Thursday, March 22, 2001
When Herman Adams was a boy, his military heroes were Kit Carson, Daniel Boone and George Custer. He had no idea there were heroes as dark-skinned as he was.
In fact, it wasn't until Adams, 73, was in his 60s that he learned about Chestnut Whitaker, Staff Sgt. Edward A. Carter Jr., Crispus Attucks or the Buffalo soldiers. A veteran himself, he doesn't want other children, black or white, to wait as long to hear stories of black heroism.
"It is a well-kept secret of the involvement of black servicemen," Adams said. "For black history, they do a pretty good job of talking about medical, business and science [role models], but the military is still a secret. Many had to overcome verbal and physical abuse just to serve our country."
A member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Adams sat alongside five other members at the VFW 6488 hall on Coitsville-Hubbard Road recently. With him were Henry Clarett, Anthony Feldes, Samuel Caldwell, Ed Henderson and Calvin Johnson.
Out to inform: Feldes, the only white face in that group, is one of the most vocal when it comes to talking about black military history. He often speaks in schools, while Adams, sidelined somewhat by a stroke, is more involved with research.
"I gather it to satisfy my ego and to educate the public," Adams said. "Something else we say, 'Time for the young people in high school to have a role model other than a drug dealer.' "
Adams served after World War II. He looks on his military predecessors as martyrs who put up with prejudice and abuse. Both Adams and Feldes eagerly offer up stories.
The stories: James Webster Smith "was one of the first blacks appointed to West Point in the 1850s," Adams said. "They tied him to the bedpost and cut his ear off! Do you know they said it was self-inflicted and expelled him? It wasn't until 1997 that President Clinton reversed it." Chestnut Whitaker followed; he was also expelled after being assaulted and beaten.
"At the Boston Massacre [in 1770], one of the first casualties, Crispus Attucks, was black," Adams said. "The most decorated outfit in World War I was black, the 369th Infantry. They never relinquished one inch. They were called the Harlem Hell Fighters. Nicknamed that by the Germans."
"Have you heard of the Montford Point Marines?" Feldes, a former Marine, asked. Montford Point was a Marine training camp in North Carolina during World War II. It was set up to begin integration of the Marine Corps by black trainees.
"The first few nights, the drill instructors took the troops out in their underwear to be eaten by the mosquitos," Feldes said. "They smacked you in the head with a rifle if you moved. The DIs had DDT [an insect repellent] on. Those black marines were called every name imaginable and unimaginable. They were told to go AWOL."
Instead, they stuck it out and went on to be assigned to two anti-aircraft outfits, a dozen ammunition companies, 51 depot companies and two defense battalions.
Feldes and Adams point out that blacks fought at the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812 and charged up San Juan Hill alongside Teddy Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War. The Buffalo soldiers were incredible trackers who protected America's westward expansion. Four hundred thousand black soldiers fought in World War I. World War II saw the Tuskegee Airmen.
The abuse these soldiers took was ever-present: being greeted on a hot Arizona day, according to Feldes, with a store sign that read, "No Indians, no dogs, no niggers," or seeing that Italian POWs, paired with white American women, had more freedoms than black war heroes. Some had to wait more than 50 years to receive, posthumously, the Medals of Honor they had earned -- Staff Sgt. Edward A. Carter Jr., a World War II hero, for example. Adams and Feldes went to Washington to see his medal presented to his family.
Pride: "I believe they put up with it because they were challenged. They had pride in themselves," Adams said. He added, "I wasn't there with them, but I lived through the civil rights movement, and I can say, if it weren't for dedicated white people, it would not have been a success. There were some white officers who wouldn't let them fail."
Said Feldes, "I tell the kids in the schools, you have to know where you come from, to know where you are going to go."
"We can help them by emphasizing black traumas and achievements in the military," Adams added.