NEWS

Buffalo Soldier's long-lost medals returned

Beth Miller
The News Journal

It was 1946 and James H. Gilliam Sr. was on his way to see his son – for the first time.

He had been in Italy when James Jr. was born in 1945, serving with the 92nd Infantry (Buffalo Division), 370th Infantry Regiment, during a 16-month deployment that helped the Allies win World War II.

His service in that war will be recognized anew Friday morning, when U.S. Sen. Chris Coons visits Cokesbury Village in Hockessin, where Gilliam now lives, to deliver more than half a dozen long-lost medals and badges to the 94-year-old soldier. That includes two Bronze Star medals, one for heroism.

Buffalo Soldier James H. Gilliam Sr., who served in World War II, will be recognized anew Friday morning, when U.S. Sen. Chris Coons will deliver more than half a dozen long-lost medals and badges to the 94-year-old at his home in Cokesbury Village.

Gilliam's legacy of service – in housing, community development, the civil rights movement, mentoring and many other areas – has been recognized many times by governors, lawmakers, business leaders, educators and others over the years.

But there were no such accolades that day in 1946, when Gilliam climbed aboard a train in New York to get home to his family. He was in uniform, a decorated officer returning from combat. When the train reached Washington D.C., he got into a "Southern" train and had to sit in a "Jim Crow" car – the car African-Americans had to sit in to keep them separate from white passengers.

It was just behind the engine, so when he got hungry he had to move backward toward the dining car. He remembers walking through a car full of German prisoners-of-war – and noticing that it was much more comfortable than that Jim Crow car.

Once in the dining car, he was steered to a table at the back. The server pulled a curtain closed after he sat down. The separation had to be maintained. Or – maybe not. Gilliam stood up angrily, pulled the tablecloth and everything with it off the table.

"You can't do that!" the waiter shouted.

"I just did," Gilliam said.

He has stood up to such injustice many times, as his mother, Pocahantas Lipscomb, exhorted him to do. He walked away from jobs, rebuffed second-class status where he encountered it, and challenged shallow fixes to profound problems.

But this was an especially vicious sting – a pain that a million black World War II veterans would understand.

He had put his life on the line for the United States of America, but his homeland could not yet accept its own creed – that all men were created equal.

And it still doesn't, Gilliam says.

James H. Gilliam Sr. (in the center of this photo) was called back to active duty after World War II and served in Germany during the Korean Conflict.

An angry start

It was another angry episode that put Gilliam in the Army in the first place.

He had been working as collating machine operator in an insurance office in Baltimore, when a white colleague asked him why he was doing so much to help a boss who took credit for his work and would never promote him. In addition to operating the machines, Gilliam had been repairing them – making for greater efficiency and lower cost.

When Gilliam heard what was happening, he stopped making repairs. His boss challenged him, told him to be a team player. Gilliam said he knew he would never be promoted, and his boss said promotions were "something different."

Gilliam told his boss where he could shove that job, walked down the street, and joined the Army.

His intellect and leadership skills were recognized quickly. He was promoted from a "buck private" to a staff sergeant in six months' time, and was invited to officers' candidate school.

He had hoped to be a pilot in the Army Air Corps – in the ranks of the Tuskegee Airmen, the nation's first black military pilots – but was found to be colorblind, which made him ineligible.

Instead, he became a Buffalo Soldier, a lesser-known cohort of black troops whose original namesakes had served in the U.S. 10th Cavalry and helped to settle the West. They were nicknamed "Buffalo Soldiers" by Native Americans, according to many historical accounts, and they adopted the buffalo as their symbol.

The highest-ranking officers in the 92nd Division were white, and the black soldiers – no matter their rank – still were cordoned off from much of Army life.

They slept in separate quarters, were excluded from many events, and encountered continual insults – like the cartoon depictions of black troops with fangs and tails that Gilliam remembers.

But that did not keep him from serving with distinction – as the two Bronze Star medals and the other list of awards attest.

