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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Sinking Racism |
Current rating: 0 |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
08 Dec 2001
Modified: 11 Dec 2001 |
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Listen to the repeat of "This American Life" at 6pm Sunday, Dec. 9 on WILL AM580 for a stunning story about one black man's transforming experience in WWII. Lanier Phillips would never again think of himself in the same way. A link to the website of the documentary about Phillips' life is included below. |
Lanier Phillips would never again think of himself in the same way.
From the website of the documentary:
"THE USS TRUXTON before February 18, 1942 In the snowy predawn of February 18, 1942, a convoy of three American ships zigzagged up the North Atlantic toward Newfoundland. The destroyers Truxton and Wilkes with the supply ship Pollux were under radio silence to protect their position from the threat of German U-boats
A storm was raging, visibility was zero, and the currents had turned wildly unpredictable. With only unreliable soundings to guide them across the jagged ocean floor, all three vessels ran aground on the sheer rock coast of Newfoundland. Attempts to carry lifelines ashore were thwarted by heavy surf, cold, oil slicks, and floating wreckage. A few sailors, however, overcame the odds and managed to reach the coast where the communities of Lawn and St. Lawrence effected a super-human rescue operation.
The USS Wilkes, the flagship, was refloated within three hours, but the Pollux and the Truxton were hard aground and were subsequently battered to pieces. Two hundred and three young American sailors died in the heroic struggle for survival. One hundred and eighty-five survived. In large part they owe their lives to eight men of Lawn and almost the entire community of St. Lawrence, Newfoundland, who worked desperately to effect the rescue. It was one of the worst disasters in United States naval history.
At this time the US Navy was segregated. Of the 46 survivors from the USS Truxton, one was black. When Lanier Phillips was rescued by residents of St. Lawrence they treated him the same as they treated the white survivors. This experience galvanised the Navy Mess Attendant to fight racial discrimination within the US Navy. He later became the Navy's first black sonar technician.
Outside the Navy he continued his struggle. 1965 found him a civil rights marcher in Selma, Alabama."
Go to the website and press on the yellow dots within the text to hear the documentary: |
See also:
http://www.batteryradio.com/Pages/Survivor.html
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more.. |
by Andy M. Stevens
andymstevens (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
11 Dec 2001
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This story should be required listening/reading in schools everywhere, especially in the south. Growing up in Mississippi, I had the displeasure to actually see an aged African American gentleman bow his head and step out of the way of my aunt once when we were in a feed & seed store. It sickened her that he didn't see her as equal. She made sure that I learned a lesson by seeing what he did and she made sure that I learned why he did it.
I recently heard the story on NPR and can't wait to get the book. |
