Henry Baul
The world has come a long way since 1942, but Henry Baul remembers the old days.

He was 19 years old when he enlisted in service of his country, a country that still separated Black from White. Baul was one of the first Black Marines to serve in the U.S. Military.

This group of World War II vets became known as the Montford Point Marines. Named for the training camp Montford Point, Camp Lejeune, in North Carolina, the group broke the 167-year color barrier after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, allowing Blacks the opportunity to serve.

This often came in the form of a draft and Baul, being in good health, knew his number would be called. His choice was the Marines.

“I wanted to be in the fighting union,” he said. “I felt if a man is going to throw something harmful at me, I wanted to be able to throw it back. That’s why I wanted the Marine Corp.”

Now 85, the former gunnery sergeant looks back on those days with fondness, despite the segregation. He had an opportunity to serve with great men, many of whom had college degrees and moved on to noteworthy careers after the war.

“It’s pretty hard to go to a little town that’s segregated and to go around to the other side of the bus and wait for a truck from the camp to pick you up,” he recalled. “To go through all of that to go to the service, to fight for your country, to die for your country.”

There would be fights occasionally when the group would go into segregated towns. He was very good with his fists, so he rarely lost, if ever. It almost always had something to do with race.

“It was like a dream, that people were so ignorant,” Baul said. “To see how it is now, it’s a great difference, but it was rigidly segregated then. That’s the way it was.”

He even recalls seeing a “Whites Only” sign on the door of a hamburger restaurant in Washington, D.C., before the war, a few blocks from the White House.

“It was completely segregated, just like in the South,” he said. “When the war was coming up they started to hide it.”

Baul’s mother died of dropsy when he was four years old, so he was mainly raised by his father, a railroad man. He took what little savings the family had, and gave it to a man claiming he could cure his wife within three weeks. The con man left town and was never seen again.

The death of his wife haunted Baul’s father and he never remarried. He cooked, cleaned, and took care of his three children.

“That father of ours raised us by himself,” Baul said. “He could not read and write, but he used to take us to (different) cities, and how he would take us around without knowing how to read, I could never understand. He was very smart. That’s where I got my strength from.”

That strength will be honored on Friday, May 16, at the 8th & I Evening Parade in Washington. Lt. General Ronald S. Coleman, the only African American three-star general in the Marines, personally invited Baul to the event.

Fellow Marine Robert Middleton, secretary for the Montford Point Marines Association, Detroit chapter, will accompany Baul on his journey.

“The reason why this is so significant is because Mr. Baul was one of the first Black United States Marines recruited into the Marine Corps,” Middleton said. “Mr. Baul’s a living legend. If it were not for these first Black United States Marines there would be no other Black Marines. They broke the 160 year color barrier.”

Middleton credits Baul and his platoon for opening doors for all minorities in the Marines today.

“I think Mr. Baul basically has been a light bearer, opening doors for not only Blacks in the military, but the multicultural mix that exists in the Marine Corps today,” he said. “They were precursors to the official Civil Rights Movement. We’re all excited about it. Hopefully this will bring something into the hearts and minds of Americans near and far, about a hidden history that may no longer be in obscurity.”

From 1942 to 1945, Baul led the all-Black 51st Defense Battalion (Special Weapons), breaking every anti-aircraft gunnery record established in the United States Marine Corps.

“I’ve had so many friends to pass on. Most of the first are gone,” Baul said. “It was an experience you couldn’t forget.”

For more information, contact Robert B. Middleton at rmiddleton_@hotmail.com, or visit motownmarines.org and montfordpointmarines.com.