Carrel Reavis was born in Lawrenceville, Virginia. He grew up in the country on a farm. He had a large family, 17 kids. He farmed until he was 16. He then joined the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1940. He stayed with them until World War 2 came along and the CCC camp disbanded. Reavis then went to work for the Navy in Yorktown, Virginia [Annotator's Note: Naval Weapons Station Yorktown, Newport News, Virginia] as a laborer. He went to school and became an assistant fireman until he was drafted in 1942. He was deferred for one year. In 1943, he got a letter to report on 15 November for active duty. He was 20 years old then. His life turned upside down after that. He had never seen a Marine base. When he reported in North Carolina, the world was different. Everything was in the back, you could not do this and that. In Wilmington, North Carolina he had to sit at the back of the bus. When he got to the main gate all hell broke loose. The camp was not like he thought it would be. They did not have barracks but had huts made of cardboard with dirt floors. This was Montford Point [Annotator's Note: Camp Montford Point, Jacksonville, North Carolina]. Boot camp was eight weeks. They did not have any Black Drill Instructors. Reavis' instructor was a PFC [Annotator's Note: Private First Class]. They were good and he learned a lot. The 51st Defense Battalion was there, and everyone wanted to be in it. After some time, they [Annotator's Note: the United States military] decided they wanted stevedore [Annotator's Note: a stevedore is someone who loads and unloads cargo from ships] type service groups. They then organized Depot Companies and Ammunition Companies. During World War 2, they handled supplies.

After bootcamp, Carrel Reavis was sent to Hawaii, where he stayed for the whole war. All he did was load and unload ammunition, attached to the 4th Marine Division. New companies were shipped down to Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands] and Tinian [Annotator's Note: Tinian, Mariana Islands]. They were segregated into separate camps. Ammunition is worse than any combat. Explosions were going off. Submarines, LSTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank], and ammunition dumps blew up all the time. All of them were USMCRs [Annotator's Note: United States Marine Corps Reserve], not regular Marines. Their tours were the duration of the war plus six months. If you were a Negro [Annotator's Note: term for Black person], you could only go to the rank of E-4 [Annotator's Note: Enlisted pay grade 4, or corporal]. All of the NCOs [Annotator's Note: noncommissioned officers] were white. Everybody over anybody was white. Reavis resented that. The mess sergeant was the only staff sergeant and he had no authority. Anybody who had been in combat got shipped home early due to the points {Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home]. Reavis was in Hawaii when the war ended but was one of the last to return in 1946, to Camp Pendleton [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, San Diego County, California]. Everything was the same. He got the ruptured duck [Annotator's Note: nickname for an insignia worn on military uniforms indicating that the wearer had been honorably discharged from the military], was discharged and sent home. A lot of them said they had signed up for the duration of the war and should be allowed to still serve. He went to Baltimore [Annotator's Note: Baltimore, Maryland] and shipped over [Annotator's Note: after reenlisting]. He served for three years [Annotator's Note: overseas] and then returned to Montford Point [Annotator's Note: Camp Montford Point, Jacksonville, North Carolina]. There were only six of them in his battalion. They formed the AAA [Annotator's Note: 3rd Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion (Composite) (3d AAA Bn (Composite))], which replaced the 52nd Defense Battalion. Things worked pretty well after that. They were still segregated, same problems in segregated towns. It was a very different world.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Carrel Reavis why he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, as a teenager.] When Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] became President in 1932, he organized the WPA [Annotator's Note: Works Progress Administration] and NRA [Annotator's Note: NIRA; National Industrial Recovery Act, 1933; authorized President to regulate industry]. He then organized the Civilian Conservation Corps so the World War 1 veterans could have jobs. They later made a junior corps for others to join. His brother joined before he did. You could only stay six months unless you were good enough to be exempted. Reavis did so and became a Leader with three stripes. It paid more than the military at the time; Leader was equal to a First Sergeant in the Army. This gave his family an income. The purpose of the CCC Camp was to support the families. The CCC Camp was segregated and was under the Army Engineers Reserve [Annotator's Note: Army Corps of Engineers]. They took care of the lands around them fighting forest fires, preventing erosion, and fixing farm fences. The Marine Corps did not draft Blacks at the beginning. They fought it. They wanted 900 to form a battalion at first. That was raised to 1,200. Reavis was drafted but did not know he was going in the Marine Corps. He reported in at Richmond [Annotator's Note: Richmond, Virginia]. He was pulled aside and got a different color tag than everyone else. He wondered why. Soon there were three of them left together. This was the shift to the Marines. He did not know he was in the Marines until later that day when a Marine told them to get in a truck. He knew he was in the Marine Corps then. They were examined again by Navy doctors. They all passed. They then got a seven-day pass [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time].

