![]() "I was just as smart as some of the others." "I could have been a seaman," said Allison, who is African-American. Being at Wednesday's event was a bit of a throwback to a complicated time, he said, and he couldn't decide quite how he felt and whether attending was a good idea. He joined the Navy in 1941 and his first assignment was at the base at Pearl Harbor. Allison, 87, who stood by himself for part of the reception. ![]() He might have been talking about William A. "It's good to see all these folks, especially the older ones, because they suffered the most." After that, things were given to me because of my ability," he said at the ceremony. He retired after 20 years as a chief personnelman. For five years, he could not advance despite his best efforts, he said, but at the end of the decade - around the time civilians took over the mess hall duty at the academy - he saw a turnaround, he said. "They just could not bring themselves to assign white recruits to do the job blacks were doing," Miller said.Īngelito Gregorio, who is Filipino, joined the Navy in 1970 and was a steward at the Naval Academy in 1973. Miller, who wrote The Messman Chronicles. ![]() Whites were not steered into the steward branch until the early 1970s, said Richard E. Nonetheless, it continued to be difficult for black sailors to advance and switch into other jobs. Truman ordered the desegregation of the army. The lot of African-Americans, on the other hand, began to change in 1948, when President Harry S. Because they were not citizens, Filipinos continued to serve exclusively as messmen - later, they were called stewards, then mess management specialists, then culinary specialists - until 1974. ![]()
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