Seventy years later, pioneering black Marines honored - baltimoresun.com

Seventy years later, pioneering black Marines honored - baltimoresun.com: When the train full of Marine recruits from Baltimore reached Washington, the blacks were made to move to the back. At boot camp in North Carolina, they were forbidden to step onto Camp Lejeune without a white escort.

But the worst of it, Howard "Chappie" Williams says, came when training was over. It was the height of World War II, and these first black Marines were kept from the fight.

"A lot of good talent was lost as a result of that," said Williams, who drove a truck in an ammunition company during the war. "A lot of men's lives could have been saved had it not been for the warped concept that America had at that time."

Now, seven decades after President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the Marines — the last whites-only branch of the military — to accept African-Americans, Williams and other pioneers are being recognized for their service.