The Trump administration’s recent DEI purge at the Department of Defense sought to erase Jackie Robinson’s stint in 761st Battalion, where he faced court-martial for segregated bus incident

By Arkansas Black Vitality

April 27, 1945 – In the Trump administration’s rush to purge all traces of so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), the Department of Defense under newly hired Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently removed a tribute to Hall of Fame baseball great Jackie Robinson and the famed 761^st Black Battalion.

Unbeknownst to most, the Robinson served in the 761st “Black Panthers” tank battalion during World War II, where he was one of the few Black officers who served at the segregated Camp Hood in Texas.

Between the D-Day landing in Normandy in June 6, 1944, the drive to free France and the fall of Berlin in April 2025, the 761^st Battalion and the aggressive Third Army caused fear to sweep through the ranks of Germany’s Nazi troops with just the mention of their name.

However, according to a March 19 Politico article, all traces of Robinson’s military background and renown for being first Black baseball player to break the color barrier, disappeared from the Defense Department’s website, an apparent casualty of its efforts to erase anything that could be perceived as “diversity, equity and inclusion” under a Trump administration directive.

A day, the Defense Department said it would not highlight the history of notable service members like Robinson based on their race, ethnicity or sex. Critics have noted that these deletions amount to a haphazard purge of information about anyone who was not a White male.

Meanwhile, the U.S. history books don’t teach much about Robinson’s time with the 761^st Battalion, and how the exploits of the Black soldiers were part of the Allied forces who liberatedGunskirchen, a subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp. One woman liberated by the unit, 17-year old Sonia Schreiber Weitz, described the soldier who saved her in the poem, “ The Black Messiah,” according to one account.

In a tribute to the Black Panthers by the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument, part of the National Park Service, the 761^st were the first real Black superheroes in the U.S.

“Long before the superhero Black Panther made his debut on the silver screen in 2014 alongside the first Avenger, the original Black Panthers were unleashed in the European Theater of WWII in 1944. The African American 761st Tank Battalion, better known as the Black Panthers, arrived in Normandy, France, in October 1944 and entered combat shortly after their landing.

“They would endure a record 183 straight days in combat and would liberate 30 towns on their crusade into Germany. Before they became the first African American tankers in the U.S. Army to see combat, though, their quest began back home in the Deep South, where some of their first battles were with white comrades and civilians who were reluctant to accept them as equals,” the tribute stated.

The 761st was formed in early 1942 in Louisiana and eventually moved to Camp Hood, Texas, where they would train for over two years. The men trained in M4 Sherman medium tanks and the M5 Stuart light tank. Although their extended training was more so the result of Army commanders not willing to give African Americans the chance to prove their worth in combat, the extra training would prove invaluable when they engaged German armor in combat. Once on the battlefields of Europe, the 761st set out to prove they were just as good, if not better, than their white comrades.

The Jackie Robinson incident

Before heading to Europe, however, the U.S. Army has attempted over the years to keep quiet a bus incident involving Robinson that happened more than 10 years before Rosa Parks helped to spark the U.S. civil rights movement in 1955.

In an article at the “We Are The Mighty” website, dedicated to military and U.S. Army news, Robinson’s time at Fort Hood in 1942 was part of his assignment to the all-black armored unit as a second lieutenant. He was one of the few black officers in a unit with mostly white leadership.

On July 6, 1944, near the end of a two-year training pipeline, the article said Robinson took a seat on a civilian bus next to a white woman on Camp Hood and the driver ordered him to move to the back of the bus. Other accounts of the incident say the woman Robinson sat by was actually a Black woman who was “white passing.”

While seated, Robinson refused to leave, and the military police were called to arrest him. While waiting for the MPs and again at the camp’s provost marshall office, Robinson was called “nigger” by both civilians and military personnel whom he outranked.

Angry from his treatment and frustrated at the rampant discrimination on the post, Robinson refused to wait in the provost marshal’s office and was escorted to the hospital under guard and protest.

Camp Hood commanders ordered the 761st to begin court-martial proceedings, but battalion commander Lt. Col. Paul L. Bates refused to sign the order. Unfortunately for Robinson, paperwork was already going through to transfer him to the 758th due to medical issues. When the transfer went through, his court martial began almost immediately.

The prosecution did not charge Robinson for his actions on the bus, but they did charge him for disrespecting a military police captain and for disobeying an order from the same captain.

His trial opened on Aug. 2 and ran for 17 days. Bates testified that Robinson was an outstanding officer. Bates even told the military panel that Robinson was traveling on the bus on July 6 at his request. Robinson had reported to a civilian hospital for a medical evaluation to see if he could ship out to Europe with the 761st.

Meanwhile Robinson’s defense attorney, Capt. William A. Cline, managed to highlight inconsistencies in the prosecution’s witness testimonies and prove that Robinson’s actions only took place after lower-ranking soldiers repeatedly disrespected him.

The defense won its case and Robinson was freed. Rather than fight to rejoin the 761st or train with the 758th, he decided to accept the Army’s assessment that he should be medically retired from service due to a bone chip in his ankle that sometimes caused the joint to seize up.

761st heads to Europe: Fighting Nazis!

