THE MARINES OF MONTFORD POINT

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

Roland Durden
from the chapter Segregation in the Corps

     The 33rd and the 34th Depot traveled together on a troop train from North Carolina going south toward New Orleans, where we picked up German prisoners, two carloads of German prisoners. I always say they look like Rommel’s troop, big, tall, blonde Germans. And we headed out west.When we got somewhere in theWest, we stopped for either coal or water. The Red Cross nurses came out to the train to give us coffee and doughnuts. Our officer, our captain, who was white, he said serve the Germans first. Our Red Cross nurses said, no, we’ll serve our boys first.

 

 

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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