My Dad, John Williams, a WWII and Korean War veteran, decided to settle in the late 50’s in Junction City (JC), Kansas, the nearby army town next to Fort Riley, Kansas. He met my Mom, Yuson Williams, in Korea, married her and brought their children to live in the U.S. During my college years, I learned from Chico Herbison, someone else with Black and Asian heritage from JC, that Fort Riley was a “compassionate fort” that the U.S. government set up to send families of interracial couples. Black soldiers who had met their wives in Asia and Europe were sent to compassionate forts, like Fort Riley, to ease their transition back into a society that did not accept interracial marriages, and in some cases outlawed them. Thinking back, some of my friends were black and Korean, black and Japanese, black and French, and black and German, just to name a few.

Chico was older than me but I met him while he worked at KU working on his PhD research on the very topic of compassionate forts. If I remember correctly he said that there was about seven compassionate forts in our country. Prior to that revelation from Chico, I always thought it was normal to grow up in a small Kansas town where it was normal for black soldiers to have met their wives in Europe or Asia and to settle there. I went to school with many of their children, played basketball with them, went to church with them, and blended in with them wanting to be accepted like everyone else. (Those of you from Junction City, can you name the ones you remember or know?)

Let’s remember the men and women who back then and even to some extent today returned with foreign wives, had interracial children, and had to face racial prejudice against interracial marriages in the 50’s, 60’s, and beyond because they were not as readily accepted elsewhere. I am grateful for having the opportunity to have grown up and gone to school with the children of many of these veterans in Junction City. I am thankful for all veterans who have served our country and especially those who did it without complaining even though they had to fight for acceptance for them and there families when then the returned.