The rest of the 93rd followed Company C into Skagway; ran into a massive traffic jam. Colonel Russell Lyons was rushing his brand new white 340th Engineering Regiment into Skagway at the same time. By April 25, the little village strained at the seams, hosting two full regiments.
And one of the regiments was black.
Carl Mulvihill was six years old and lived in Skagway in 1942. Carl recalled that some black troops were quartered across the alley from his house and he remembers his consternation when they ignored his waves and smiles. He learned later that the blacks were under orders not to talk to or visit with their white neighbors.
In the 1990’s journalist Lael Morgan located and interviewed a number of the men who served in the 93rd. Their memories provide a glimpse of the black soldiers’ experience.
Recalling his trip on the Rock Island, Anthony Mouton remembered a one hour stop in a small Arkansas town. White soldiers had climbed down from their trains, and a patriotic white woman moved along the tracks, passing out doughnuts. Officers on Mouton’s train hurriedly ordered the men to stay aboard—out of sight and without doughnuts.
Former Private Paul Francis of Company B remembered marching to the movie theatre in Skagway; and, for the first time in his life, not sitting in the balcony. That, of course, was only because the black soldiers were the only patrons. The Army wasn’t allowing mingling of blacks and whites.
Private Eddie Waters in Company B of the 93rd had joined the Army from Selma, Alabama eleven months earlier. What led him to the Army at Fort McClellan, Alabama? We don’t know. His enlistment record only tells us that in May of 1941 something did.
In April of 1942, barely out of his teens, Eddie found himself a long way from Selma on a train going God knows where, passing through the Dakotas. Paul Francis remembered the train ride—and an incident involving Eddie.
On a train ahead of the one carrying Company B, officers ordered all the shades lowered so people along the tracks couldn’t see into the cars. B Company, though, hadn’t got the word. When Private Waters innocently raised a shade, a young white officer rushed over, slapped him and shouted, “You will not pull shades up. We don’t want them to see you Niggers.”
The army’s rules for black soldiers in the 93rd were the same in Skagway as they were in Louisiana. The Army embraced outright discrimination and made it policy. White residents of Skagway didn’t know quite what to make of that. They reacted to the blacks with curiosity—cautious curiosity.
On one occasion, local residents, checking the credibility of some white officer, asked a group of black soldiers if they had tails. An exasperated soldier dropped his pants and asked, “Do you see it.”