Then
More than one million Black Americans served in World War II, but none received the Medal of Honor during the war.
On January 14, 1997, Staff Sergeant Edward A. Carter Jr. was reinterred at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. The ceremony followed the posthumous presentation of the Medal of Honor one day earlier. More than fifty years after his World War II heroism, an official review had concluded that racial discrimination affected which Black soldiers received the nation’s highest military award.
Carter was born in Los Angeles in 1916 and spent part of his youth in India and China. Drawn to military life, he gained experience abroad before joining the United States Army in 1941. The segregated service often restricted Black soldiers to support duties, even when their training and ability qualified them for combat leadership.
As American forces needed infantry replacements late in the war, Carter volunteered for combat. He accepted a reduction in rank because Army policy would not allow a Black sergeant to command white troops. Near Speyer, Germany, on March 23, 1945, he volunteered to lead a patrol across exposed ground toward an enemy position. Gunfire killed two members of the patrol and wounded another.
Carter continued alone despite repeated wounds. After taking cover for nearly two hours, he confronted eight enemy soldiers, killed six, and captured two. He then refused evacuation until he had shared intelligence the prisoners provided. That information helped the American advance. Carter received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second-highest award, while no Black World War II soldier received the Medal of Honor at the time.
His postwar experience added another injustice. Carter reenlisted and earned strong evaluations, but suspicion arising from his earlier service abroad and unfounded allegations of Communist ties contributed to the Army barring another reenlistment. He appealed without success and faced difficulty finding work. He died from lung cancer in 1963 and was buried in Los Angeles.
In the 1990s, the Army commissioned an independent study of racial disparity in World War II Medal of Honor decisions. Researchers identified seven Black soldiers whose records merited the award. President Bill Clinton presented the medals on January 13, 1997; Carter’s son accepted his father’s honor. The following day, Carter’s burial at Arlington placed his service within the nation’s most visible military memorial landscape.
January 14 honors courage and correction together. Carter’s valor existed in 1945 whether or not the government named it properly. The later ceremonies mattered because public institutions acknowledged that discrimination had shaped recognition. His story shows that historical repair cannot return lost years, but it can correct the record, honor families who carried the truth, and improve how future service is judged.