MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- In 2004, there were more than 18,800 Marine Corps officers. Of that, more than 1,300 were black. In 1945, there was one black officer - Frederick C. Branch.
Branch, who died April 10 in Philadelphia at age 82 from an infection, became the first black officer in the Marine Corps on Nov. 10, 1945 the 170th birthday of the Corps - a day that paved the way for many to follow.
Branch, buried with full military honors on April 20 at Quantico National Cemetery in Quantico, Va., struggled to become an officer at a time when the unwritten rules of segregation had ruled the day.
"For a person of color to aspire to be an officer in the Marine Corps was a danger," Maj. Gen. Cornell A. Wilson Jr., said in an interview during last year's convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, where Branch was honored. "We still had Jim Crow laws. We still had unwritten rules and regulations in this country . . . He could very well have been lynched or injured in some way."
Branch was drafted in 1943 and trained at Montford Point, N.C.
Training for blacks and whites remained segregated until 1949, although blacks were allowed into the Corps beginning in 1941.
Branch's first application to attend Officer Candidates School was turned down.
"They told me to shut that blankety-blank stuff up about being an officer," he said in a 1995 interview. "You ain't going to be no officer."
He got a second chance when his commanding officer in the South Pacific recommended him after Branch impressed him with his starched uniform and conscientiousness.
"Every African-American officer can trace his beginnings back to Fred Branch," said Joe Geeter, vice president of the Montford Point Marine Association, in a Washington Post interview.
In Lafayette, Ind., at Purdue University, Branch had another chance to become an officer while training with the Navy's V-12 program. Among 250 future officers, Branch was the only black and made the dean's list.
"I was the CO of an all-white platoon. I went by the book and trained and led them; they responded like Marines do to their superiors," Branch said in an interview with Marines Magazine.
Following his Marine Corps career, he taught at a Philadelphia high school until 1988.
In 1995, the Senate passed a resolution honoring Branch on the 50th anniversary of his military commission.
A training building in honor of Branch resides at the Marine Corps Officer Candidates School at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va. Today, he is known as a pioneer in the integration of the Marine Corps.
E-mail Lance Cpl. Krusemark at renee.krusemark@ usmc.mil.