hubman
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A Military 1st: A Supercarrier Is Named After An African American Sailor
USS Doris Miller will honor a Black Pearl Harbor hero and key figure in the rise of the civil rights movement. Miller, a sharecropper's son from Waco, Texas, was 22 years old when he created history.
www.npr.org
A Military 1st: A Supercarrier Is Named After An African American Sailor
"During the attack on Pearl Harbor, as his battleship, the USS West Virginia, was sinking, the powerfully built Miller, who was the ship's boxing champion, helped move his dying captain to better cover, then jumped behind a machine gun and shot at Japanese planes until his ammunition was gone.
As a Black sailor in 1941, he wasn't supposed to fire a gun even. This means that when he reached for that weapon, he was taking on two enemies: the Japanese flyers and the pervasive discrimination in his own country."