DC Like a Local

While we've covered the history of slavery and its aftermath at Arlington, as well as a few of the many African Americans in the military, we're still missing substantial segments of the story. I'm talking, of course, of those people who, while they may have served in the military, are best known for accomplishments out of uniform.

Arlington is full of the graves of those who fit this profile, black and white. Some are here after receiving a dispensation from Congress or the President. Some fit the requirements for Congressmen, Cabinet Secretaries, and Supreme Court Justices. Some are even the spouses of those who are eligible through conventional means. And some are those who served honorably for a few years before persuing other avenues. We're going to look at just a few of those African Americans who fit this profile, and who, not coincidentally, happen to be on or near my standard walking tour of the Cemetery.

We'll start with Medgar Evers, the well known Civil Rights hero. Medgar Evers was shot and killed on June 12, 1963, just a few hours after President Kennedy gave a particularly important speech in support of civil rights. The nationwide publicity surrounding his death helped put a lie to the idea that the push for full equality in the South was instigated by "Northern agitators". Evers was born and raised in Mississippi, leaving the state only during World War II, when he served in the Army in the European Theater.

From Medger Evers' grave, head up Custis Walk towards President Kennedy's tomb, and you'll come across an area known as "Justice's corner", the final resting place of seven Supreme Court Justices (eight if you count Chief Justice Rehnquist, just down the hill). Notable among them is the grave of Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall. Well known for being the first African American Justice on the Court, I prefer to focus on his earlier years. After being denied access to the University of Maryland School of Law due to his race, Thurgood Marshall crossed state lines into DC to graduate first in his class at Howard University School of Law in 1933. In short order he managed to get Maryland's discriminatory practices overturned in Murray v. Pearson. With this success and with a Supreme Court win under his belt already, he became the Chief Counsel for  the NAACP in 1940 at the age of 32. He would go on to extend his record in front of the Court to 32 appearances, with 29 wins. The most notable of course, was the landmark Brown v. Board of Education, which as every eighth grader should know, struck down public school segregation.

From here, if you continue down Eisenhower Ave, you'll come to a collection of benches just below the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. As you pause for a minute, you'll see the grave of Joe Louis. Racking up an even better record than Thurgood Marshall, the Brown Bomber lost only one fight in his first 69 fights, to the German Max Schmeling in a twelfth round knock out in 1936. Seen by many as a proxy for the build up to World War II, the rematch in Yankee Stadium in 1938 lasted only two minutes, with Joe Louis the victor and Max Schmeling spending ten days in a New York hospital recovering. Regarding as one of, if not the first, African Americans to be widely accepted by white America, Joe Louis is also credited for helping to clean up the sport of boxing from gambling interests and even went on to help break the color barrier in the golf world. Upon his death, President Reagan waved some technical barriers to his interment in Arlington (Joe Louis had served in the Army in WWII) and he is buried in Section 7A, right next to actor and Marine Lee Marvin.

Medgar Evers, Thurgood Marshall, and Joe Louis are just a few of the well known African Americans resting in Arlington and while the subject is hardly exhausted, I am. Maybe next year we'll revisit the topic and examine the graves of other folks who you may have never heard of but helped shape the country we live in. For now, I hope you come visit Arlington National Cemetery as something else besides the final resting place of President Kennedy and the Tomb of the Unknowns.

Once Arlington had shed it's slave-day past, and the last freed slaves had left Freedman's Village, the area fell into the rhythms of a military cemetery. Although serving in a largely segregated military, African Americans would be among some of the earliest soldiers and sailors to be be buried in the new cemetery. Reflecting its early use as a cemetery of convenience, many African American solders from the Civil War are often interspersed with white soldiers, although attempts were made to segregate them. A black soldier's grave can be identified as it will have U.S.C.T after the name, for U.S. Colored Troops. These graves are generally in Sections 27 (the same location as the graves of residents of Freedman's Village, discussed yesterday) and 23 (near the Confederate Memorial ironically).

