Fort Gregg-Adams in Virginia takes its name from two pioneering officers of the Black Army: Lt. Gen. Arthur Gregg (left) and Lt. Colonel Charity Adams.
Photo credit: Army; photo illustration: Grace Widyatmadja/NPR
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Photo credit: Army; photo illustration: Grace Widyatmadja/NPR
Fort Gregg-Adams in Virginia takes its name from two pioneering officers of the Black Army: Lt. Gen. Arthur Gregg (left) and Lt. Colonel Charity Adams.
Photo credit: Army; photo illustration: Grace Widyatmadja/NPR
Fort Lee, the Virginia garrison of the US Army named after the leader of the slaveholding Confederate forces during the Civil War, will become Fort Gregg-Adams on Thursday after a ceremony to change the name of the base. following two Black officers whose struggles paved the way for a more inclusive military.
The post is one of nine that the Pentagon has said it will be re-designated to remove names, symbols or other displays commemorating the Confederacy.
Lt Gen Arthur Gregg, the first African American to achieve such a high rank, retired in 1981 after serving as deputy chief of staff, Army logistics. Lt. Col. Charity Adams joined the newly created Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in 1942 and was the highest ranking Black woman in World War II.
Gregg enlisted when the military was still segregated
Gregg was born in Florence, SC, in 1928. He enlisted in 1946, two years before President Harry Truman signed an executive order desegregating the military. After serving as a supply sergeant in Germany, Gregg decided to re-enlist and make the Army his career.
Despite Truman’s order in July 1948, prejudice in the Jim Crow South persisted. In 1950, as a young second lieutenant at Fort Lee, he was refused entry into the base’s white-only officers’ club. “At that time, there were two officers’ clubs,” Gregg, 94, said in an interview. “Essentially, the main club on the base did not admit African Americans.”
He remained at Fort Lee, where he was assigned as an instructor at the Quartermaster’s Leadership School, and became the school’s operations officer.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Gregg rose through the ranks of officers in quartermaster units in South Korea, Japan and Germany and returned to the United States for advanced training and to complete a degree in -business at Benedictine College in Kansas, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1964.
After a promotion to lieutenant colonel, Gregg was placed in charge of the 96th Supply and Services Battalion at Fort Riley, Kan., which had been alerted for deployment to Vietnam.
“The battalion was short on men and equipment and obviously … it was not ready for deployment,” Gregg said. “So it became my responsibility, along with my officers and engineers, to get the battalion ready for deployment.”
Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of the battalion, the unit was ready to go a month later, he said.
Retired Lt. Gen. Arthur Gregg, 94, poses for a photo at Fort Lee, the Virginia Army base being renamed in his honor.
T. Anthony Bell/US Army
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T. Anthony Bell/US Army
Retired Gen. Arthur Gregg, 94, poses for a photo at Fort Lee, the Virginia Army base being renamed in his honor.
T. Anthony Bell/US Army
After his tour in Vietnam, Gregg returned home to attend the Army War College, after which he was sent to Germany for the third time. In 1972, he received his first star, became a brigadier general and was placed in command of the Army-Air Force Exchange System Europe in Munich. In the following years, he was put in charge of all logistics for the Army in Europe.
He received his second star, as a major general, in 1976 and was promoted to lieutenant general the following year, becoming the director of logistics for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. When he reported back to the Army two years later, it was as the deputy chief of staff, logistics.
Looking back on his career, Gregg said he started in an Army that was divided into two, “one Black and one white.”
“That obviously wasn’t the best,” he said. “But I always felt that the Army would be integrated. And when it happened, it was smoother than we imagined it could be.”
When I learned a few months ago that Fort Lee would be renamed, “of course, I was more than happy,” he said.
“I had a very strong connection to Fort Lee, which is clearly one of my favorite posts there [the] Army, and I was very happy and very honored.”
Adams faced both racism and sexism
In the weeks after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Adams was balancing a job as a high school math teacher with her pursuit of a master’s degree in psychology at Ohio State University.
The young African American raised in South Carolina put all that aside to join the newly formed Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in 1942. Later known simply as the Women’s Army Corps, or WAC, the service was created to allow women to serve in non-combat positions. Eventually, its ranks swelled to 150,000.
Shortly after joining, Adams was selected to attend Officer Candidate School.
She writes in her memoirs, One Woman Army, Adams said she developed a camaraderie with the white officer candidates during the train ride to Officer Candidate School. But it didn’t last long.
“The Army soon destroyed all the closeness we felt,” she recalled in the book, according to 2002 obituary in The New York Times. ”When we left the mess hall we were marched two by two to the reception center. A young, red-haired second lieutenant said, ‘All the colored girls will march on this side.’ He pointed to an isolated group of seats.”
”There was a moment of stunned silence, because even in the United States of the 40s it did not occur to us that this could happen. The integration of our journey did not prepare for this,” Adams wrote.
After receiving her commission, she remained on OCS to train subsequent classes.
Maj. Charity Adams (foreground) and Capt. Abbie N. Campbell inspect a Women’s Army Corps contingent shortly after their arrival in England on February 15, 1945.
National Archives
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National Archives
Maj. Charity Adams (foreground) and Capt. Abbie N. Campbell inspect a Women’s Army Corps contingent shortly after their arrival in England on February 15, 1945.
National Archives
In 1944, at just 25 years old, Adams was put in command of the all-female, all African American. 6888 Central Postal Directory in England. The unit, tasked with delivering mail to nearly 7 million soldiers fighting in Europe, was deployed in early 1945.
Once on the theater, Adams faced more racism and sexism from an Army that was segregated along racial lines and that barred women from most frontline roles.
In her memoirs, Adams, then a major, recalled an episode when a general came to inspect her battalion. He threatened to “send a white first lieutenant down here to show you how to run this unit.”
Her short answer: ”Over my dead body, sir.”
Adams continued in Europe until the end of 1945. She then worked briefly at the Pentagon until she was released the following year.
After the Army, Adams returned to college to complete her master’s degree in vocational psychology.
She married Stanley A. Earley Jr., who settled in Dayton, Ohio, and raised two children. According to the National Museum of the United States Army, Adams went on to serve as dean at Tennessee State Agricultural and Industrial College (now Tennessee State University) and Georgia State University. In 1982, she founded the Black Leadership Development Program, aimed at teaching young African Americans to be leaders in their communities.
