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thedrifter
12-10-06, 08:02 AM
First black Marines to get scholarly treatment in book
Wilmington Morning Star, NC

The first African-Americans to serve in the U.S. Marine Corps will be the focus of a new book by a Wilmington historian.

The Marines of Montford Point: America's First Black Marines by Melton A. McLaurin is scheduled for a Feb. 26 release by the University of North Carolina Press.

McLaurin, a professor emeritus of history at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, is the author of eight books, including Celia: A Slave, which received a front-page review in The New York Times book section, and Separate Pasts: Growing Up White in the Segregated South.

For The Marines of Montford Point, he interviewed more than 60 Marine veterans, including Al Banker of Bolivia, Wilmington residents F.M. Hooper and James Wilson, and Wilmington native William Vann. Their first-person narratives provide the core of the book.

Located next to Camp Lejeune, Camp Montford Point was the basic training facility for African-American Marines from 1942 to 1949. The Corps was the last of armed services to begin desegregation, following a 1941 executive order by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

More than 20,000 Marine recruits passed through the facility, most of them going on to support units in the Pacific Theater.

Many Montford Point Marines became "30-year men," serving in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. Others went on to distinguished civilian careers, including Pvt. David Dinkins, who became mayor of New York City.

McLaurin was also writer and director for Fighting for Freedom, an hour-long documentary shot and edited by UNCW's television unit. Narrated by actor Louis Gossett Jr., the film premiered Nov. 14 at UNCW's Fisher Center.

Hail to the chiefs

Betsy Brodie Roberts of Oak Island earned the gratitude of film buffs and harried reporters with her 1997 book Wilmington Films and Locations, a guidebook to local film and TV projects, the actors who appeared in them and the local sites that were used.

Roberts is back with a new volume: Presidential Fun Facts (Southport: Arcola Productions, $15 paperback), now available at Books 'n' Stuff and Beach Road Books in Southport.

Copies also may be ordered through www.arcolaproductions.com (along with both the 1997 and 2001 editions of Wilmington Films and Locations).

Readers can learn that James Madison was the first U.S. president to wear long pants (the others put on 18th-century knee britches), that first lady Bess Truman was a shot-put champion and that Woodrow Wilson was both the first president to earn a doctorate degree and to have coached college football (at Wesleyan University).

Roberts also notes that John Quincy Adams used to skinny-dip in the Potomac River. Anne Royall, credited as America's first woman journalist, knew the president's schedule, so she slipped out, sat on his clothes and stayed put until Adams answered some questions for an interview.

In other news

Local historian Wilbur D. Jones Jr. will sign copies of his military histories 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m. and 4:30- 6 p.m. Thursday at the Wilmington Athletic Club, 2026 S. 17th St. Among the titles available will be his portrait of Wilmington in World War II, A Sentimental Journey, and its sequel, The Journey Continues.

The New Hanover County Public Library is holding a reception for Wilmington historian Walter Conser and his new book, A Coat of Many Colors: Religion and Society Along the Cape Fear River, 2-4 p.m. Dec. 17 in the main library's North Carolina Room at 201 Chesnut St.

Ben Steelman: 343-2208

ben.steelman@starnewsonline.com

Ellie