Following the war, African Americans continued to serve and Civil War veterans continued to die, both to be buried at Arlington. Major Alexander Augusta, one of only a hundred black officers (out of 180,000 who served), is buried in Section 1 (site 124-A), near the Ft. Myer chapel where many funerals are held (and where I was married). Last year, one of 20 Buffalo Soldiers to receive the Medal of Honor was interred in Section 1 (site 630-B) after it was discovered his grave in Arizona had, I kid you not, been paved over. Cpl. Issiah Mays, a former slave, was awarded the Medal for crawling more than two miles to get help after his convey had been ambushed in 1889. He had been shot in both legs. Two other African American Medal of Honor recipients from this time period are buried her as well, Pvt. Dennis Bell (Sec 31/site 349) and Master Sergeant George Wanton (Sec 4/site 2749). They were two of four soldiers from the 10th Calvary Regiment to go ashore under hostile fire to save allied Cuban insurgents during the Spanish-American War. Additionally, 22 of the 163 sailors buried at Arlington from the explosion on the USS Maine are black. They are all buried in Section 24, near the mast of the Maine.

Ironically, by the time the United States had entered World War I, racial progress in many ways had slipped from where it had been in the late nineteenth century. While African Americans were routinely assigned to combat units in the Civil War, Indian Wars, and Spanish American Wars; by World War I they were largely restricted to labor and supply units. When they did serve in combat, their contributions were often overlooked. Only one Medal of Honor was awarded to an African American, and that was not until posthumously in 1991.

One African American from that time to be buried at Arlington is Colonel Charles Young (Sec 3/site 1730-B). The first African American to hold that rank, Col. Young was the third black man to graduate West Point, the first African American to be the superintendent of a National Park (Sequoia), and a squadron commander in Gen. Pershing's raid into Mexico to chase Pancho Villa. At the outbreak of World War I, Col. Taylor was suddenly discovered to have high blood pressure, and medically discharged, presumably to avoid having to make him a general in the wartime expansion. After riding his horse from Ohio to DC to prove his physical fitness, Col. Taylor was reinstated but died in Nigeria while serving as an advisor to Liberia in 1922. Col. Taylor's funeral service was in the Memorial Amphitheater, one of only a handful of services to be held there.

Following the relegation to secondary roles in World War I, African American leaders insisted that black soldiers be assigned meaningful roles in World War II. Perhaps best known of these, but by no means the only, was the Tuskegee Airmen. The Army Air Force created an all-black fighter group, the 332 Fighter Group, eventually commanded by Gen. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.  General Davis was the fourth African American to graduate from West Point in 1936 (the first since Col. Taylor), and was shunned by his fellow cadets the entire four years there. When he graduated, he would be one of only two African-American line officers in the U.S. Army; the other being his father, then Col. Benjamin Davis, Sr. Col. Davis, Sr. would go onto be be the first black General in the U.S. Army, capping off his forty two years of military service as a Brigadier General. Gen. Davis, Jr. would be promoted to full General after his retirement under President Clinton.

However the title of first African American full General would go to Air Force Gen. Daniel "Chappie" James. Gen. James would go on to serve in an integrated military after his start as a Tuskegee Airmen, flying combat missions in Korea and Vietnam. He was awarded his forth star in 1975. Gen. James, Gen. Davis, Jr., and BGen. Davis, Sr., are all buried in close proximity to each other in Section 2, just past the statue of Sir John Dill on Roosevelt Drive. Gen. James is to your right, and the Davis's are across the road to your left. Gen. Davis, Jr. has a large black tombstone on the top of the hill, and BGen. Davis, Sr. has a government issue headstone between the top and the road. Further up the drive, just below the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in Section 7a (site 18), is Gen. Roscoe Robinson, the first black Army four star General.

This is hardly meant to be an exhaustive list of African Americans who have served in the military and are buried in Arlington, but it includes some whose stories intrigue me. Join us tomorrow when we wrap up our visit to Arlington by looking at some folks buried here who are best known for what they did out of uniform.

