Marines also battled bigotry and discrimination, helping to pave the way for desegregation of the Armed Forces in 1948.
“One of the main things we want to stress is [the importance of] embracing Black history,” said Craig Little, the association’s Charlotte chapter president and National Veteran Affairs officer who served 12 years with the Marine Corps.
Though not as well known as the Black Buffalo Soldiers who served on America’s 19th-century frontier or World War II’s Tuskegee Airmen, the Montford Point Marines should be included in American history lessons, said Glenn Proctor, a 13-year veteran who served in Vietnam.
“The people that we represent were American heroes, and we want to uphold their heritage as long as possible,” Proctor told Queen City Nerve at the event on Friday.
Little and Proctor’s words gained urgency later Friday evening when President Donald Trump fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a Black Air Force general named CQ Brown Jr., and replaced him with a white man who many have pointed out has less experience and qualifications than Brown.
The decision has been seen as a continuation of Trump’s executive order aimed at curtailing diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also canceled all observances of Black History Month by the military this month.
The Montford Point Marines trained at Camp Montford Point in Jacksonville from 1942 to 1949. In addition to grueling basic training, the Black Marines had to clear trees at their camp side, build a lumber mill to saw the felled trees, and construct their camp from the lumber, Little said. The segregated Black Marines also had to grow their own food and tend to all their medical needs.
In 1949, President Harry Truman ordered the desegregation of all military branches. Camp Montford Point was decommissioned that year and later renamed Camp Johnson after Sergeant Major Gilbert H. “Hashmark” Johnson, a distinguished drill instructor and one of the first Black Americans to join the Corps.
From the halls of Montezuma to the hall at Tuckaseegee
“If you are taken away from your friend that doesn’t look like you, you get sad, right?” said Little, addressing the topic of discrimination before the students who filled the school’s gymnasium on Friday. “That’s because you want to play together.”
Little then noted that 367 former Montford Point Marines received the Congressional Gold Medal from President Barack Obama in 2012. He also addressed the role the Montford Point Marine Association’s Charlotte chapter played in changing Queen City street names that had formerly held racist ties.
“Did you hear the news … that some of the people that the streets were named after were not good people?” Little said. He noted that Phifer Avenue, named for a prominent slave owner, was rechristened Montford Point Street in honor of the Montford Point Marines in October 2021.
Mike Satterfield, a white Desert Storm veteran who is a member of the Montford Point Marine Association, also had a message for the assembled children.
“All Marines are green,” Satterfield said, referencing the color of the Corps’ uniforms. “I’m proud to be part of this group of men who fought for the right to fight. We’re brothers in arms … and we all bleed red.”
Satterfield also works for Daimler Trucks and had driven the cab of an 18-wheeler truck to the event. Part of Daimler’s “Ride of Pride” program which honors veterans, the truck was covered with a photo collage of the Montford Point Marines.
“When we went last year to the Congressional Medal presentation, family members were coming by,” Satterfield told Queen City Nerve. “They were seeing their grandfathers, their great uncles on the side of this truck. It makes your heart full.”
A tale of heroism that could fade away
Despite facing segregation and discrimination, approximately 20,000 trailblazing Montford Point Marines served with honor and distinction.
Retired Master Gunnery Sgt. Joe Major, a 26-year veteran who served in Vietnam, said his father was one of the original Montford Point Marines.
Major’s father didn’t say much about his experiences in the Marines, except that he saw action during the battle of Peleliu, one of the costliest amphibious operations of WWII. Marine casualties on the western Pacific island numbered 6,526 — of whom 1,252 were killed.
“I needed to continue [my father’s] legacy,” Major said, adding that he was stationed at the same base where his father trained. “I walked on the same grounds that he trained on.”
“This is a great opportunity to introduce our students to something they may not have known about,” said Tuckaseegee Elementary School Principal LaTresha Wilson.
“I hope the students take away that when we think about history, we know that there were times, [when] African-Americans had to fight for rights,” Wilson continued. “I want them to understand that things just don’t happen.”
The school’s acknowledgment and honoring of Black history grows increasingly important under the Trump administration. In January, several federal agencies banned Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Black History Month observances in a rush to comply with the administration’s anti-DEI purge.
Read more: Photo of MLK in Charlotte Highlights Three Generations of Local History
When asked if there is a danger that Black history like the Montford Point Marine’s story of courage and sacrifice could be erased, Wilson took a moment before answering.
“It possibly could,” she said.