One report of his heroism was found in the National Archives during the search for Gilliam's records requested by Coons' staffer Brendan Mackie, himself an Army veteran of service in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to that report, which led to one of his Bronze Star medals, Gilliam was part of a company of infantry troops ordered to cross a canal on tanks in Italy on Feb. 9, 1945.

"The tanks attracted enemy attention and were subjected to heavy artillery fire which caused confusion among the troops," the military report says. "Second Lieutenant Gilliam immediately took charge of the situation, although he was not in command of the company. Moving along the line of tanks as the hostile fire continued to fall in the area, Second Lieutenant Gilliam personally supervised the mounting of each unit, and made certain that each tank had a complete fighting unit. On several occasions, the intense fire forced the troops to leave the tanks and seek cover. Each time Second Lieutenant Gilliam, disregarding his own personal safety, would assemble the men and get them aboard the tanks. Second Lieutenant Gilliam's unselfish devotion to duty was an inspiration to the members of his organization and reflects credit on the highest traditions of the Armed Forces."

James H. Gilliam Sr. (far right) leads a platoon of Buffalo Soldiers on a march into Genoa, Italy, in June 1945, as the 92nd Infantry Division returned what was believed to be the ashes of explorer Christopher Columbus.

'The whole beach'

After World War II, Gilliam joined the Maryland National Guard, where he served as a captain. He was called back to active duty during the Korean Conflict and was assigned to Germany, where he replaced officers who had been sent to Korea.

Throughout his military career, he found ways to resist many demeaning requests made on him and his troops.

In 1950, for example, he was asked if men from his all-black unit could serve as lifeguards at a beach for black soldiers.

No, Gilliam said, his soldiers use the whole beach.

Another time, Gilliam was in a company room at a post in New York, when a soldier drove up in a jeep and dropped off two duffel bags.

"What the hell are these?" Gilliam asked.

"Shoes to be shined."

"Put them back in the damned jeep and send them back."

Such stories still stir emotion, more than 60 years later.

"I always am just amazed at how you go and fight for your country and come back and still get treated as a second-class citizen," said his daughter, Patrice Gilliam-Johnson. "It's pretty painful I think."

Tony Allen, an executive with Bank of America who was the first president of the Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League founded by Gilliam, said those battles shaped Gilliam's mission.

"Serving your country and seeing, in real time, as you were risking your life, the realities of an America in conflict with its creed, in many ways that was the thing that solidified his commitment and impact on civil rights," Allen said. "He is still fighting that fight."

'Deeds, Not Words'

In an interview this week, Gilliam said he still carries a burning anger within him, the smoldering debris of countless encounters with racial discrimination and injustice. Only he can resolve that, he said, and he does not give it expression – lest someone get hurt.

He does not linger over these medals and badges, either. In fact, he said, they don't really mean much to him.

He wanted to see if his records existed, and that is why he called Coons' office some months back. He had been told the records were destroyed in a fire years ago. What Mackie discovered, with help from the National Archives, was that the records had been moved after Gilliam was re-activated during the Korean Conflict. Verification of three of the nine awards was made just this week.

What Gilliam likes most about the recovery of these long-lost honors is the opportunity it gives him to talk about the history of the Buffalo Soldiers, whose place in the landscape of American history is often overlooked.

Black soldiers served with valor, distinction, honor – and these medals and badges are more evidence of that.

"But he doesn't sit idle with that stuff," Allen said. "He uses that to do more."

Coons, who named a county building in Gilliam's honor when he was New Castle County executive, said he has great respect for Gilliam and the Buffalo Soldiers, who fought for freedom in Europe when they didn't have it at home.

"And one of the things I have most appreciated about Mr. G, he never misses an opportunity to press on me the unfinished work," Coons said, "the importance of righting injustice, the persistence of racism and inequality, and the very high expectations he puts on any of us who are elected to remain open-eyed about the challenges unresolved."

