Remembering the Bravery of African American Soldiers on Memorial Day
Today we mourn those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country. This year I decided do something more intentional than my typical Memorial Day. I googled African American soldiers who died fighting for our country, and I came away more grateful than I imagined.
I first want to make clear that I’m not downplaying the sacrifice of any soldier who died protecting our country. What strikes me as particularly brave about these soldiers is that they gave their lives for the freedom of others when they themselves didn’t have freedom in their own country. Many did so in hopes that their faithful service on the battlefront would usher in freedom on the home front. Men like First Lieutenant John R. Fox, who called artillery fire onto his own isolated position because he knew it would thwart a German attack on men behind him, or Staff Sergeant Ruben Rivers, who refused to pull back after his tank hit a mine so that he could provide cover fire for other American tanks to escape, leaving him exposed and ultimately killed. Rivers was also half-Cherokee — quite a double whammy.
First Lieutenant Fox and Staff Sergeant Rivers were two of seven African American men who were awarded the Medal of Honor, our nation’s highest honor, for their bravery during World War II. The most striking is that they didn’t receive the honor until 1997, a half century after the war ended. The military awarded more than 450 Medals of Honor during and immediately following the war — all to white soldiers. It wasn’t until 1990’s Army-commissioned study of racial prejudice in award determination that those seven men received the honor, followed three years later by 22 Asian American soldiers who were also denied the honor who faced similar discrimination.
These men were denied rights at home. They fought for the rights of others abroad while still being treated as racially inferior while in the military. They died, at least partially, to protect people who treated them as inferior. And, then were denied the same regard of honor as their white peers until decades later.
So today, I’d like to honor First Lieutenant Fox, Staff Sergeant Rivers, and the many other soldiers of color I may never learn about who gave the ultimate sacrifice to a degree I’ll never understand.
