CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. -- Eighty years ago, at the height of World War II, the first Black Marines arrived for basic training at Camp Montford Point, a segregated section of Camp Lejeune. Between 1942 ...

Montford Point became the first training facility for Black Marines. Nearly 20,000 Black Marines successfully completed training and supported the war effort in the 1940s. In 1941, the United ...

Retired Master Sgt. Carroll William Braxton, who was among the first Black recruits in the U.S. Marine Corps, sits for a portrait at the former Montford Point Marines Training Camp in North Carolina.

The Montford Point Marines are the first class of African Americans to serve in the United States Marine Corps. The original camp for black marines at Camp Lejeune was Montford Point Camp.

However, the Montford Point Marines’ performance during the war changed that expectation. Nearly 400 Montford Point Marines were issued the Congressional Gold Medal in a ceremony in July 2012.

and Cook was in the first wave of Black Marines. Cook started his military journey at Camp Montford Point, a segregated Marine training camp in Jacksonville, North Carolina, and went on to serve ...

the first Black recruits arrived at Montford Point and endured dismal conditions and racism. The military was not fully desegregated until 1948 by an order from President Harry Truman. Marines ...