“Growing up, I was forced to go to church. I told myself that when I was old enough, I would never step foot in a church again. But with all the hell I went through in boot camp, when the drill instructor came in the hut and asked if any of us maggots wanted to go to church, I almost broke down the door!”
In 1943, these were the thoughts of retired Gunnery Sgt. Reuben J. McNair, one of the first black men allowed to enlist in the Marine Corps. He trained at Camp Mont-ford Point, N.C., near Jacksonville, as a Marine in the 51st Composite Defense Battalion.
Before Camp Montford Point was established, the blacks and whites in the U.S. armed forces had not been integrated. But at the urging of his wife, Eleanor, and threatened by civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph with a march on Wash-ington, on June 25, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, according to Carolyn Ferren, member of the Montford Point Marine Assoc-iation.
It established the Fair Employ-ment Practice Commission, which prohibited racial discrimination by any government agency. The integration of the Marine Corps marked the beginning of the end for officially sanctioned segregation in America.
According to the “Men of Montford Point – The First Black Marines” Web site, recruiting began June 1, 1942. Although the public announcement was not made until May 20, the basic instructions were sent in a letter from the commandant of the Marine Corps May 15. This letter set a quota of 200 recruits each from Eastern and Central Divisions while the Southern was to furnish 500 of the initial 900 recruits.
These men were to be citizens between 17 and 29 years of age, and they were to meet the existing standards for enlistment in the Corps. They were to be enlisted in Class III, Marine Corps Reserve, and assigned to inactive duty in a general service unit of their reserve district. Both the service record book and the enlistment contract were stamped “COLORED,” Ferren said.
On August 18, 1942, Headquarters and Service Battery of the 51st Composite Defense Bn. was activated at Montford Point. The first African American recruit to arrive at the camp was Howard P. Perry of Charlotte, N.C. He arrived Aug. 26 and was later joined by 119 others who began recruit training in September. Although Montford Point was the beginning of the road to integration, the black Marines were totally separated from their white counterparts.
“Montford Point was just a stone’s throw from Camp Lejeune, where the white Marines were trained. It was set up to prevent the white and black troops from training together,” Ferren said. “Unless accompanied by a white Marine, they [black Marines] were not allowed to set foot in Camp Lejeune. And after they were shipped off to battle zones, they served exclusively in all-black units.”
“We all thought we were going to fight when we got shipped to the South Pacific because World War II was going on,” McNair said. “We had a lot of combat training, but we didn’t fight. We just ran ammo to the white troops who were fighting. They didn’t want us to fight alongside them.
“They knew we were there, but we weren’t accepted,” he said. “It was as if we weren’t there.”
In the beginning of 1943, the first black commissioned officers were trained and appointed at Montford Point. It was at this time that the white drill instructors began to be phased out and replaced by black sergeants and corporals who had gone through training the year before.
In May of the same year, the recruit battalion’s field sergeant major and the last white drill instructor, 1st Sgt. Robert W. Colwell, was transferred and replaced by Sgt. Gilbert “Hashmark” Johnson. From the time Johnson took his post, black noncommissioned officers conducted all recruit training at Montford Point.
With the challenges of racism and intolerance the Marines of Montford Point faced, they never lost the determination and pride that it takes to earn the eagle, globe and anchor.
McNair was among the 150 Marines present when Maj. Gen. Henry L. Larsen, the commander of Camp Lejeune, first spoke at Montford Point.
“He told us he just came back from Guadalcanal and he didn’t realize there was a war going on until he came back to the United States and found women at Camp Lejeune and black men here at Montford Point wearing his globe and anchor,” McNair said. “The general said our country must be in a bad situation to need black people to help fight the war.”
The Marines, who had just come back from the South Pacific, were insulted and shouted Larsen down.
“People have asked me why I would want to go to a place I wasn’t wanted,” McNair said. “Myself and other young black men in those days wanted to challenge the world and prove that we could do anything white people could do. I figured that the first place to show a change in the way black people were treated would be the military. I prayed for another war because without one, we were stuck in a social rut.”
McNair’s foresight was accurate and his prayers were answered, because in 1950 along with the Korean War came integration on the battlefield.
“During the Korean War, black men were finally allowed to fight with white units. I was a sniper and a heavy machinegun section leader with an integrated infantry unit,” McNair said. “The officers who were trained in 1943 were not allowed to serve active duty before, but they were brought in for this war.
“Before that, the only units a black man could serve in were the ammo supply and depot platoons, which were made up of servers and cooks,” McNair said.
There were other positive outcomes brought on by the Korean War. One was the desegregation of the public schools on Camp Lejeune.
The Marine Corps continued to train recruits in a segregated environment until the fall of 1949 when an executive order from President Harry S. Truman established a policy of full integration.
More than 20,000 African American men received their basic training at Camp Montford Point. One third of these men would serve overseas during World War II.
Camp Montford Point was renamed Camp Johnson in 1974 in honor of the aforementioned Sgt. Maj. Gilbert “Hashmark” Johnson. Johnson earned the nickname “Hashmark” because of the service stripes he earned in the Army and Navy prior to his acceptance in the Marine Corps.
According to the Men of Montford Point, it is the only military installation named in honor of an African American. Today, all Marines from the East coast are trained on Camp Johnson for Marine Combat Training. The School of Infantry is also located there.
“Everything I went through at Montford Point to become a Marine was for my own good,” McNair said. “If I had to do it over again, I would, because some of the training saved my life.”
For more information about Camp Montford Point, visit The Men of Montford Point- The First Black Marines’ Web site at www.geocities.com/nubiansong/briefhistory.htm.