Carrel Reavis took a train to Wilmington, North Carolina and then a bus to Jacksonville [Annotator's Note: Jacksonville, North Carolina]. It was hot on the back of the bus. When he got off, he could not go in the station and had to sit outside. Finally, a Marine Corps bus came around and got them. They turned off the main road to Camp Lejeune [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville, North Carolina] into a swamp. That is where hell began; Montford Point [Annotator's Note: Camp Montford Point, Jacksonville, North Carolina]. Having been in the CC Camp [Annotator's Note: Civilian Conservation Corps Camp], he knew about military things. Reavis knew the hollering was a show but he went along with it. The Drill Instructors were White. A lot of the people had never been away from home. People did not travel a lot then, so they would all ask each other what is like where they were from. They really got to know one another. It was meeting new people mostly and they were all in the same boat. They became a bonded brotherhood. There was nothing to do and no place to go. You learn to protect one another. They trained on the same weapons. They had the 03 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber Model 1903, or M1903, Springfield bolt action rifle] at first, in 1943, then they trained on the M1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand]. They trained with bayonets, bolo knife [Annotator's Note: machete-like knife]. They wore leggings at the time. They were in mud and dirt all the time and were dirty all the time. They were in the woods. The only thing wrong with the food was that it was limited. They never got any sweets. They only got one spoonful of eggs and one slice of bread. They ran everywhere they went, even to go to the bathroom. The big difference from other troops was the name calling, a racial thing they could do nothing about. Later on, they got Black seniors. Hashmark Johnson [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps Sergeant Major Gilbert "Hashmark" Johnson] was one of the first Black drill instructors. The White drill instructors would physically kick their butts. They accepted the treatment for what it was because that is the way the country was. It was everywhere you went. In town, the police were that way. You could only accept it and stay away from it as much as you could. You marked it up to them being ignorant. They went to church every Sunday and learned to turn the other cheek. They believed God would bring them out of it. Nobody fought much. Overall, they bore it and survived.

Carrel Reavis went from Virginia to basic training on a segregated train. When he went overseas, his ammunition company [Annotator's Note: 5th Marine Ammunition Company] shipped out by train to Norfolk [Annotator's Note: Norfolk, Virginia]. There was nobody on the train but Black people. They got on a ship that night and went into the hold. They stayed there for three days. They finally felt the ship move and by the time they were allowed on deck they were at sea. Some men he knew who went across country by train had a tough time. The Red Cross would not serve the Negro Marines. The commanding officer was relieved for those actions. When Reavis came back in 1946 was when he had problems. He came back to Oceanside [Annotator's Note: Oceanside, California] and took a train to Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois]. He then went to Pennsylvania. He had to change trains in Kansas City [Annotator's Note: Kansas City, Missouri]. The Army military police took them off the trains because they were drinking and having a party. They did not know where they were. They went over to catch another train but ended up on the same train. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him what it was like to have served and then return to segregated life.] Reavis went to Baltimore [Annotator's Note: Baltimore, Maryland]. He had gotten married prior to going overseas. His wife lived in Baltimore with her mother. He looked for a job and found a job as a fireman but when he applied he was told the job was filled. He took the guy's word. He later saw the same job was open. He went back and was told that it was a White man's job. He applied for other jobs and got the same response. He did get a job with a rubber company. He did not know what he was getting into. He did not realize rubber came as powder and there was dust everywhere. He could not stand that and stayed about a week. He decided to go back in the Marine Corps. He was told he did not pass the physical. He had a cyst that he did not know about. He had surgery and then got back in. Everybody got 90 days to reenlist. The recruiting officer did not know he was not supposed to ship him over.

