UNC-Wilmington Professor Melton McLaurin Shares
the WWII Veteran’s Stories of The Marines of Montford Point,
on UNC-TV’s North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, September 21, at 9:30 PM

With an executive order from President Franklin Roosevelt in 1941, the United States Marine Corps—the last all-white branch of the U.S. military—began recruiting and enlisting African Americans. The first black recruits received basic training at the segregated Camp Montford Point, adjacent to Camp Lejeune, near Jacksonville, North Carolina. Between 1942 and 1949, more than 20,000 men trained at Montford Point, most of them going on to serve in the Pacific Theatre in World War II as members of support units.

Melton McLaurin’s book, The Marines of Montford Point: America's First Black Marines, in conjunction with the documentary film of the same name, tells the story of these Marines for the first time. Drawing from interviews with 60 veterans, The Marines of Montford Point relates the experiences of these pioneers in their own words.

In an all-new episode of UNC-TV’s local literary series North Carolina Bookwatch with D.G. Martin, premiering Friday, September 21, at 9:30 PM, McLaurin shares many of the Marines' stories and reasons for enlisting, including their arrival at Montford Point and the training they received there, their lives in a segregated military and in the Jim Crow South, their experiences of combat and service in World War II, and their sustaining legacy.

”They were the nation's first African American Marines. The Corps never recruited blacks, unlike the Army and Navy, which began to do so during the Civil War and continued after the war ended, although in segregated units. The Marine Corps resisted recruiting blacks even after it became clear that FDR was probably going to issue an executive order that would forbid government agencies and federal contractors to refuse to hire on grounds of race, creed, or color, which he did in 1941,” says McLaurin. “By becoming the first black Marines they helped break down legal racial segregation in America and proved that blacks could perform admirably in the Corps.”

Melton A. McLaurin is professor emeritus of history at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He is author of eight books, including the award-winning Separate Pasts: Growing Up White in the Segregated South.

See DG Martin’s all-new interview with Melton McLaurin on North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, September 21, at 9:30 PM, with an encore episode airing Sunday, September 23, at 5 PM.

And, surrounding seven-part World War II epic, THE WAR: A Ken Burns Film, don’t miss the UNC-TV premiere of the documentary, The Marines of Montford Point, Tuesday, September 25, at 10 PM, only on UNC-TV!

During the 20-week, 10th anniversary season of North Carolina Bookwatch, guests also include: J. Peder Zane (The Top Ten), Gov. Michael Easley (Look Out, College, Here I Come!), Michele Bowen (Holy Ghost Corner), Neal Thompson (Driving With the Devil), Joseph Bathanti (Coventry), Joanna Catherine Scott (The Road From Chapel Hill), James Dodson (Beautiful Madness), Dan Heath (Made To Stick), Margaret Maron (Hard Row), James Peacock (Grounded Globalism: How the U.S. South Embraces the World), Tim Madigan (I’m Proud of You), Kathryn Stripling Byer (Coming to Rest), David Guy (Jake Fades),  Georgann Eubanks (Literary Trails of the North Carolina Mountains), Zelda Lockhart (Cold Running Creek), Mike Lassiter (Our Vanishing Americana: A North Carolina Portrait), Joe and Terry Graedon (Best Choices from the People’s Pharmacy), Fred Hobson (Off the Rim), and William Powell (Encyclopedia of North Carolina).

For additional information about series guests and airdates, plus links to the Bookwatch blog and online book club, please visit: www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

Funding for North Carolina Bookwatch is provided by UNC-TV members and by Quail Ridge Books and Music, Raleigh’s independent, full service bookstore, bringing readers and writers together since 1984.

North Carolina Bookwatch is part of UNC-TV’s ongoing commitment to produce programs for and about North Carolina. UNC-TV is the statewide 11-station broadcast network of the University of North Carolina. For more information, please visit www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

For more information about North Carolina Bookwatch and UNC-TV’s other original productions, please visit our website at www.unctv.org.

—UNC-TV—