Freddie Stowers - Legacy

Legacy

LTC Taylor Voorhis Beattie, in his article for the magazine Military History compared Stowers to the more famous Sergeant Alvin York. Both were poor, semi-literate southern farm boys who were drafted into the Army and earned the Medal of Honor for their extraordinary and inspirational courage under fire on the Western Front. York, however, survived the war and returned home to national acclamation; while Stowers made the ultimate sacrifice for his country, but remained an obscure figure who was not given his due until nearly a century after his death. Would Stowers have received the same attention as York, had he lived? It is impossible to say, but given the level of racism in the United States at the time, especially in the South, it seems unlikely. Still, Stowers helped to prove that black soldiers officered and trained by educated black men could fight just as well as white units, even when the better-educated officers went down in combat. (Prior to World War I, black units had only white officers). If Stowers is forgotten today, this lesson was not. Additionally, the outcome of the Stowers review led to a new Army study in 1992, which found that several African American and other minority DSC recipients from World War II were actually deserving of Medals of Honor that were not awarded because of bias on the part of the Decorations Board. Their crosses were upgraded to Medals of Honor which were presented to recipients or their survivors by President William J. Clinton.