The final fight for the black sailors known as the Philadelphia 15

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Instead of being able to choose their own branch of the service like their white peers, black men were limited to waiting at tables and making beds for their ship’s officers as so-called mess attendants, they wrote. .

During the previous six months, according to the letter, nine black sailors serving as mess attendants had received one of the Navy’s darkest and most brutal punishments: three days of detention with nothing to eat but bread and some water. The reason was to fight and argue with other enlisted men, which the punished sailors believed was the result of the mistreatment they had suffered.

We sincerely hope to discourage any other boys of color who may have considered joining the Navy and made the same mistake we did, the letter states. They would only become sea grooms, chambermaids and divers.

We take it upon ourselves to write this letter, whatever action the naval authorities may take or whatever the consequences. We only know that it could not exceed the mental cruelty inflicted on us on this ship.

The consequences for the 15 black sailors were indeed severe: unwanted dismissals a term for what the U.S. military now calls other than honorable discharge that forever cut men off from veterans benefits and inked their papers with an indelible stigma that has caused many future employers to steer clear.

The cruiser Philadelphia was decommissioned in 1951 and the brothers did their best to get on with their lives. Both raised families and had children who served in the military.

The brothers signed the 1940 letter as John William Ponder Jr. and James Edward Ponder, with Ernest Bosley, Arval Perry Cooper, Shannon H. Goodwin, Theodore L. Hansbrough, Byron C. Johnson, Floyd C. Owens, James Porter, George Elbert Rice, Otto Robinson, Floyd C. St. Clair, Fred Louis Tucker, Robert Turner and Jesse Willard Watford, according to the Navy.

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