As America gets ready to celebrate its independence, the Ohio National Guard took time on Monday to honor some less-known Black heroes who helped keep the country unified during the Civil War.
The Ohio National Guard held its "Freedom to Serve" campaign, which began last year as a way to commemorate the 75 th anniversary of President Harry Truman signing executive orders that integrated the U.S. military and federal workforce.
This year’s event was a celebration of the social media posts the Ohio National Guard produced about the four Black men from Ohio who received the Medal of Honor for their service in the Civil War. It was held Monday at the Maj. Gen. Robert S. Beightler Armory complex at 2825 W Dublin-Granville Road on Columbus' Northwest Side.
The first celebration featured talks about an all-female, all-Black battalion in World War II, according to the Ohio National Guard’s website .
Kelly Mezurek, a professor of history at Walsh University and historian of U.S. ‘colored troops,’ was this year's keynote speaker. She said to the audience at the armory that anytime she gets the opportunity to tell stories of Black soldiers in the Civil War she will take advantage of it.
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At the end of the ceremony, Mezurek was awarded an honorary "Buckeye Colonel" award for her work.
“What I have found over the years is we put time into things that we think matter,” Mezurek said at the event. “For too long, historians have not put time into these men, and I hope those videos join me in some of the work I’m doing to make that change.”
Ohio Adjutant Gen. John Harris said at the event that people in the face of adversity mostly lean toward their personal survival, which tends to be the status quo. The story of these four individuals is significant, he said, because they went beyond their comfort zone and personal survival to make a difference.
Who are the four men who were awarded the Medal of Honor?
The four men who received the Medal of Honor were members of the 5 th U.S. Colored Infantry, a regiment made of Black men from Ohio.
Mezurek explained to the crowd that the 5 th regiment saw more battles than most "colored regiments," which were largely assigned fatigue duty.
The four members, Sgt. Maj. Milton Holland, 1 st Sgt. Robert Pinn, 1 st Sgt. Powhatan Beaty and 1 st Sgt. James Bronson, received the Medal of Honor for their bravery at the Battle of New Market Heights in Virginia.
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Holland raised and recruited a company of 149 men in Athens County before joining the 5 th regiment. Mezurek shared a story that after Holland was denied a promotion to captain, Benjamin Butler, a major general of the Union Army, said if he was in charge he would have personally promoted him to brigadier general, “for gallantry on the field.”
Mezurek said Beaty and Pinn also received some recognition, including having some memorials dedicated after them. The shooting facility at the University of Akron was renamed for Pinn, for example.
Mezurek said that Holland, Pinn and Beaty represented the intelligence, skill and talent of Black people that deserves to be recognized more than it has. Bronson, she said to the group, was representative of the more typical experience Black soldiers who served in the Civil War went through.
There is no known photo of Bronson currently, and much less is known about him than the other three. He also struggled greatly after returning to civilian life, never getting a pension for his service.
Mezurek said at the event memorials are important to remembering people for their service and would approve of armories being renamed after these men.
“In the day of social media this would have been all over," Mezurek said in her talk, "Nobody in Ohio really knows about this ... I think this is such a tragedy.”
The event also included a panel discussion with members of the Ohio National Guard about what this story meant to them.
DHunt@dispatch.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio National Guard honors four Black Civil War heroes at Freedom to Serve celebration
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