Larry Ponder speaks at the Pentagon on June 16, 2023, during a ceremony dedicated to descendants of the “Philadelphia 15,” who were 15 African-American sailors assigned to the light cruiser USS Philadelphia (CL-41) who authored a letter published in the Pittsburgh Courier in October 1940 describing the racial discrimination, abuse, and inability to advance into other, higher-ranking positions. They were subsequently discharged because of the letter with “bad conduct discharges” or “undesirable” charges. (Ellen Sharkey/U.S. Navy)
(Tribune News Service) — In 1940, Larry Ponder's father and uncle were kicked out of the Navy after signing onto a letter to a Black newspaper detailing racist treatment they'd received while serving on a warship.
The men, James and John Ponder, were part of a group later dubbed the Philadelphia 15, for the 15 Black sailors on the USS Philadelphia who signed the letter. Though they were from Alabama, they later moved to Chattanooga, where Larry Ponder and others in their family were born and raised.
The brothers were around 20 years old at the time of the letter, Larry Ponder said in an interview Tuesday.
On Friday, Ponder and three other family members attended a ceremony at the Pentagon, where Navy officials formally apologized for expelling the sailors and issued honorable discharges for the sailors, all of whom have died.
83 years later, Black sailors exonerated
"We were told that what they did started a movement throughout the service," Ponder said. "But they were the first ones to be disciplined and kicked out."
The Pentagon's correction was the resolution to Ponder's decadeslong attempt to correct the record.
After his father, John, died in 1997, Ponder said he found paperwork detailing his "undesirable" discharge. Now called an "other than honorable" discharge, the action barred the 15 sailors from accessing veterans' benefits. Though his father didn't talk much about his time in the Navy, Ponder said he never disparaged the military and encouraged several family members to enlist — including Ponder, who served in the Vietnam War.
"It bothered me, because I knew the type of person my dad and my uncle was," he said. "So I started inquiring about it."
Years later, a Wikipedia article referred Ponder to a book by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, which mentioned the Philadelphia 15. He then went down the rabbit hole, tracking down the letter and related articles published in the Pittsburgh Courier, a leading Black newspaper at the time.
The letter detailed how the 18 Black soldiers on the USS Philadelphia, who were promised chances to move up in the Navy, were shut out of job opportunities and denied pay raises. While white sailors were sent into combat, Black sailors were relegated to the "messman branch," Ponder said, tasked with cleaning and serving other sailors.
"They went through the chain of command and nothing happened," Ponder said.
Years after his father's death, Ponder saw news of another Black veteran granted an honorable discharge 75 years after being kicked out. He contacted the attorney who carried that case, and she agreed to help him free of charge, Ponder said.
Their first application for exoneration was rejected, he said, because the Navy said it didn't have enough records to back up a reversal. Ponder and his attorney, with the help of another law firm, supplied the photos and documents he'd found and tried again.
A week before Friday's ceremony at the Pentagon, Ponder got on a conference call with Navy officials. They told him to gather family members, especially those who have served in the military, and sent him a flight confirmation the night before he flew out to Washington, D.C.
Once the family members arrived, Ponder said Navy officials "rolled out the red carpet" for them, including a tour of the Pentagon. The Ponders were the only descendants of the Philadelphia 15 present at the ceremony, held in the Pentagon's Hall of Heroes, though Ponder said officials are in the process of tracking down other family members.
Ponder said learning about the Philadelphia 15 has made him respect his father and uncle even more.
"He didn't begrudge the Navy," Ponder said. "He didn't talk about them, he didn't put the Navy down ... my dad, he was hardworking, never did complain about anything."
Ponder is a longtime member of the Unity Group of Chattanooga, Eric Atkins, the group's co-chair, said in an interview Tuesday. The Unity Group and the Chattanooga-Hamilton County NAACP, supported Ponder's efforts to exonerate his father and uncle.
"African Americans have served every major combat in this nation from the beginning," Atkins said. "They continue to serve now. That's sort of what this correction represents, that all soldiers should be valued.... we don't always get it right, but we can always make it right."
Along with the Ponder brothers, the letter was signed by Black soldiers Ernest Bosley, Arval Perry Cooper, Shannon H. Goodwin, Theodore L. Hansbrough, Byron C. Johnson, Floyd C. Owens, James Porter, George Elbert Rice, Otto Robinson, Floyd C. St. Clair, Fred Louis Tucker, Robert Turner and Jesse Willard Watford, the New York Times reported.
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