"A white fella told me [after the Pearl Harbor attack], Well, we have a battle, and I said,
No, we dont have one; you have a battle, because...I was a real victim of
discrimination here in Texas, and I knew I wasnt wanted, period."(Video Interview,
4:29)
|
{
align: 'left'
}
Reby Cary |
Reby Cary in uniform [1943] | World War, 1939-1945
Coast Guard
USS Cambria (APA 36)
New Jersey; Saipan (Northern Mariana Islands); Japan; Tinian (Northern Mariana Islands); Leyte (Philippines); Luzon (Philippines); Okinawa Island (Ryukyu Islands); Key West, Florida; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Pacific Theater
Radioman First Class
TX
|
|
|
Having grown up in Texas in the 1920s and 1930s, Reby Cary had experienced racial
discrimination and was eager to avoid it in the service. So when he was drafted out of
graduate school in 1942, he enlisted in the Coast Guard, which was actively recruiting
blacks to become able-bodied seamen. He trained as a radio operator and served aboard
the Cambria, a ship involved in the invasions of Saipan and Okinawa. Cary was accepted
as an equal aboard his ship, so it was more than disappointing when he returned home to
find the status quo, right down to black veterans being denied postwar job training. He
persevered, becoming an educator, an author, a businessman, and a state legislator.
|
|