Saluting the USMC

We salute this 240 anniversary of the United States Marine Corps. with this photo of Congresswoman Corrine Brown and 4 Montford Point Marines.

Most people know the story of the Tuskegee Airman and how they proved that black men could fly fighter planes in World War II. The Montford Point Marines were African-American trailblazers in USMC. During the bad old days of segregation black recruits from the traditional Marine boot camps and Parris island, S.C. and San Diego, Calif.

Instead all African-American recruits were sent to a segregated boot camp at Montford Point, near New River in Jacksonville, N.C. Between 1942 and 1949 nearly 20,000 African American men received their Marine Corps basic training at that base that was finally closed in 1948, when President Harry S Truman ordered the integration of the U.S. military.

Congresswoman Corrine Brown led the effort to grant the Montford Point Marines a Congressional Gold Medal.