1st Black Men to Integrate U.S. Marines Honored 75 Years Later

by Taryn Finlay via huffingtonpost.com
The first African Americans to ever serve in the United States Marine Corps were honored on Saturday during a special ceremony at Joe C. Davidson Park in Burlington, North Carolina. For the 75th anniversary of Montford Point Marine Day ― which marks the day President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order to intregrate the Marines ― the Corps honored the black men who were trained at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina to become Marines in the 1940s.
Between 1942 and 1949, more than 20,000 servicemen received their basic training at Montford Point, according to the Camp Lejeune Globe. About 300 of them are still alive. Four of those men ― John Thompson, Cleo Florence, Robert Thomas and Mack Haynes ― were in attendance for Saturday’s ceremony, the Burlington Times News reports. “When I went in in 1947, how things was then and how things have progressed and how they are today… there’s been a great change, but there still be more change and we may be able to have one nation under God and one people.”
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