An Army base once named for Robert E. Lee now named for 2 history-making Black South Carolinians

A preacher’s daughter and teacher from Columbia, South Carolina, sees a war break out and feels so compelled to serve she leaves school to enlist. She becomes the highest-ranking Black woman of World War II as a lieutenant colonel.

The son of Florence farmers and the youngest of nine siblings moves to Virginia after the loss of his mother. He’s drawn to the Black soldiers stationed at a nearby base and enlists in the Army at 17 years old. He becomes the first Black man to achieve the rank of lieutenant general.

Charity Adams and Arthur Gregg were both raised in South Carolina. They were years apart and their paths never crossed, but they each in their own way have influenced American military history.

Now, their names will stand side-by-side in perpetuity as the namesakes for a Virginia Army fort once named for Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

The process

Congress in 2020 voted to rename all military installations that commemorate the Confederate States or their leaders. To identify the names that would replace the Confederate honorees, a federal commission took recommendations from lawmakers, neighbors, military personnel and more.

At the end of 2022, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved recommendations to change the names of nine Army forts that honored Confederate leaders and rename them for influential figures in the U.S. military.

America’s military installations are vital, powerful symbols and should reflect the country’s values and history, Austin wrote in an October 2022 memo. “The names of these installations and facilities should inspire all those who call them home … and commemorate the best of the republic that we are all sworn to protect,” he added.

And so, in an April 27 ceremony this year, Virginia’s Fort Lee became Fort Gregg-Adams. Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Benning in Georgia and Fort Hood in Texas were also among the renamed sites.

Arthur Gregg

Gregg spent his first 11 years on a 100-acre farm in rural Florence County, where he grew up the youngest of nine siblings in the midst of the Great Depression. Despite their relative poverty, his family valued education and hard work, ethics Gregg embraces as well.

“It was a reasonably good life,” Gregg said in an interview with the Army earlier this year. “I felt I was loved and supported, but economically, it was a very challenging time.”

Schools in South Carolina, as elsewhere, were segregated during Gregg’s childhood, but his parents expected him and his siblings to make the 3-mile trek to a wooden shack on school days.

After his mother died from cancer, Gregg moved to Newport News, Virginia, in 1941, where he was drawn in by the high number of Black soldiers he saw stationed at the nearby Fort Monroe.

“I was very much impressed with their appearance and with their responsible conduct,” he said in an interview with The State this week.

He enlisted in the Army in 1946 at 17 years old and was deployed to help supply operations in occupied Germany after World War II.

During his career he served at Fort Lee, in Japan, Germany and Vietnam, and also served as logistics director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and then as deputy chief of staff for logistics for the Army.

Charity Adams

Charity Adams was born in North Carolina but spent most of her upbringing in Columbia. Her father was a minister at Columbia’s historic Bethel A.M.E church downtown and also taught theology at Allen University, according to a detailed history of Charity Adams conducted by the Richland County Library.

While her father was successful in Columbia’s Black community, Adams wrote in her memoir that it was painful living in Columbia during the Jim Crow segregation era. One of her first memories of the city was seeing a Ku Klux Klan parade, she also wrote in her book, “One Woman’s Army: A Black Officer Remembers the WAC.”

Before she ever considered the military, Adams received a bachelor’s degree in physics, taught at a Columbia junior high school and pursued a master’s degree.

But when World War II started, Adams felt called to serve, according to an Army biography. She enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps in 1942 and attended the African American Officer Candidate School in Iowa.

Just two years after enlisting, Adams was tapped to lead the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only unit of mostly Black women sent to serve overseas during the war. The unit delivered and collected mail for almost 7 million soldiers, handling close to 6 million pieces of mail each month.

She earned the rank of lieutenant colonel. Gender discrimination limited her promotions, “but her effectiveness was made clear when it took three units of men to replace her battalion after they disbanded,” according to the Army biography.

Adams moved to Ohio and finished her master’s degree. She worked for the Veterans Administration and as a teacher and professor for the rest of her career. She also remained a champion for Black communities and founded a program for young Black community leaders. She died in 2002.

A new legacy

Both Adams and Gregg have discussed segregation in the military at the beginning of their careers. Adams wrote in her memoir about being forced to sit in a separate work area from her white peers.

In 1950, two years after President Harry Truman signed an executive order to desegregate the military, Gregg was assigned as an assistant platoon leader in a segregated battalion, he recalled to The State.

But that year, after several attempts, Gregg was enrolled in an officer’s course. Afterward, all of his units were integrated, he said.

“I felt I was certainly a role model, and yes, I was perhaps one of the early beneficiaries of an integrated Army. But I was a role model not only for other Black officers, but other officers across our Army,” Gregg said.

The U.S. built Camp Lee, later called Fort Lee, in 1917 just after the country entered World War I. The fort, named for Confederate General Robert E. Lee, served as a massive training ground during the first World War but was shuttered soon after, with all but one building demolished, according to an Army history of the site.

It was quickly rebuilt in 1940 just before the U.S entered World War II. It’s been in use ever since, recently as a base to help Afghan evacuees entering the country.

“Well, I’m tremendously proud,” Gregg said of the honor to have his name on the fort. “But I’m also very aware that it imposes on me some additional responsibilities. … I represent in a very direct way Fort Gregg-Adams, and I always want that representation to be appropriate.”

Gregg is the only person in modern history to be alive to see a military post named for them.

Gregg and Adams never met, but Gregg said he’s read a lot about her career. When he learned who he would be sharing the naming honor with, he contacted Adams’ son and daughter.

“Not surprisingly, both of them are very fine young people,” he said.