Stolen Valor: Erasing Black Stories From Arlington National Cemetery

The military is not just a chapter in my life. It’s my bloodline, my inheritance, and my foundation.

My father was a career Army officer. My uncles fought in World War II. My younger brother stood guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. My nephew and many cousins also served.

As a teenager, my father, Floyd McAfee, left Tuskegee Institute to enlist in President Harry S. Truman’s newly-desegregated Army. After finishing his hitch and then graduating from college, he chose an officer’s commission over an opportunity to play for the Green Bay Packers. Reared as an Army brat, my family and I lived in a dozen places — Army bases named for Confederate heroes, overseas in Germany, and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

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Though I vowed not to marry a military man, my husband is a former Marine.

Yet for all the valor, all the sacrifice to the country by my family and friends, I have never been able to shake the bitter truth: From the Revolutionary War to the war in Afghanistan, Black Americans have fought for this nation, but this nation has not always fought for them.

Often disrespected by their peers and their country while in uniform, Black service members are being dishonored in death at the most sacred resting place in the country: Arlington National Cemetery, where my dad is buried.

Betrayal of Service

Last Friday, authorities at Arlington National Cemetery stripped from its website information about Black, Latino, Indigenous, and women service members buried there. Task & Purpose magazine, which covers the military, reported that the cemetery’s website scrubbed “dozens” of pages that told the stories of outstanding Black, Hispanic, and female service members at rest in the hallowed ground.

The move aligns with President Donald Trump’s crusade against diversity, equity, and inclusion in the federal government and military. In less than two months, Trump has undone generations of work by Black soldiers, sailors, and Marines who fought for equality in an unfair system. His purge of the military began at the top, with the living.

Just a month after taking office, Trump fired General Charles Q. Brown Jr. — a decorated fighter pilot who battled racism in his squadron between combat missions, and only the second Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in its 76-year history. Trump also dismissed the Navy’s first female secretary, stripped images of women and people of color from military recruiting materials, and banned the word “diversity.”

The president’s hand-picked defense secretary — a man who sports prominent tattoos affiliated with white Christian nationalism — declared that the military was too focused on diversity. But history asks a different question: are diversity and strength mutually exclusive? Weren’t men and women of color who served with distinction — the colored Union soldiers of the Civil War, Harriet Tubman, the Navajo Code Talkers — the definition of strength?

To erase their contributions is not just an insult. It’s a lie.

Atonement, Not Amnesia

I chose government service over military service, and was fortunate enough to work in the White House Office of Public Liaison under President Bill Clinton. While my focus was faith and community engagement, I jumped at any opportunity to work on military events, and I stood witness to history.

I was there in 1997 when seven Black World War II soldiers finally received the military’s highest award, one that had been denied them for half a century: the Medal of Honor. Not one Black WWII veteran had received the medal — not because they lacked bravery, but because the country lacked justice.

It took a Shaw University-commissioned study in 1993 to unearth the truth: these men had been robbed of their rightful place in history. But what good is righting history if we allow it to be erased again?

America has always been an unfinished revolution, pursuing freedom, justice, and equality. Black service members have joined that revolution without hesitation, with the implicit promise their sacrifice would earn them gratitude, respect, and equality.

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For those of us from military families, who have buried our loved ones with a folded flag and the thanks of a grateful nation, this is not just about politics. This is about honor. And, once lost, honor is not easily regained.

Call to Action

The histories of those who gave their lives for a freedom they were often denied are now at risk of being forgotten, an afterthought beneath monuments of those whose sacrifices were never questioned.

Now is the time for action to keep that from happening.

We must speak up and challenge the false narrative that diversity is at odds with military strength — educating our communities by sharing the stories of people of color who served and the injustices they suffered. We must demand that Congress and military leaders preserve their histories. And we must vote with purpose, choosing leaders who respect the full, unvarnished history of all veterans.

The fight for freedom and justice does not begin or end in the military — it continues in our policies, our remembrance, and our collective actions.

Floydetta McAfee leads a strategic communications firm with a cross-cultural focus and commitment to social change, emphasizing climate change and environmental justice.  She has written and produced documentary specials, including “Pilgrimage to Tulsa: Witnessing America in Greenwood;” “Eyes on The Prize: Then and Now,” and “Women of the Movement: 1954-1965.” She is matron of the USNS John Lewis, christened in 2021.

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