It’s Black History Month, and one way that Derek Mosley celebrates is by posting a new fact or story every day to not only educate others but also bring more Black achievements throughout history to light. Today, we’re starting off with a classic component of firehouses — the fireman's pole.
As Mosely explains, in the 1800s, fire engines were pulled by horses. “The way that [fire]houses were laid out back then was, the bottom floor was the wagon and horses cause it was horse drawn. The second floor was sleeping arrangements, and on the third floor was the hay for the horses. So, they used to have regular stairs, and the horses were smart. And so the horses would walk up the stairs and eat the hay. So, they decided to remove the walk upstairs and make a spiral staircase because horses were smart, but not that smart,” says Mosely.
In that time, only the first fire unit to the scene were paid. And firehouse number 21 in Chicago, the city's first Black fire company, was routinely beating everyone else in the area to the scene. They had the idea to take the wooden pole that was normally used to fetch hay from the top floor and use it to slide down to the first floor. "And then, of course, Boston made it brass. Now, they don't really use them anymore. But it's still a nice little piece of history that came from Black History."
“No mail, low morale.”
- 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion motto
Next up is the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. "So it's [WWII], and soldiers are spaced all over Europe and they're traveling to different cities, different places. But people are still mailing them things like cards and cookies and cakes and things of that nature. But, because of the fact the transitory nature of the soldiers, they weren't all at the same place at all. So, they had these warehouses that were just full of mail," explains Mosely.
“So, [6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion] decided to start this unit. And it was a predominantly Black, there were two Latinas, but all women of color unit. The first that was deployed to Europe to take care of that backlog,” he adds.
The unit was under the command of Major Charity Adams and the expectation was for the mail to be cleared out in six months, but it only took the 6888th only three months. They performed so well that they were immediately dispatched back out to France to complete the same task after completing their initial work in England.
The women of the Six Triple Eight worked in three separate eight-hour shifts around the clock to sort up to 65,000 pieces of mail a day. They even created a new tracking system to improve job efficiency despite terrible working conditions in the dimly lit warehouses that were unheated, infested with rats eating spoiled food packages, and under constant threat of air raids.
"There were 855 women who were part of the unit, and I think it's worth noting that after the the war was over, they were sent back home and the unit was just disbanded. There's no recognition. No medals. They were just disbanded and it wasn't really until recently that people were made aware of them," explains Mosley.
On March 14th, 2022, President Biden signed a bipartisan bill to award the battalion the Congressional Gold Medal. One member of this battalion who received the honor is Milwaukee's own Anna Mae Robertson who turns 100 years old next month. "They did it with pride and their services with pride. And I have so much love and respect for Anna Mae and all of the Six Triple Eights," says Mosley.
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