America's First Black Marines
by Melton A. McLaurin
The companion book to the American Public Television documentary
The following excerpt is from The Marines of Montford Point: America's First Black Marines published by The University of North Carolina Press
Joseph Carpenter (part two)
from the chapter Segregation in the Civilian World
When we were sent to Norfolk, we were stationed right opposite, or adjacent to, the Italian prisoners. Now they had freedom of the base, freedom of Norfolk city that we didn’t have; and when we caught the bus to the train, we had to sit in the back. They could sit anywhere they wanted, and they were supposed to be our prisoners. They had a fence; they were in a fenced-in area, but the gate was wide open—there was no sentry or anything on the gate. Our barracks were right next to that fence. It was a chain-link fence, and our barracks were right next to that chain-link fence. And in that time, you know, the blacks were always held with a separate part of the camp. That’s where they put us ’cause the whites were elsewhere on the base.
[Prisoners of war had] definitely more privileges. They could go anywhere in town they wanted; we could only go in the black section. And of course, as I said, on the train, they could ride in the back of the train or anywhere on the train they wanted, but we had to get in the car right behind the coal car or the baggage car, whichever one was there. And buses, they sat in front and we sat in the back.
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Both the film and the book are based on more than forty-six hours of taped interviews with sixty Montford Point veterans. The film...uses thirty-five minutes of those interviews. The book...provides about five hours of the very best material from the interviews.
--Melton A. McLaurin, from the author interview