John Ponder, an African-American from Alabama, was never reproached or complained about for serving in the US Army in his early 20s.
He raised a family, had children and was a good citizen until he died in 1997. It was then that his son Larry, rummaging through his papers, discovered the great secret his father was hiding.
He learned that he had been one of the members of the so-called Philadelphia 15. This was the name given to the group made up of fifteen black sailors from the warship USS Philadelphia, based in Pearl Harbor.
In 1940, just over a year before the Japanese bombing that led the US into World War II, the fifteen wrote a letter that they sent to a newspaper intended for non-white audiences. In their letter they detailed the abuses, indignities and humiliations they had to endure because of the color of their skin.
They were victims of a great lie. When they enlisted, the Navy promised them that with training and dedication they would access destinations that would allow them to move up the ranks. They soon found that those opportunities did not exist.
They were forced to act as servants for the officers, with the only assignment of “serving the tables and making the beds.”
In their letter they denounced this situation. As a consequence, they suffered reprisals. Some had to face confinement in the dungeons and all of them were expelled from the force with the ignominy of being considered “unfit for service”. They received “undesirable licenses”, which today is called dishonor.
His complaint disappeared in the midst of those turbulent times of the fight against Nazism, but the injustice and stigma have endured for more than eight decades.
Those documents Larry found led to a legal initiative that reached its climax a few days ago at a ceremony in the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes, when relatives of the Ponder brothers, on behalf of the rest, accepted an apology for their racist treatment. their ancestors received. They received promotion as full honors graduates.
“To you and the rest of the families of the Philadelphia 15, I want to extend my sincerest regret for the treatment they received in uniform and for the long time that has passed without this insult being redressed,” said Franklyn Parker, Assistant Secretary of the Navy. , addressing the Ponders, seated in the front row. Everything indicates that not one is still alive. The Philadelphia was decommissioned in 1951.
“That decision was a mistake and, without a doubt, an injustice was committed and today we try to repair it as far as possible,” he added.
The two brothers were among 18 black men on the ship, which had a crew of 750 men. Instead of being able to choose their destination, as was the case with their white colleagues, they stressed that they were only allowed to work as service personnel. In the six months prior to their complaint, these black sailors regularly received the punishment of three days of confinement to bread and water for their protests.
“We sincerely hope to discourage any boy of color who has planned to join the Navy from making the mistake we have made,” they explained in their letter. “The only thing you will become will be ship buttons, waiters and dishwashers,” they remarked.
At that time, the abuses they suffered were not an aberration in the Navy and other armed forces. In 1944, Marines are known to have thrown smoke grenades into a rioting camp of black sailors on Guam, an incident that was not revealed to the public for several years. In 1945, a thousand black sailors went on strike in a California battalion, protesting that none of them were being promoted to office.
President Harry Truman desegregated the military in 1948. It took until 2021 for a black officer, retired General Lloyd J. Austin III, to head the Pentagon. Larry Ponder assured that his father would be proud.
