Browse Items (35 total)

Marine Warrant Officer Annie L. Grimes became first African American Woman Marine officer to retire after a 20-year career.

Phyllis M. Daley became the first African American Navy Nurse.

The Coast Guard opened the SPARs (from the Coast Guard motto Semper Paratus, "Always Ready") to African-American women.

Lieutenant (junior grade) La’Shonda Holmes became the first African American woman Coast Guard helicopter pilot.

Magazine article, four pages, reprinted, with permission, from Ebony, October 1968, describing the work of "the only Negro girl at that time working with the Red Cross Recreational Service," Barbara Lynn, 26 of Youngstown, Ohio.

Extract of Headquarters 6th Army Special Orders 185, dated 22 September 1952, with roster of women officers described by race, (Cau) for Caucasian or White and (Neg) for Negro or Black/African American.

Uniform worn by Charity Adams Earley, the first African American officer in the Women's Army Auxillary Corps (WAAC), later Women's Army Corps (WAC) and Commander of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the first battalion of African…

Lieutenant (junior grade) Harriet Ida Pickens, left, and Ensign Frances Wills, the first African-American WAVE officers to be commissioned. They were members of the final graduating class at the Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School (WR), Northampton,…

During World War I, fourteen African American women served as yeomen (F) in the U.S. Navy as administrative and clerical workers.

Some of the first black nurses to serve in the US Army, standing outside their quarters at Camp Sherman, Chillocothe, OH