Black Marines

Gregg Reese  |   OW Staff Writer
Nov 8 2012

Author: James Campbell

On the evening of July 17, 1944, a massive explosion rocked the naval munitions depot of Port Chicago in the San Francisco Bay Area. The blast set off the seismometers at the University of California’s Berkeley campus some 40 miles away, and hurled huge chunks of metal into the air, one of them striking an aircraft cruising at 9,000 feet. More than 300 personnel were killed and hundreds more were injured, most of them African American enlisted sailors.

Nov 10 2011

Four get standing ovation from House members

History books and Hollywood have chronicled the Army’s Buffalo Soldiers and the Army Air Corps’ Tuskegee Airmen, but the men who integrated the Marines during World War II often have been forgotten. That is starting to change, beginning with the House’s 422-0 vote of H.R. 2447, a bill sponsored by Jacksonville, Fla., Congresswoman Corrine Brown.

Congresswoman Brown was elated upon the passing her bill with strong bipartisan support (HR 2447), granting the Congressional Gold Medal to the Montford Point Marines Monday on the House floor.

Gregg Reese  |   OW Staff Writer
Aug 25 2011

Montfort Point Marine Association honored

The United States Marine Corps prides itself on its ability to implement its government’s policies in places far from territorial America. This week however, the Corps will be celebrating a beachhead just as monumental as those executed in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

Across Black America

Here’s a look at African American people and issues making headlines throughout the country.
 

Alabama
Freeman A. Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, will address the annual African American Business Council luncheon on June 28. Hrabowski, who is chairman of President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Education Excellence for African Americans, has a national reputation for his work studying the performance of minority students in math and science. Hrabowski, named one of the 10 best college presidents in the country by Time magazine, was a child leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham in the 1960s.
 

Arkansas
The Liberty Counsel filed a motion and a brief in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas seeking to intervene on behalf of a Concepts of Life crisis pregnancy center to defend against a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights. The groups seek to impose a permanent injunction before the Human Heartbeat Protection Act goes into effect July 18. Liberty Counsel also filed a brief opposing the ACLU’s request for an injunction. The “Heartbeat” bill states that when a woman seeks an abortion at or after the 12th week, doctors must test for a fetal heartbeat before an abortion is performed and inform the pregnant mother that the child in her womb has a heartbeat. If a heartbeat is detected, a woman cannot have an abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, and if a mother’s life is in danger. “As we promised when the legislation was introduced, Liberty Counsel will defend this law without reservation for the people of Arkansas, born and pre-born,” said Matt Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “No right is more foundational than the right to life. Without life, all other rights are irrelevant,” concluded Staver.