The Bridge Builder
In July 1972 Lieutenant London Steverson was reassigned from Juneau, Alaska to Washington, D.C.. He became the Chief of the newly formed Minority Recruiting Section in the John Volpe Building under the Department of Transportation.
As the Chief of the Minority Recruiting Section he desegregated the all-white United States Coast Guard Academy by recruiting more than 50 minority cadets in a two-year period from 1973 to 1974.
From 1876 until 1962 the Academy had not admitted any African-American cadets. Given a free hand, open traveling orders, and a budget Steverson was able to reach out to the parents of the best and the brightest in the Black community across the nation. He attended the National Conventions of the NAACP, Operation PUSH, and the Black American Law Students. He established a Sponsor Program where an active duty officer was given the name, address, and telephone number of the most promising applicants to maintain their interest in the Academy. He sponsored familiarization trips to the Academy for the applicants and their parents for all finalist who were interested in seeing the Academy grounds. The first year on the job he was able to deliver 28 bodies to the steps of Chase Halls on Admissions Day to take the Oath of a Cadet. The second year, using the same programs, he was able to deliver another 20 African-American high school graduates to be sworn in as freshman cadets. It was from these African-American high school students that the Coast Guard's first officers of flag rank were to come in the 1990s; the two officers are Rear Admiral Erroll Brown (FL) and Rear Admiral Manson K. Brown (DC). Rear Admiral Manson K. Brown was personally recruited from Saint John's Prep Academy in Washington, DC. Lieutenant Steverson was charged first and foremost with recruiting cadets for the Academy because that is where the bulk of the career officers would come from. However, he was also requested to find minority college graduates who would receive direct commissions as lawyers and as aviators. He recruited several one Vanderbilt Law School. Ms. Deborah Nash Dupree was one such officer. These officers were college graduates and had no need to attend the four-year Academy. They received a three month orientation course at the Coast Guard Officer Training Center at Yorktown, Virginia.
Read more about this topic: Black Cadets At The Coast Guard Academy
Famous quotes containing the words bridge and/or builder:
“What need the bridge much broader than the flood?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The structure was designed by an old sea captain who believed that the world would end in a flood. He built a home in the traditional shape of the Ark, inverted, with the roof forming the hull of the proposed vessel. The builder expected that the deluge would cause the house to topple and then reverse itself, floating away on its roof until it should land on some new Ararat.”
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)