The motto of the Buffalo Soldiers, "Deeds, Not Words," sounds so "poetic," Gilliam said. It doesn't necessarily fit his approach, though. He has used both words and deeds in forceful ways throughout his life.

And that has not changed.

"I did what I did with the Buffalo Soldiers," he said. "I didn't think much about fighting for anybody's country. It was something I wanted to do and it appealed to me. But I'd be lying if I said it was the patriotic thing to do – just like I'd be lying if you asked whether I like white people. In my sane moments I do – on an individual basis. In my sane moments, it's right for all people to like everybody.

"But based on my history and upbringing, it's hard for me to forget what has happened to my people."

This week's moment of tribute is meant not to ignore that painful past, but to salute a Buffalo Soldier who did his duty – with distinction – in spite of it.

Contact Beth Miller at (302) 324-2784 or bmiller@delawareonline.com. Follow on Twitter @BMiller57 and Facebook.

The James H. Gilliam Sr. files

Born: Aug. 6, 1920, Baltimore

Education: Morgan State College, bachelor's degree (sociology), Baltimore; Howard University, master's degree (social work), Washington, D.C.

Career: Maryland State Dept. of Heatlh; Housing Authority of Baltimore City; administrator, Family Courts of Delaware; founder and first executive director, Greater Wilmington Housing Authority; vice president for management and community relations, Leon Weiner & Assoc.

1944-48: Served with the 370th Infantry Regiment, 92nd Infantry Division "Buffalo Soldiers," an African American division. Combat veteran of the North Apennines and Po Valley campaigns on the Italian front. Earned Bronze Star medal, American Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, Honoral Service Lapel Button, WWII

1950: Recalled to active duty as captain, U.S. Army 147th Quartermaster Truck Company, during Korean Conflict. Stationed in Germany, earned Army of Occupation Medal with German Clasp

1954: Becomes psychiatric case work supervisor for Maryland State Dept. of Health

1955: Becomes management aide, Housing Authority of Baltimore City

1963: Becomes chief of renewal operations for Baltimore Urban Renewal and Housing Agency

1965: Moves to Wilmington, becomes director of neighborhood and housing services for the Greater Wilmington Development Council

1969: Named Delaware's social worker of the year

1970: Joins Leon Weiner & Assoc. as vice president

1971: Accepts Gov. Russell Peterson's request to overhaul Delaware Family Court, takes one-year leave from Weiner & Assoc.

1974: Becomes first director of New Castle County Department of Community Development and Housing

1982: Awarded Order of the First State by Gov. Pete du Pont, Distinguished Delawarean Award

1985: National Ambassador Award, National Assoc. of Housing and Redevelopment Officials; Achievers Award for Significant Contributions in Government (Brandywine Professional Association)

1990: Retires from county post; receives Kiwanis Club of Wilmington's J. Caleb Boggs Community Service Award

1994: Winner of Delaware State Chamber of Commerce Josiah Marvel Cup for community service

1999: Founds the Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League, the 115th affiliate of the National Urban League

Aug. 29, 2014: Receives medals and other citations from U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, including: two Bronze Stars, the American Campaign Medal, the Combat Infantryman Badge, the National Defense Service Medal, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, the Army of Occupation Medal with Germany Clasp, the World War II Victory Medal, the Honorable Service Lapel Button, WWII​

Partial list of community service roles: President, National Urban League Development Foundation; board president, Children's Bureau of Delaware; member, Delaware Ethics Commission; board member, Medical Center of Delaware; president and chairman of the board of Community Housing Development Inc.; member, Wesley College Board of Trustees; commissioner, Speer Trust; director, United Way of Delaware; elder, First & Central Presbyterian Church

For more information, visit the website of the 92nd Infantry (Buffalo Division) at http://92ndinfantry.org/.

Also, see the text of an interview with Gilliam in October 2006, part of the Veterans History Project and stored in the Library of Congress at http://1.usa.gov/VRoDAY.