During the court martial, the 761st shipped out for New Jersey en route to Europe. Upon arriving in Normandy, France in late 1944, the 761st was assigned to Patton’s Third Army. Patton, first skeptic of African American tankers in combat, would wind up welcoming the 761st into his Third Army and motivating them with a rousing speech right before they set out to engage German forces.

As they fought their way into Germany, the 761st would participate in four major campaigns through six countries, all the while earning several battlefield commendations and honors. From the time they entered combat until the end of the war in Europe, the men of the 761st received seven Silver Stars, 246 Purple Hearts and 1 Congressional Medal of Honor. The battalion would play a significant role in the infamous Battle of the Bulge as they successfully countered the Germans’ last-ditch offensive. The 761st also helped break out and rescue the encircled American army in Bastogne, a small Belgium town.

By the end of April 1945, the 761st would be one of the first U.S. battalions to meet up with Soviet forces. The U.S. and Russian convergence in Berlin split the German army’s final remnants in two, hastening an end to World War II in Europe.

Victory Europe, or VE Day, officially ended hostilities in Europe on May 8, 1945. The 761st would remain in Germany for another year before being deactivated on June 1st, 1946 and sent home. Although these Black American heroes fought just as courageously as their white comrades, their homecoming receptions were not the same parades filled with streaming ticker tape and grateful open arms. More often than not, returning African American soldiers were greeted with renewed skepticism, disdain and even overt hostility. It would be another three years until the U.S. armed forces began integrating when then-President Harry S. Truman signed executive order 9981 on July 26, 1948.

And although Hegseth is the least qualified DoD Secretary in U.S. history, he has pledged to prioritize merit-based hiring and promotion in the military and purge DEI from the military. Hegseth’s only qualifications to serve as DoD secretary are a brief stint as a former Army National Guard Officer with very little command responsibility during brief deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hegseth, ironically, replaced Lloyd Austin III as DoD chief. Austin is a retired four-star U.S. Army General and the first Black secretary of defense under President Joe Biden. He holds the unique distinction of having commanded in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan at the one-, two-, three- and four-star general levels, and was the first African American to command a division, corps, and field army in combat. He is a recipient of the Silver Star, the nation’s third highest award for valor, for his actions during the Iraq invasion, as well as five Defense Distinguished Service Medals

As part of his pledge to erase DEI from the military, President Trump also fired four-star Air Force Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest post in the U.S. armed forces and the chief military advisor to the president. Brown, whose nomination was held up for several months in the U.S. Senate, had previously emphasized diversity programs and spoke out personally about his treatment in the military as a Black officer following the George Floyd riots.

Among many top assignments and roles, Gen. Brown has commanded a fighter squadron, the U.S. Air Force Weapons School, two fighter wings, and twice served as a Combined/Joint Air Component Commander with command tours at U.S. Air Forces Central Command and Pacific Air Forces.

Long before the superhero Black Panther made his debut on the silver screen in 2014 alongside the first Avenger, the original Black Panthers were unleashed in the European Theater of WWII in 1944. The African American 761st Tank Battalion, better known as the Black Panthers, arrived in Normandy, France, in October 1944 and entered combat shortly after their landing.

They would endure a record 183 straight days in combat and would liberate 30 towns on their crusade into Germany. Before they became the first African American tankers in the U.S. Army to see combat, though, their quest began back home in the Deep South, where some of their first battles were with white comrades and civilians who were reluctant to accept them as equals.

The 761st was formed in early 1942 in Louisiana. The battalion was eventually moved to Camp Hood, Texas, where they would train for over two years. The men trained in M4 Sherman medium tanks and the M5 Stuart light tank. Although their extended training was more so the result of Army commanders not willing to give African Americans the chance to prove their worth in combat, the extra training would prove invaluable when they engaged German armor in combat. Once on the battlefields of Europe, the 761st set out to prove they were just as good, if not better, than their white comrades.

Upon arriving in Normandy, France in late 1944, the 761st was assigned to Patton’s Third Army. Patton, first skeptic of African American tankers in combat, would wind up welcoming the 761st into his Third Army and motivating them with a rousing speech right before they set out to engage German forces. As they fought their way into Germany, the 761st would participate in four major campaigns through six countries, all the while earning several battlefield commendations and honors. From the time they entered combat until the end of the war in Europe, the men of the 761st received seven Silver Stars, 246 Purple Hearts and 1 Congressional Medal of Honor. The battalion would play a major role in the infamous Battle of the Bulge as they successfully countered the German’s last-ditch offensive. The 761st helped break out and rescue the encircled American army in the town of Bastogne.

By the end of April 1945, the 761st would be one of the first U.S. battalions to meet up with Soviet forces. On April 26th, 1945, the 761st rendezvoused with the Red Army in Steyr, Austria. The convergence of the Russian and U.S. armies split the final remnants of the German army in two, hastening an end to World War II in Europe.

VE day (Victory Europe) on Tuesday, May 8, 1945 officially ended hostilities in Europe. The 761st would remain in Germany for another year before being deactivated on June 1st, 1946 and sent home. Although these Black American heroes fought just as courageously as their white comrades, their homecoming receptions were not the same parades filled with streaming ticker tape and grateful open arms. More often than not, returning African American soldiers were greeted with renewed skepticism, disdain and even overt hostility. It would be another three years until the U.S. armed forces began to integrate when then-President Harry S. Truman signed executive order 9981 on July 26, 1948.