Explore the vast range of titles available.

With an executive order from President Franklin Roosevelt in 1941, the United States Marine Corps--the last all-white branch of the U.S. military--was forced to begin recruiting and enlisting African Americans. The first black recruits received basic training at the segregated Camp Montford Point, adjacent to Camp Lejeune, near Jacksonville, North Carolina. Between 1942 and 1949 (when the base was closed as a result of President Truman's 1948 order fully desegregating all military forces) more than 20,000 men trained at Montford Point, most of them going on to serve in the Pacific Theatre in World War II as members of support units. This book, in conjunction with the documentary film of the same name, tells the story of these Marines for the first time.Drawing from interviews with 60 veterans,The Marines of Montford Pointrelates the experiences of these pioneers in their own words. From their stories, we learn about their reasons for enlisting; their arrival at Montford Point and the training they received there; their lives in a segregated military and in the Jim Crow South; their experiences of combat and service in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam; and their legacy. The Marines speak with flashes of anger and humor, sometimes with sorrow, sometimes with great wisdom, and always with a pride fostered by incredible accomplishment in the face of adversity. This book serves to recognize and to honor the men who desegregated the Marine Corps and loyally served their country in three major wars.

McLaurin honestly and plainly recalls his boyhood during the 1950s, an era when segregation existed unchallenged in the rural South. It is the moving story of the bonds McLaurin formed with friends of both races--a testament to the power of human relationships to overcome even the most ingrained systems of oppression.

In general, the most satisfying pieces in the collection are those in which Trudier Harris, a professor of literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, recounts her memories of adolescence in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, or employs her keen powers of observation and analysis to explore the manner in which racism continues to impact daily life in modern America. 108 The autobiographical essays, with their easy accessibility and emotional intensity, provide yet another insight into the experiences of a black academician who came of age in the segregated American South. [...]Harris's observations are so accurate that her habit of including literary references in many of her essays to buttress her point (she is particularly fond of Zora Neale Hurston) is a bit of a distraction. [...]Harris recounts her facing the implications of hairstyles for African American women, as well as the sexual exploitation of black women that has always been a significant element of the ideology and practice of white supremacy.