thedrifter
02-21-06, 07:03 AM
Recognition long time coming
February 21,2006
JANNETTE PIPPIN
DAILY NEWS STAFF
ATLANTIC BEACH — When U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Stephen Rochon talks about the Pea Island Life Saving Station that once operated on the Outer Banks, there’s more than just a history lesson in his words.
Rochon said the crews that served at Pea Island — the only all-black station in the history of the U.S. Lifesaving Service and the Coast Guard — left a legacy of pride, persistence and high performance.
“There’s a positive message here for everybody’s life,” he said.
Rochon, the Coast Guard’s senior black officer, learned about the Pea Island station nearly 20 years ago after being asked to give a history of blacks in the Coast Guard for the Headquarters Black History Month Ball. He has continued his research over the years and often travels the country to share what he’s learned.
That includes the Pea Island crews’ great commitment to duty and persistance in the face of challenge.
When a suspicious fire destroyed the station during early resistance to the all-black crew, they rebuilt. And when the waters of the Atlantic were the most treacherous, they were willing to brave the conditions to save lives, Rochon said.
There were many life-saving efforts by the all-black crews between 1880 and 1947 but never any recognition.
“There have been 200 or so rescues attributed to these guys, and no one recognized that,” Rochon said.
That rightful recognition has since been given, but Rochon will continue to tell the story of Pea Island.
An observance of Black History Month brought him to Coast Guard Sector North Carolina at Fort Macon this week. He was joined by one of the last two surviving members of the Pea Island station.
Retired Lt. Herb Collins, 85, a native of Manteo now living in Maryland, spent much of his early career at Pea Island and was there when it closed in 1947.
It was an experience that taught him as much about life as it did about being a good surf man.
“The main thing I got out of it was how to live with people, how to deal with people. It was so easy to get along with everybody in the local community,” said Collins, noting that there were only two black people living between Hatteras Inlet and Oregon Inlet at the time.
While Collins said he never really experienced any racial problems while at Pea Island, he did see changes in the opportunities for blacks during his 32-year career.
Collins rose to the rank of lieutenant. Before his retirement, he commanded a tugboat as well as an evaluation team that tested prototypes of new Coast Guard vessels. It was a long way from his first days in the Coast Guard, when the few blacks allowed to join began as mess attendants and held duties such as shining the shoes of officers.
Collins said the advice of his father is what carried him through his career.
“As we were going (to the recruiting office) he said, ‘Son, you should do well as long as you treat other people the way you want to be treated yourself.’ I’ve always tried to follow that policy,” he said.
It’s a policy that fit well with the mission of saving lives.
The Pea Island crew took on one of its most noteworthy rescues on Oct. 11, 1896.
The three-masted schooner E.S. Newman was traveling from Rhode Island to Norfolk, Va., when it ran into a hurricane, drifted 100 miles and eventually ran aground near the station.
Despite the raging storm, the Pea Island crew made its way to the schooner, which was being ripped apart by the waves, and saved the captain, his wife and son and six crewmembers.
Rochon said that as he did his research on Pea Island, he was surprised to learn the all-black crew had never been recognized for their rescues, while other crews had.
And he wasn’t alone.
In 1993, Rochon was contacted by two graduate students who were working on a research project about Pea Island. That call turned into a collaboration between the three and a decision to prepare a recommendation for recognizing the heroism of the Pea Island crew.
The effort was put on the fast-track a couple of years later, he said, when a North Carolina girl working on her own school project wrote then-Sen. Jesse Helms as well as other members of Congress and the president asking that the Coast Guard award the Pea Island crew the Gold Lifesaving Medal for the E.S. Newman rescue.
One hundred years after the rescue, the medal was awarded.
It was long overdue recognition for a Pea Island legacy that began in 1880 when Richard Etheridge was appointed by the Lifesaving Service as keeper of station Pea Island.
Pea Island had been established several years earlier and was originally manned by an all-white crew, but accounts of the station not responding to shipwrecks had the Lifesaving Service looking to repair a bad reputation, Rochon said.
When the service went searching for the best person possible for the job, it was Etheridge who was known along the Outer Banks as being the best surfman around, white or black, Rochon said.
But when Etheridge arrived, the white surfmen refused to serve under him and abandoned the station.
