Lt. Col. William Holloman III
Today, not being allowed to shop in certain grocery stores, eat in certain restaurants or even drink from certain water fountains is a thought most Americans do not concern themselves with.
But for many minority military veterans who served the country before, during and after World War II, facing those daily obstacles was very much a reality.
On Saturday, the Oregon Department of Veterans' Affairs along with the Oregon Military Department honored these veterans during a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces. The executive order, signed July 26, 1948, by President Harry S. Truman, was a major advance in civil rights.
Organizers invited minority veterans and enlisted servicemen to share their stories during the event held at the Oregon National Guard's Anderson Readiness Center in Salem.
Oregon lawmakers as well as community members and enlisted personnel also attended. State Sens. Kate Brown, D-Portland, Bruce Starr, R-Hillsboro, and Jackie Winters, R-Salem, listened to the accounts shared by guest speakers.
During the opening remarks, Jim Willis, the director of the state veterans affairs office, said that despite the executive order, many of the minority servicemen still had to face inequality off military bases.
"What Truman did only applied on base," Willis said.
Guest speaker retired Lt. Col. William Holloman III, a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, served with the 332nd Fighter Group known as the Tuskegee Airmen. The Tuskegee Airmen were the first group of African-American pilots during a time when many people thought they lacked intelligence and skill.
Holloman, 84, said Saturday that while he was stationed at Biloxi, Miss., in the late 1940s, people of color were not allowed to go into the water on the beach, one of many restrictions they faced. Holloman, who lived in Germany after Vietnam and returned to the U.S. in 1975, said it was not until 1990 that he stepped foot in the water on a Mississippi beach.
"I was waiting for a car to pick me up when I decided to take my shoes off and step in the water," Holloman said. "If I had done that 20 years ago, I would have gone to jail."
While Nisei, second-generation Japanese-Americans, were being herded to internment camps in the U.S., many decided to join the military.
For World War II veteran Kennie Namba, 82, serving in the all-Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team — often called the most decorated unit in the history of warfare — was a way to escape the boredom of being imprisoned in an internment camp at Minidoka, Idaho.
When Namba was training in the South, he and other Nisei were told that they could use bathrooms, theaters and stores off base that had been off-limits to blacks.
Namba noted that he tried to sit in the blacks-only section at the back of a bus, but the driver told him to move up front and stand. Dealing with these rules caused a lot of confusion for Namba who had studied the Constitution enough to know that all men were supposed to be created equal.
After fighting in Italy and France, Namba married a woman he met at the Idaho internment camp. During a trip to his wife Ruth's hometown of Hood River, they walked into a grocery store and collected things they wanted to buy. When they reached the counter to pay, the clerk told them they didn't accept 'Japs.'
"It was another world coming home and facing discrimination," Namba said. "That's how we lived for some time."
Brig. Gen. Garry Dean, Saturday's keynote speaker, said that minority veterans provided a pathway for the nation. Dean, currently working at the Pentagon as deputy inspector general for the Air Force, is the Oregon National Guard's first African-American to reach the rank of general.
"They endured the struggle (of segregation)," Dean said, crediting his predecessors for their accomplishments.
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