The Golden Thirteen: Recollections of the First Black Naval Officers

In January 1944, sixteen black enlisted men gathered at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois to begin a cram course that would turn them into the U.S. Navy's first African American officers on active duty. The men believed that if they failed they would set back the course of racial justice, so they banded together and all sixteen passed the course. Twelve were commissioned as ensigns and a thirteenth was made a warrant officer.



Years later, these pioneers came to be known as ...