Hero’s Family Hopes to Correct WWII Injustice : Military: No blacks got the Medal of Honor in World War II, although Ruben Rivers was recommended for one. Bill would give him--and others--a second chance.

George Livingston remembers being a child of 9 or 10 when he heard that his uncle had died fighting to take a French town from the Germans in World War II.

“We were all over at my grandmother’s,” he said. “I cried for days because it was really sad.”

Later, he discovered a second cause for regret. His uncle, Staff Sgt. Ruben Rivers of the all-black 761st Tank Battalion, had been recommended for a Medal of Honor, but never received it.

In fact, none of the more than 1 million blacks who served in World War II was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration for valor, although blacks have received the medal for other conflicts, including the Civil War.

Now, more than 50 years later, Livingston is among a small group of people hoping to see Rivers recognized.

“To me, it’s injustice,” Livingston said. “Those individuals gave their all in order to help this country become the land of the free and the home of the brave and that’s the kind of inhumane treatment you get.”

Livingston’s congressman, George Miller (D-Martinez), has introduced a bill that would waive the 1952 deadline for conferring World War II medals. The bill has more than 60 co-sponsors and is also supported by Sen. Jim Inhofe, a Republican from Rivers’ home state of Oklahoma.

“Something needs to be done to right the historic wrong,” said Ilir Zherka, an aide to Miller.

Meanwhile, a Shaw University study of the dearth of black Medal of Honor recipients in World War II has recommended that Rivers, along with nine other black soldiers, be considered for the honor.

Rivers died in November, 1944, while his unit was trying to liberate Bougaltroff, France. He was commanding the point tank of A Company when he hit a mine, taking a wound that laid his leg open to the bone.

His commanding officer, Capt. David Williams, recalls telling Rivers, “Well, Ruben, you’re going home.”

But Rivers wouldn’t quit.

“He pulled himself to his feet--pushed my hand away with the morphine--and said, ‘You’re going to need me around here,’ ” Williams said.

Rivers, who had already won a Silver Star for an action earlier in November, fought on through two days of bitter weather before being killed while trying to knock out antitank positions firing on his company.

He was 25 years old.

Williams was so impressed that he recommended Rivers be given the Medal of Honor. A half-century later, he continues the campaign.

“I’m 76 years old, this means everything to me and the other men of A Company,” said Williams, now retired and living in Florida.

Rivers’ relatives hope they will live to see him recognized.

“I feel that they should give it to him,” said Rivers’ sister, 79-year-old Grace Woodfork. “If a black man would go through all of that, why don’t they give black people some honor? This was a beautiful young man.”

Why has no black won a Medal of Honor for World War II? Pentagon officials did not return calls from the Associated Press seeking comment on the issue.

Part of the problem is a practical one. The segregated forces of the time meant that many blacks were kept in service troops and therefore did not see combat, said Daniel Gibran, the professor who conducted the Shaw University study on the issue for the Army.

But there were black combat units in World War II, such as the 761st.

Gibran said there was “very strong evidence” that racism played a role in the fact that no black soldiers won a Medal of Honor for World War II.

“Racism was alive. It was there,” he said.

The Shaw report recommended that nine black soldiers who were given the Distinguished Service Cross be upgraded to the Medal of Honor. It also recommended Rivers for the award.

The study has made its way through various offices, and the military is in the process of setting up a Decorations Board to take up the recommendations, Gibran said.

In another effort, historian and black World War II veteran Leroy Ramsey of Albany, N.Y., is championing the cases of two black servicemen--Sgt. Henry Johnson, also of Albany, who fought in World War I, and Seaman Dorrie Miller of Waco, Tex., who fought in World War II.

One medal has been awarded since Ramsey began his campaign--to Army Cpl. Freddie Stowers, who was mortally wounded in France while leading his company against a German-held hill in World War I. The award, given in 1991, made Stowers the only black Medal of Honor recipient from World War I.

Ramsey, a former associate professor of history at Hofstra University, continues to campaign for Johnson and for Miller, a mess steward who, Ramsey said, helped move his mortally wounded captain from the ship’s bridge during the attack on Pearl Harbor and then manned a machine gun. Miller was killed in a torpedo attack in 1943.

In California, Livingston agrees it is time to address the contribution of blacks in World War II.

Livingston, 62, went on from that somber day in 1944 to become mayor of Richmond, a city on San Francisco Bay where he now lives in retirement.

But he never forgot the sacrifices of men like his uncle.

“There are those who are living the good life now because of them giving their lives . . . and that’s the appreciation. It makes you feel real sad,” he said.