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The US Senate just confirmed Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. to be the next chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff. As the Chairman, he will lead the Vice Chairman, the chief of Staff of the Army, the chief of Staff of the Naval Operations, he is the current chief of Staff of the Air Force, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, the chief of the National Guard Bureau and the chief of Space Operations.
He was nominated by President Joe Biden. Gen. Brown Jr. will be the highest military officer of the world’s most powerful military by a stretch and the principal advisor to the president, the secretary of defense and the National Security Council (NSC).
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the nation’s highest-ranking military officer and the principal military advisor to the president, the secretary of defense and the National Security Council – US Department of Defense website.
This makes the second time the US highest military officer has been a Black man. The first was the late General Colin Powell. Secretary Powell was a first of a few – the first Black Secretary of State (the 3rd in succession of the US President) from 2001 to 2005, and first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993.
General Charles Brown Jr. was confirmed as the Air Force Chief of Staff in August 2020. He has overseen 700,000 civilian, reserve and guard forces. In his capacity of Air Force Chief of Staff, he has been a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he has advised the US president, the secretary of defense and the NSC.
US SECRETARY OF DEFENSE – LLOYD AUSTIN
The current secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin is also the first Black man to occupy this esteemed and high-ranking cabinet job. Secretary and General Austin oversees the Defense Department and is the principal defense policymaker and adviser.
With the recent confirmation of General Charles Q Brown, and the US defense department under Secretary Lloyd Austin, this is the first where the entire military has been led by two Black Generals in history.
Image credit: /Rod Lamkey Jr.- AFP/
HISTORY
The first instance where Black men become involved in the US military was during the Civil War, early 1863. It was the battle between The US (The Union) and the renegade Confederacy (the South) that was determined to keep Black people enslaved at every cost.
The Union army was badly short of soldiers that they sought to enlist Black men, an unpopular decision at that time.
On May 22, 1863, the War Department issued General Order No. 143, creating the Bureau of Colored Troops, which designated African American regiments as United States Colored Troops, or USCT.
“Altogether, 186,000 black soldiers served in the Union Army and another 29,000 served in the Navy, accounting for nearly 10 percent of all Union forces. Three-fifths of all black troops were former slaves.” (The Gilder Lehman Institute of American History).
One Union captain explained the significance of black military participation on the attitudes of many white soldiers. “A great many [white people],” he wrote, “have the idea that the entire Negro race are vastly their inferiors. A few weeks of calm unprejudiced life here would disabuse them, I think. I have a more elevated opinion of their abilities than I ever had before. I know that many of them are vastly the superiors of those…who would condemn them to a life of brutal degradation.” (The Gilder Lehman Institute of American History)
Over 380,000 Black men served in World War 1 (1914-1918). Most of them were relegated to support services such as construction of infrastructure needed to move the US battalions into the battle fields, logistics services of necessities and equipment. Only a small percentage were in combat.
More than a million Black men served during World War 2 (1939 – 1945). These were men of Valor who not only fought the German Nazi, but also fought the entrenched racism in the US and in the military.
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