It was then that Pea Island took its place in history.
Ellie
February 21,2006
JANNETTE PIPPIN
DAILY NEWS STAFF
ATLANTIC BEACH — When U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Stephen Rochon talks about the Pea Island Life Saving Station that once operated on the Outer Banks, there’s more than just a history lesson in his words.
Rochon said the crews that served at Pea Island — the only all-black station in the history of the U.S. Lifesaving Service and the Coast Guard — left a legacy of pride, persistence and high performance.
“There’s a positive message here for everybody’s life,” he said.
Rochon, the Coast Guard’s senior black officer, learned about the Pea Island station nearly 20 years ago after being asked to give a history of blacks in the Coast Guard for the Headquarters Black History Month Ball. He has continued his research over the years and often travels the country to share what he’s learned.
That includes the Pea Island crews’ great commitment to duty and persistance in the face of challenge.
When a suspicious fire destroyed the station during early resistance to the all-black crew, they rebuilt. And when the waters of the Atlantic were the most treacherous, they were willing to brave the conditions to save lives, Rochon said.
There were many life-saving efforts by the all-black crews between 1880 and 1947 but never any recognition.
“There have been 200 or so rescues attributed to these guys, and no one recognized that,” Rochon said.
That rightful recognition has since been given, but Rochon will continue to tell the story of Pea Island.
An observance of Black History Month brought him to Coast Guard Sector North Carolina at Fort Macon this week. He was joined by one of the last two surviving members of the Pea Island station.
Retired Lt. Herb Collins, 85, a native of Manteo now living in Maryland, spent much of his early career at Pea Island and was there when it closed in 1947.
It was an experience that taught him as much about life as it did about being a good surf man.
“The main thing I got out of it was how to live with people, how to deal with people. It was so easy to get along with everybody in the local community,” said Collins, noting that there were only two black people living between Hatteras Inlet and Oregon Inlet at the time.
While Collins said he never really experienced any racial problems while at Pea Island, he did see changes in the opportunities for blacks during his 32-year career.
Collins rose to the rank of lieutenant. Before his retirement, he commanded a tugboat as well as an evaluation team that tested prototypes of new Coast Guard vessels. It was a long way from his first days in the Coast Guard, when the few blacks allowed to join began as mess attendants and held duties such as shining the shoes of officers.
Collins said the advice of his father is what carried him through his career.
“As we were going (to the recruiting office) he said, ‘Son, you should do well as long as you treat other people the way you want to be treated yourself.’ I’ve always tried to follow that policy,” he said.
It’s a policy that fit well with the mission of saving lives.
The Pea Island crew took on one of its most noteworthy rescues on Oct. 11, 1896.
The three-masted schooner E.S. Newman was traveling from Rhode Island to Norfolk, Va., when it ran into a hurricane, drifted 100 miles and eventually ran aground near the station.
Despite the raging storm, the Pea Island crew made its way to the schooner, which was being ripped apart by the waves, and saved the captain, his wife and son and six crewmembers.
Rochon said that as he did his research on Pea Island, he was surprised to learn the all-black crew had never been recognized for their rescues, while other crews had.
And he wasn’t alone.
In 1993, Rochon was contacted by two graduate students who were working on a research project about Pea Island. That call turned into a collaboration between the three and a decision to prepare a recommendation for recognizing the heroism of the Pea Island crew.
The effort was put on the fast-track a couple of years later, he said, when a North Carolina girl working on her own school project wrote then-Sen. Jesse Helms as well as other members of Congress and the president asking that the Coast Guard award the Pea Island crew the Gold Lifesaving Medal for the E.S. Newman rescue.
One hundred years after the rescue, the medal was awarded.
It was long overdue recognition for a Pea Island legacy that began in 1880 when Richard Etheridge was appointed by the Lifesaving Service as keeper of station Pea Island.
Pea Island had been established several years earlier and was originally manned by an all-white crew, but accounts of the station not responding to shipwrecks had the Lifesaving Service looking to repair a bad reputation, Rochon said.
When the service went searching for the best person possible for the job, it was Etheridge who was known along the Outer Banks as being the best surfman around, white or black, Rochon said.
But when Etheridge arrived, the white surfmen refused to serve under him and abandoned the station.
It was then that Pea Island took its place in history.
Ellie