Island Voices
Forgetting past lets racism emerge again and again

By Marsha Joyner
Hawai'i Kai resident

We are told that those who neither recall nor understand their collective past are condemned to endure repetitive tragedy in an eternal present, says the philosopher Santayana.

Doris Miller received the Navy Cross during World War II. Most knew him only as the "unknown Negro messman" for years. Advertiser library photo

This nation's grudging recognition of the role of African American and other non-white enlisted personnel and officers of all past wars, makes it necessary that we tell this story now and in every generation.

So, what were their names? Tell me — what were their names? Did you have a friend or brother on those ships? Tell me what were their names?

World War II African American sailors were stripped of their dignity, their "somebodyness." Regardless of their education they were expected to be messmen, stewards and cabin boys, not trained for combat. They did not even wear the traditional anchor on their uniforms.

In a December 1996 letter to the Rev. Joe Morgan, Pearl Harbor survivor, Mess Attendant 3rd class William Jeremaiah Powell is identified as having been the "colored messman" responsible for having shot down the first Japanese plane on Dec. 7, 1941.

Doris Miller, like Powell and all of the other non-white sailors a product of the segregated military, never gave Jim Crow a thought as he braved strafing enemy planes to help remove his mortally wounded Capt. Mervyn Bennioin to a place of safety.

Despite eyewitness accounts of his acts of bravery during the Pearl Harbor attack, the Navy Board of Awards established and recommended that "an unknown Negro messman" be given an award. Not until March 1942, through the persistence of Dr. Lawrence D. Reddisk, did the Navy announce that the "unknown Negro messman" was Doris Miller.

Doris Miller will always be gratefully remembered by Americans.

To his heroism and the heroism of others like him, white and black, we owe our lives and our nation. While the official Navy records still do not credit Miller as having shot down any enemy aircraft, Miller's heroism helped to call worldwide attention to the evil practice of segregation in the military.

In 1944, 13 black officers (the Golden Thirteen) were commissioned without public notice.

We cannot forget Miller and the thousands of African American men and women, their acts of bravery and commitment to win the war. When asked what he thought he said, "To tell you the truth, I don't know what I thought at the moment. I had no time to do much thinking. I knew that it was my duty to kill or be killed. I was not afraid."

The evidence shows that the United States and the military suffered from institutionalized racism, which incidentally, in my judgment, remains alive and well.Ê

People in America were put into relocation camps for the slant of their eyes. Segregated for the color of their skin and bombed for the practice of their religion.

Yet all of these people volunteered in times of war. They were ready to lay down their lives for a democracy that would ensure their status as second-class citizens.