Carrel Reavis was in the CCC Camp [Annotator's Note: Civilian Conservation Corps] as First Sergeant of his company in Clarksville, Virginia on 7 December 1941. The guy in the bed next to him in the barracks had the only radio in the camp. The news came over the radio that the Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] had bombed Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Reavis asked him if he knew where it was but nobody knew. Being in the CCC, he did not think it would have an effect on him. The war was going on in Europe at the time. Reavis was making more money than he would have in the Army. Guys started leaving and getting good jobs because of the war. The camp companies went down and they started to merge. His camp merged into Blackstone, Virginia into what is now Fort Pickett. It was being built then. Soldiers came in to guard the place and joined in the camp. The camps were to merge again. Reavis was transferred to Fort Lee [Annotator's Note: Fort Lee, Virginia] and then to Yorktown [Annotator's Note: Naval Weapons Station Yorktown, Newport News, Virginia] where he became First Sergeant of a World War 1 veteran camp. In 1942 it was all disbanded and Reavis went to work for the Navy as a laborer. He wanted to move into public works and was assigned to the boiler rooms where the warheads for bombs and torpedoes were filled. A man there told him to apply to go to school. He went to school in Norfolk [Annotator's Note: Norfolk, Virginia] under the Merchant Marines where he became a Third-Class Fireman. He was drafted at 19 and was deferred for a year.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Carrel Reavis where he thinks the Montford Point Marines fit into the Civil Rights Movement.] Carrel Reavis feels they spearheaded the Civil Rights Movement by the actions they took and the things they did. They were integrated in 1948 [Annotator's Note: Executive Order 9981, 26 July 1948, integrated the United States Military] under Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States], because of what they did. A lot of men came in and then went out and got involved in actions in their hometowns. In Civil Rights, you have to be ready to face death. A lot did get killed. It is a lot like that now. It will come out differently than then, but it will come out. People do not like change. [Annotator's Note: Reavis references the election at the time of the interview.] Reavis thinks museums are good. His family is headquartered in New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana]. The Reavis name goes way back and is from the British for "four brothers". He can go back 400 years in his family, Black and White. He has met other Reavis's around the country. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if he has a message to future generations.] First of all, you have to think about the word "human." Nobody gets here by themselves. When humans realize they are not different, we will have a better world. All of us live on this planet and are made of the same thing whether we like it or not. Without our skin, you cannot tell the difference. For some reason, he has made it to 89 [Annotator's Note: years old at the time of this interview]. He believes it has a lot to do with the people he met along the way and what he learned from them. Future man is going to have to look at another person as himself. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks what Reavis thinks of receiving the Congressional Gold Medal by Barack Hussein Obama, 44th president of the United States.] The medal is a good thing, a nice gesture. Reavis read that a general said if he had enough awards, he could win the world. The Gold Medal is an award given to the ones who survived 70 years of segregation and hardships and humiliations. They are receiving a medal because of another human being thinking. This Marine general is, to Reavis, this the best commandant the Marine Corps has ever had because he is making a change; General Amos [Annotator's Note: General James F. “Jim” Amos, 35th Commandant of United States Marine Corps, 2008 to 2010]. Reavis has a letter in which General Holcomb [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps General Thomas Holcomb, 17th Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, 1936 to 1943] – said there would never be Black man over a White man in the Marine Corps. A friend of Reavis is named James Johnson [Annotator's Note: Honorable James E. Johnson, PhD], who was a steward for a general. Johnson wanted to apply to be an officer and that general told him that as long as he was living there would be no Black officers in the Marine Corps. Johnson told him he was not going to be there forever. Johnson became the first Black Warrant Officer in the Marine Corps. Johnson later became in charge of the Veterans Affairs under Reagan [Annotator's Note: Governor of California, Ronald Wilson Reagan; later 40th President of the United States] and then became the Under-Secretary of the Navy [Annotator's Note: 1971]. This man went from a Private to that. His father had been born a slave. General Amos is one of those kinds of people.