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Living Section of the San Bernardino SUN February 27, 2005 Issue 
Honoring Sergeant Carter By Allene G. Carter and Robert L. Allen 
Recognizing a Black Soldier's Heroism and Patriotism I finished reading "Honoring Sergeant Carter: Redeeming a Black World War II Hero's Legacy" by Allene G. Carter and Robert L. Allen just as this year's Black History Month drew to a close. This story about a black man's aspirations thwarted by racism and McCarthyism confronts, once again, our collective consciousness with the racial injustices of the past. The unacknowledged heroism and life-long discrimination of Sgt. Eddie Carter may have disappeared into oblivion had it not been for the persistence of his daughter in-law, Allene G. Carter, co-author of the book. In 1992 the U.S. Army created a commission to determine why, of the 294 Medals of Honor awarded to World War II soldiers, not a single one had gone to a black soldier. Yet, quite a few black men had received the second highest medal- the Distinguished Service Cross. The commission determined that "the Army's policies of segregation and exclusion of blacks from combat limited the opportunities" for them to be awarded the highest medal of valor and that the racism practiced in the Army at that time "undermined the effectiveness of black units in combat." In 1996 the Army and Congress set out to rectify this slight to black soldiers by deciding to award the Medal of Honor to seven World War II black veterans. One of them was Sgt. Eddie Carter who had died in 1963. This came as a total surprise to Sergeant Carter's family. They knew only that he had served in World War II and had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Beset by health problems, neither his widow nor his two sons were able to undertake the research into his life. Thus, this task fell upon his daughter-in-law. Initially Allene Carter was motivated by curiosity. But as she dug deeper into the National Archives, newspaper and periodical coverage and other records, she began to piece together the picture of a patriotic and heroic black American whose heroism had not been recognized properly and whose patriotism had been hindered by racism, McCarthyism and prejudice. She became determined to make his story known and his heroism acknowledged properly. More than that, she wanted an apology for the injustices he had suffered, an interment at the Arlington National Cemetery and an answer to why he had been denied reenlisting in the Army. Eddie Carter was born to a missionary couple with the Holiness Church. His father was known as Evangelist Edward Carter, Sr. His mother was the daughter of an Englishman and a woman from India, possibly a Hindu. Eddie had always wanted to be a soldier and for a time attended a military academy in Shanghai. He fought in the Spanish Civil War against Franco's Fascists. He was twenty-eight years old when he led an assault on Speyer, a German town strategically placed on the Rhine River. Wounded several times, he single-handedly made it possible for the American troops to cross the Rhine at Speyer. He even captured some German soldiers as prisoners and extracted from them valuable information. After the war he served in the California National Guard and then tried to reenlist in the army but his reenlistment was blocked. Reading his Freedom of Information Act file several decades later, his daughter-in-law discovered that the war hero Sgt. Carter had been under surveillance as a possible black subversive and that his desire to serve his country by reenlisting, had been thwarted by racism and suspicions that he is a communist. "Honoring Sergeant Carter" also evokes the hysteria of the McCarthy years. Memory is such a fickle thing. Today we have all but forgotten that it was not long ago when the democracy we are so anxious to force upon other peoples was rife with the prejudice, racism and persecution. Books like "Honoring Sergeant Carter" put it in the proper perspective. Ophelia Georgiev Roop Library Director San Bernardino Public Library |
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