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Unsung Hero: Surprising Facts About a Medal of Honor Recipient Who Fought Franco, Hirohito, and Hitler

Khalid Elhassan March 17, 2025 13 min

Black - Edward Allen Carter Jr., and the Medal of Honor he earned but did not receive during his lifetime — Edward Allen Carter Jr., and the Medal of Honor he earned but did not receive during his lifetime. Pinterest

6. Facing Racial Prejudice in the US Army

Black World War I combat veterans of the 369th Infantry Regiment. National Park Service

There was a widespread conviction in the US military, before and during the Second World War, that blacks were manifestly unsuited for combat. This, despite the fact that blacks had served – and often served well – in combat roles in all of the country’s conflicts, from the Revolutionary War, up to and including World War I. The latter conflict had taken place within the lifetime and service career of many American military leaders, who only two decades later in WWII, seem to have forgotten that blacks had served credibly in the First World War. Logic and facts are no barriers to racism, though, and so it was that Edward Allen Carter faced many a hurdle because of the color of his skin as he tried to serve his country in WWII.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.