While many Americans know that February marks Black History Month, few are aware that only nine Medals of Honor, our nation’s highest military award, were issued to black Americans in both World War I and II.
Mass Steward Dorie Miller’s valor is well known. Americans of all walks of life most likely have heard, at least once, the name of Dorie Miller. The young Navy hero from Waco, Texas, showed unparalleled bravery and self-sacrifice on the infamous day of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. Apart from manning an abandoned 50mm machine gun on the USS West Virginia, with no training whatsoever, he risked his own life to save many of his fellow soldiers by hauling them to shore and safety from the oil burning in the water during the attack.
Despite his tremendous valor, Dorie Miller’s history is one that still stains American history. “A black hero in the Jim Crow Navy,” Miller is yet to receive what is fully due to him: the Medal of Honor.
While over 1.5 million black Americans served bravely in World Wars I and II, none were awarded the Medal of Honor until 1991. On April 24, 1991, President George H.W. Bush awarded the Medal of Honor to Corporal Freddie Stowers of South Carolina, who had heroically fallen in France during World War I. At a White House ceremony, President Bush had said: “Seventy-three years ago, the Corporal first was recommended for a Medal of Honor, but his award was not acted upon. In 1987, then-Congressman Joe DioGuardi and my friend the late Mickey Leland, known to many here, from Houston, discovered the Stowers case while conducting other research.”
That “other research” had started in 1987 when Congressmen DioGuardi and Leland began an unprecedented bipartisan congressional effort, pushing the then-secretary of Defense, Frank Carlucci, to support their efforts to award, posthumously, the Medal of Honor to Dorie Miller of Texas and Henry Johnson of New York for their heroism in World War II and World War I, respectively. The DioGuardi and Leland letter of Feb. 5, 1988, sent to Secretary Carlucci, was co-signed by well over 100 members of Congress from both sides of the aisle. Some of these cosigners, such as Chuck Schumer and Steny Hoyer, are still in the U.S. Congress today, while others, including Tom Lantos, Ben Gilman and Charles Rangel, have already passed away.
Because of this bipartisan congressional effort led by DioGuardi and Leland (who tragically lost his life in a plane crash on a humanitarian mission over Ethiopia in 1989), Secretary Carlucci agreed to have the Department of Defense award a grant to Shaw University to do a study on “overlooked” files of black war heroes from World War I and II in 1990. As a result of that study, seven more black American heroes from World War II were awarded the Medal of Honor by President Clinton in 1997, and Henry Johnson (World War I) was awarded posthumously his Medal of Honor by President Obama in 2015.
Yet, the effort to get Dorie Miller what he has earned through his heroism is still ongoing. It is long past time for African American World War II hero Doris “Dorie” Miller to be awarded the nation’s highest military honor. It is more than fitting for President Biden to formally recognize the valor of Dorie Miller by awarding him the Medal of Honor this month, in an act that would serve justice long overdue.
Faton Tony Bislimi, Ph.D., serves as a senior research fellow on black war heroes at Truth In Government, New York.