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Pvt. Lloyd States never saw himself as a pioneer in the civil rights movement.
He was a soldier, and like many veterans of battle, he came home to New Glasgow, N.S., after the Second World War a broken man.
“Horrible things happened at night. He was in combat mode and we were the enemy,” his daughter, Margaret States, said Monday after she accepted the 2018 Ottawa DreamKeepers’ Jean Augustine Life Achievement Award on behalf of her father, who died in 1996. The award was given at a noon hour ceremony at City Hall as DreamKeepers honoured Martin Luther King Day.
“No one understood,” said Margaret States, who now lives in Ottawa. “They just thought our dad was a heavy drinker.”
In fact, Lloyd States was a soldier in the joint U.S.-Canadian First Special Service Forces — the famed Devil’s Brigade. Not only had he fought Nazi soldiers with bravery and distinction, he endured racism and prejudice as one of only two black soldiers in the unit.
That prejudice would ultimately force him from the brigade after American troops circulated a petition against him. The U.S. army was still segregated during the war and many soldiers, particularly from the U.S. south, did not want to fight alongside a black man.
Experts in hand-to-hand combat, the Devil’s Brigade — sometimes called the Black Devils because they blackened their faces with boot polish for night combat — fought through Italy and into France. States joined the unit on the beachhead at Anzio, south of Rome — “a kill-or-be-killed scenario,” as his daughter put it.
At war’s end, States found himself penned up with hundreds of other Canadian soldiers in barracks in Aldershot, England, still waiting to go home months after the Germans had surrendered. Frustrated, the Canadians rioted and States was one of a handful of soldiers arrested and court-martialled for their roles in what army brass considered a mutiny.
States felt he’d been charged unfairly, but he took his 15-month prison sentence in silence.
“He knew he was innocent, but he never said anything. He’d say, ‘A good soldier never talks. He just does what he’s told,” Margaret States said.
States drank heavily after the war and was plagued by terrible nightmares, she said.
Margaret States, of Ottawa, accepted the this year’s Jean Augustine DreamKeepers Life Achievement Award on behalf of her deceased father, Lloyd Arthur States, who served in the original stealth commando unit, a joint Canadian/American brigade called the First Special Service Force. Photo by Wayne Cuddington.
“He was not physically injured during the war, but psychologically he was scarred deeply. His sense of spiritually was shattered. He had left God on the battlefield. Years later he said to me, ‘I don’t believe in God, because if there was a God, those things that happened to me wouldn’t have happened.”
Though it’s obvious States was suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, little was known about it at the time. It was only a few years ago, when the Devil’s Brigade’s exploits became unclassified and the unit was awarded a U.S. Congressional Gold Medal for its service, that his children understood the enormity of what he’d endured.
Lloyd States never thought of himself as a pioneer in the black civil rights movement, his daughter said, but he stood his ground during his frequent encounters with racism. His children and others in New Glasgow remember him as a kind man who was willing to help despite his alcoholism and his demons.
“In our own time, each of us has released the anger that we held toward him,” Margaret States said.
Other honoured at Monday’s ceremony for their community leadership were Joanne Robinson of the Jamaican Community Association and Kenneth Campbell of Jaku Knbit, an education and support group for minority youth and their families.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day honours the U.S. civil rights leader, who was born Jan. 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, and is celebrated on the third Monday in January. It is an official holiday in the United States and formally recognized in many other cities around the world, including Ottawa. King was assassinated 50 years ago, on April 4, 1968.
bcrawford@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/getBAC
查看原文...
He was a soldier, and like many veterans of battle, he came home to New Glasgow, N.S., after the Second World War a broken man.
“Horrible things happened at night. He was in combat mode and we were the enemy,” his daughter, Margaret States, said Monday after she accepted the 2018 Ottawa DreamKeepers’ Jean Augustine Life Achievement Award on behalf of her father, who died in 1996. The award was given at a noon hour ceremony at City Hall as DreamKeepers honoured Martin Luther King Day.
“No one understood,” said Margaret States, who now lives in Ottawa. “They just thought our dad was a heavy drinker.”
In fact, Lloyd States was a soldier in the joint U.S.-Canadian First Special Service Forces — the famed Devil’s Brigade. Not only had he fought Nazi soldiers with bravery and distinction, he endured racism and prejudice as one of only two black soldiers in the unit.
That prejudice would ultimately force him from the brigade after American troops circulated a petition against him. The U.S. army was still segregated during the war and many soldiers, particularly from the U.S. south, did not want to fight alongside a black man.
Experts in hand-to-hand combat, the Devil’s Brigade — sometimes called the Black Devils because they blackened their faces with boot polish for night combat — fought through Italy and into France. States joined the unit on the beachhead at Anzio, south of Rome — “a kill-or-be-killed scenario,” as his daughter put it.
At war’s end, States found himself penned up with hundreds of other Canadian soldiers in barracks in Aldershot, England, still waiting to go home months after the Germans had surrendered. Frustrated, the Canadians rioted and States was one of a handful of soldiers arrested and court-martialled for their roles in what army brass considered a mutiny.
States felt he’d been charged unfairly, but he took his 15-month prison sentence in silence.
“He knew he was innocent, but he never said anything. He’d say, ‘A good soldier never talks. He just does what he’s told,” Margaret States said.
States drank heavily after the war and was plagued by terrible nightmares, she said.
Margaret States, of Ottawa, accepted the this year’s Jean Augustine DreamKeepers Life Achievement Award on behalf of her deceased father, Lloyd Arthur States, who served in the original stealth commando unit, a joint Canadian/American brigade called the First Special Service Force. Photo by Wayne Cuddington.
“He was not physically injured during the war, but psychologically he was scarred deeply. His sense of spiritually was shattered. He had left God on the battlefield. Years later he said to me, ‘I don’t believe in God, because if there was a God, those things that happened to me wouldn’t have happened.”
Though it’s obvious States was suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, little was known about it at the time. It was only a few years ago, when the Devil’s Brigade’s exploits became unclassified and the unit was awarded a U.S. Congressional Gold Medal for its service, that his children understood the enormity of what he’d endured.
Lloyd States never thought of himself as a pioneer in the black civil rights movement, his daughter said, but he stood his ground during his frequent encounters with racism. His children and others in New Glasgow remember him as a kind man who was willing to help despite his alcoholism and his demons.
“In our own time, each of us has released the anger that we held toward him,” Margaret States said.
Other honoured at Monday’s ceremony for their community leadership were Joanne Robinson of the Jamaican Community Association and Kenneth Campbell of Jaku Knbit, an education and support group for minority youth and their families.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day honours the U.S. civil rights leader, who was born Jan. 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, and is celebrated on the third Monday in January. It is an official holiday in the United States and formally recognized in many other cities around the world, including Ottawa. King was assassinated 50 years ago, on April 4, 1968.
bcrawford@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/getBAC
查看原文...
