Howard University: Freedom to Serve

Thank you, Dr. Wayne Frederick and Kathy Roth-Douquet for that kind introduction. And thank you to Blue Star Families, Howard University, and The Chamberlain Project for putting together this important recognition of the 75^th Anniversary of the Integration of the Armed Forces.

What an honor to join so many trailblazing guests: Admirals and Generals, Veterans and active duty service members, military families and an amazing defender of those families in the wife of our first ever Black Secretary of Defense, leaders in education and government, astronauts and even an actor—a former Air Force radarman who turned down a college scholarship so he could serve our country directly out of high school. All who have had both the faith to see and strength to fight for a better and stronger America, who fought for rights and security for their countrymen even when our country did not assure them those same rights, and who smashed ceilings and knocked down doors, strengthening America each step of the way.

It is in the hope that we all can continue your trailblazing work that I humbly help you mark today’s important anniversary. On July 26^th, 1948—75 years ago, today—the arc of the moral universe bent a little further toward justice when President Truman signed Executive Order 9981. And our country got stronger. As former President Obama acknowledged recently, few would have imagined that the grandson of slaveowners and son of Missouri, President Truman, would have taken that historic action. But few had the vantage point to know as well as President Truman the pivotal role Black Americans—men and women—played in winning World War II. And fewer still had the perspective to see the challenges that lay ahead in the burgeoning Cold War, already heating up in Korea, with the Soviet Union.

So the signing of Executive Order 9981 didn’t heal our country’s original sin of slavery and systemic racism. It marked an inflection point in our history. And it was progress; progress that honored the contributions of Black Vets who have fought in every war in our country’s history, and progress toward ensuring that our institutions lived up to the ideals and promise of our nation’s Constitution. That order was about a great deal more than integrating the military; it was about changing who, and what, America fights for.

And on that day, 75 years ago, President Truman didn’t just make our military stronger—though he did do that. He made our country stronger. Because the United States of America, the strongest and most diverse country on the face of the planet, is strongest when it draws on the talents of all our people, each made in the image of their Creator and therefore endowed with certain unalienable rights. And how fitting that we celebrate that moment in history here on this this beautiful and historic campus—Howard University.

A school named for Oliver Otis Howard; a Civil War Medal of Honor recipient, an amputee, and Commissioner of the Freedman’s Bureau, General Howard embraced the cause of education and equality for Black Americans as the mission that would guide him for the rest of his life. A school from which more than half of all Black commissioned officers graduated prior to World War II.

A school whose legacy of service to our country would wind its way through generations of Howard grads:

• from Benjamin O. Davis Sr., Howard class of 1898, the Army’s first Black general officer and whose son, Benjamin O. Davis Jr., would become the Air Force’s first Black general officer;
• to Charles Hamilton Houston, a World War I Vet and former Dean of Howard University Law School, whose service, and the racism he faced throughout the course of the war, inspired a young Howard law student named Thurgood Marshall to seek justice for Black soldiers as a key part of his calling to become a lawyer;
• from Togo West, Howard University class of 1965 and Howard Law School class of 1968, Army Veteran, Secretary of the Army, and my predecessor as the 3^rd Secretary of Veterans Affairs;
• to thousands of other courageous Vets taking risks, facing down adversity, and fighting battles in and out of uniform, for equality, for opportunity, for inclusion, for a better and brighter future for all Americans, and for a stronger America. 

In the face of an unfair system, unimaginable discrimination, and an unjust society—they catalyzed meaningful change that helped edge us closer to that more perfect union. Now, we know that for too long, too many Americans have fought too hard to protect our rights and freedoms in battles around the globe and then had to fight for their own rights and freedoms in brutal battles here at home—and even at VA. For too long when it comes to serving all Veterans with dignity, we’ve come up short. Sadly, many of those fights and battles continue to this day. But at VA, those fights are over.

You see, our country makes a promise to everyone who signs up to serve in the military. If you fight for us, we’ll fight for you. If you serve us, we’ll serve you. If you care for us, then we’ll care for you. At VA, we’re fighting to fulfill that obligation and keep that promise. Because Vets—all Vets, each and every Vet—deserves our very best, and we will never give them anything less.

So I’ll conclude my remarks today by speaking directly to Cadet Colonel Kendall Franklin and the Howard Air Force ROTC unit that you lead, whose members join us at today’s event. You are joining an illustrious Howard tradition of serving our nation both in and out of uniform, of leading courageously, of standing up and fighting for our country, our communities, and our people, of strengthening our country at times of great need and of driving extraordinary change for generations to come. You are the product of the paths those trailblazers chartered, the change they created, and the ceilings they shattered. Today, the eyes of the world are upon you, so—like the trailblazers whose paths you follow—do extraordinary things and drive extraordinary change for decades to come. As we commemorate this pivotal moment in our nation’s history, one that took a defining step towards ending racial segregation in the Armed Forces and sent a clear message that the ideals of democracy and freedom must be upheld in words as well as actions, I ask you to push all of us—each and every one of us in the military, at VA, and across the country—to carry the torch of progress forward, to ensure that the principles of equality and justice are upheld for all service members, for all Veterans, and for all Americans. 75 years from now, we will be a stronger country because of trailblazers like you.

God bless you all. And God bless all of our nation’s servicemembers, our Veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors.