Go NAVY! First Destroyer honoring Black Admiral

Can it get any better than this?! I'm so proud of this man and this occasion. Big, huge salute to you in the sky, Admiral Gravely!





She cost a billion dollars!!


Some tid-bits from the story -

...When Samuel Gravely Jr. was born in segregated Richmond 88 years ago, he never could have imagined a career as a U.S. naval officer - not to mention becoming the first black officer to command a warship and, eventually, the service's first black admiral....

....He was the first black officer commissioned through a reserve officer training course. After a stint aboard a submarine chaser with an all-black crew - a way for the Navy to prove to the nation that black sailors were as competent as their white counterparts - Gravely left active service and finished his history degree at Virginia Union University.

.....Once, while in Florida with the crew of a submarine chaser, Gravely decided to accompany some enlisted crew members to an enlisted club, knowing the officers club was off- limits to black officers. Someone at the enlisted club tried to have him arrested for impersonating an officer - a charge quickly dropped once the boat's commanding officer confirmed he was, in fact, a naval officer.

....The ship's motto, "First to Conquer," pays homage to Gravely being the "first to do so many things,"...


For the rest of the beautiful story and more pics of the destroyer -

http://hamptonroads.com/2010/11/new-destroyer-honors-black-naval-pioneer

 

Good shit.

 

Never heard this story before. I love it. Need more like this one. Chappie James (Air Force General) was said to have done the same with his black enlisted airmen during the segregationist times before President Truman stepped in to end segregation in the military services. Dayum, I FEEL GOOD! as James brown use to say.

 

awesome thread - an honorable, hard-working man serving his country despite the odds, very cool

 

Whatever.

 

Oh you love it.

 

To the ladies of Oz,I hope you or your friends would see the USS Gravely at Sydney Harbor or Queensland.

 

Thanks for sharing this, wonderful story.

 

I guess they ran out of mess halls to name. :smt120

 

This is great news! Thank you for posting it!