A preacher’s daughter and teacher from Columbia, South Carolina, sees a war break out and feels so compelled to serve she leaves school to enlist. She becomes the highest-ranking Black woman of World War II as a lieutenant colonel.
The son of Florence farmers and the youngest of nine siblings moves to Virginia after the loss of his mother. He’s drawn to the Black soldiers stationed at a nearby base and enlists in the Army at 17 years old. He becomes the first Black man to achieve the rank of lieutenant general.
Charity Adams and Arthur Gregg were both raised in South Carolina. They were years apart and their paths never crossed, but they each in their own way have influenced American military history.
Now, their names will stand side-by-side in perpetuity as the namesakes for a Virginia Army fort once named for Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
Amid an overhaul of the names of military installations that once honored Confederate figures, a pair of South Carolinians have now been memorialized for their groundbreaking Army careers. These are their stories. https://t.co/UBaYliV55U
— The State Newspaper (@thestate) July 20, 2023