(CNN) — Edwin J. Fizer got off the train to report for training at Montford Point, North Carolina in the summer of 1942. He, like all proud Marines, had to prove his mettle.
Except, Fizer had another tough hurdle. He was black, and until then, the U.S. Marine Corps had been all white.
But in June, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an order that began to erase discrimination in the armed forces. The Marines were the last to open up and the next year, Fizer was among 18,000 young black men who trained — not at Parris Island — but at a segregated facility in Montford Point, North Carolina.