Section 27 by M.V. Jantzen

As I'm sure most of you know, February is Black History Month, a tradition started by DC's own Carter G. Woodson. Now, since Dr. Woodson established what was then known as Negro History Week in 1926, there has been discussion and debate as to whether the observance creates ade facto segregation of our view of history. Imagine for a moment visiting Mt. Vernon and being told, "In February, we discuss the lives of the slaves and free blacks on the plantation, and for the other eleven months we discuss the history of George Washington." Silly, and of course not at all how the folks at Mt. Vernon handle the topic. But it can be instructive to take some time to focus on a segment of our past that was often overlooked, and in that vein, we'll take a little time to examine a standard part of the DC tour in a new light.

There are many attractions in the DC area where it's possible to focus in greater depth on the African-American experience (and we hope that Dr. Woodson's house will soon be one of those). But for today I'd like to focus on a site which most people consider a must-see in your trip to Washington, but is not normally thought of in the context of African-American history: Arlington National Cemetery.

African Americans at Arlington of course long predates it's development as a National Cemetery. As a working plantation, Arlington used slaves to work the fields, perform manual tasks, and even to build the house that you see today. George Washington's adopted son George Washington ParkeCustis family brought slaves over from Mt. Vernon in 1802 when he built the farm. The Custis family at times owned hundreds of slave on their various farms, but unlike normal practice, gave them a basic education and even ordered all of his slaves to be freed upon the death of George Washington Parke Custis.. However, the will's executor, his son-in-law Robert E. Lee, read the document to mean freeing the slaves five years from his death, and used their labor to work the plantation until then, even going so far as to as to have three runaways chased down and possibly whipped. Eventually, the last slaves at Arlington on December 29, 1862 were formally freed, two months and nineteen days after the five year mark of Custis's death.

Some remnants of slave life on the plantation remain for visitors to witness. Behind Arlington House lies slave quarters, or at least those of the more favored house servants. Most notable among them was Selena Grey, the personal maid to Mary Custis Lee, the wife of Robert E. Lee. Mary Lee was quite infirm, and close proximity to the house was required so that Selena could tend to her. It would be Selena's children who would provide critical details in the 1929-30 restoration of Arlington House that ensure the site we see today resembles the original.

While Selena and her husband would leave Arlington after the war, one man bridged the gap between Southern plantation and military cemetery. Another of the 63 slaves owned by the Custis-Lee family, James Parks, was, we think, about 18 years old when the Lees abandoned Arlington to head south. He remained at the site when it was occupied by Union soldiers and after the war became a grave digger and maintenance man around the Cemetery, a position he held until 1925. Upon his death in 1929, the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, gave special permission for Mr. Parks to be buried in Section 15, near the gate to Ft. Myer and, ironically, just across the road from the Confederate Memorial. Interestingly enough, while his owners, the Custis's, are both buried at a family plot in the Cemetery, neither was born here; making James Parks the only person to be both born and buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Obviously, once the Civil War started, the situation at Arlington rapidly changed. By the time Lee formally freed his slaves, events had overtaken him and the farm was occupied by Union troops. As Washington became an armed camp, "contrabands", or slaves freed by Union troops fled to the city. Additionally, the slaves of Washington, DC were freed by the Compensated Emancipation Act on April 16, 1862, the nations only attempt to pay people to free slaves. To deal with this the Federal government set up several camps in the area, and used the grounds of the Lee plantation to build a model village, known as Freedman's Village. The Village was administered by the Freedman's Bureau until 1883 and no trace of it remains today. It is believed to have stood on what is now Eisenhower Drive, in sections 8/47/25. There are tentative plans to build a Black Heritage Museum of Arlington on property just outside of Arlington National Cemetery, which would help tell the story of Freedman's Village.

Up to 1,100 people lived on the site, and it grew to include log homes, churches, schools, and even a 50 bed hospital. While somewhat rustic and initially under somewhat strict military discipline, the inhabitants at Freedman's Village did fare better than their counterparts in camps within DC. However, in the thirty years free blacks lived at the site, some 3,800 died and were buried in Section 27, just along the edge of the Cemetery near the Iwo Jima Memorial. Their graves are marked as "citizen" or "civilian", and it is the largest section of non-military graves in Arlington. They are still visible today, although a bit off the normal tour.

We'll call it a day for now, but join us tomorrow when we explore more about the African-American legacy of Arlington National Cemetery.