WWII Era Veteran Helped Integrate the Marine Corps

Reposted from Article By Shelly Haskins | shaskins@al.com
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Former Marine Cpl. Ray Williams is a distinguished member of a rare group of World War II-era heroes — the Montford Point Marines.

The all-black Montford Point Marines are known by that name because they were trained at Montford Point, N.C., separate from white Marines at a time when the Marine Corps was still segregated.

Williams and his fellow Montford Point Marines – 19,000 served in that segregated outfit from 1942 until it was disbanded in 1949.

Williams enlisted as the war ended, in 1946, and did most of his service at the Naval Ammunition Depot Marine Base in Earle, New Jersey, where he served as a military policeman.

Williams recalls living in wooden barracks with a pot-bellied stove for heat, while his white counterparts lived in brick barracks with air conditioning. But he also remembers his pride in serving his country, and his role in creating a Marine Corps where all are now treated equally.

He made the most of his two years of service, returning to his hometown of New Orleans in 1952, turning his GI Bill funding into business and secondary education degrees from Xavier University.

He later taught in the New Orleans school system, then went to work for NASA, overseeing the space command center at Michoud Assembly Facility, according to a 2015 article in the Redstone Rocket. He was also an entrepreneur in the grocery business.

He moved to Huntsville in 1999, and — having been ill when President Obama held a ceremony for the Montford Marines in 2011 — was given his Congressional Gold Medal by the Marine unit in Huntsville in 2012, and honored by Army Materiel Command Gen. Dennis Via for his service in 2015.