Anna Mac Clarke was the first African American woman in the U.S. Army to command an otherwise all‑white unit while the military was still formally segregated. She joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in 1942 and died just two years later, at only twenty‑four.
Anna Mac Clarke was born Anna Mack Mitchel on June 20, 1919, in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. Her parents, Nora Mitchel and Tom Clark, never married, and as a young woman she reshaped her name, dropping the “k” from Mack and adding an “e” to her father’s surname to become Anna Mac Clarke. Nora later had three more children—Franklin, Lucien, and Evelyn—and after their mother’s death from edema, the four children were raised by their grandmother, Lucy Medley.
Clarke completed high school in Lawrenceburg and went on to Kentucky State College in Frankfort (now Kentucky State University). She graduated in June 1941 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and economics but initially struggled to find work in Kentucky. She eventually secured a position at a Girl Scouts camp in New York State and, later that year, moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to work as recreation director at the Nash House Community Center.
In October 1942, Clarke joined the All‑Volunteer Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). After basic training she entered the WAAC Officer Candidate School at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, one of three African American women in her class. She was the only one of the three to complete the course, graduating eight weeks later on February 16, 1943. By the end of that month she had been assigned as a platoon leader with Fourth Company, Third Regiment, and Third Officer Anna Mac Clarke went down in history as the first African American WAAC given command of what was otherwise an all‑white unit.
In 1943, the WAAC became the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), an official part of the regular Army, and Clarke was commissioned as a first lieutenant. Over the next year she commanded several African American WAC units, serving at posts around the country in places such as Indiana and California. Eventually, she was transferred to Douglas Army Air Field in southeastern Arizona, one of only a few Army airfields where both African American soldiers and WACs were stationed. There she commanded WAC Unit Section D, the first contingent of WACs on the base, whose duties included work that had previously been reserved for men, such as aircraft‑related tasks and other technical support roles.
Despite her rank, Clarke confronted segregation on the post. The base theater enforced segregated seating, and African American soldiers warned her against attending. Clarke and several other African American WACs deliberately refused to sit in the section set aside for Black personnel, an act that caused a stir on the base and forced the command to respond. In February 1944, the base commander, Colonel Harvey Dyer, issued an order that “every consideration, respect, courtesy, and toleration will be afforded every colored WAC. No discrimination will be condoned,” effectively ending formal segregation and discriminatory practices at Douglas Army Air Field.
Clarke’s promising career was cut short in March 1944, when she was hospitalized with severe abdominal pain and diagnosed with appendicitis. She underwent an emergency appendectomy and initially appeared to be recovering, but complications from infection and resulting gangrene set in. On April 19, 1944, Anna Mac Clarke died at the age of twenty‑four. Her body was returned to Kentucky, where she was buried at Woodlawn Hills Cemetery in Lawrenceburg. Today, a historical marker near the courthouse in Lawrenceburg honors First Lieutenant Anna Mac Clarke as a military pioneer who “accomplished so much in her short life.”
Source:
http://www.wow.com/wiki/Anna_Mac_Clarke
http://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/items/show/293?tour=18&index=1
