In 1945, 855 women of color (mainly African Americans) in the newly formed 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion were deployed to Birmingham, England, during World War II. Commanded by then-Major Charity Adams, the 6888th’s mission was to clear a massive backlog of mail that had accumulated in warehouses during the war. The lack of mail delivery for soldiers and family members at home was impacting morale.
One among their number was First Lt. Margaret E. Barnes (1911-2000) of Oberlin, Ohio, the unit’s public relations officer, and great aunt to Teresa Barnes, a professor of history and gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Lt. Barnes joined the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) in 1943 when the army was still segregated. Often, Black women who joined the WAC were relegated to menial labor, despite extensive training and education, while their white counterparts were selected for specialized roles. They were also excluded from overseas deployments until political pressure was put on the War Department and the 6888th became the first women of color unit deployed overseas.
Despite the discrimination and challenges she would face, Lt. Barnes joined the WAC anyway, following in the footsteps of her brother who was one of the first Black officers in the U.S. Navy.
“Her family was very politically minded and patriotically minded,” said professor Barnes. “So I think it was a matter of pride to support the country and to support the war effort.”
When Lt. Barnes and her fellow soldiers arrived in Birmingham they encountered warehouses brimming with unsorted mail and poor working conditions.
According to the National Museum of the United States Army, “Conditions were harsh in Birmingham, with the women working around the clock in three eight-hour shifts in the cold and dimly lit warehouses where several million pieces of mail were stacked from floor to ceiling. Some of the mail was mildewed or had been picked over by rats looking for the bits of food that had been wrapped and sent by loved ones to their soldiers overseas.”
Originally given six months to clear the backlog, the 6888th sorted and redirected nearly seven million pieces of mail in 90 days and were then sent to Rouen and Paris in France to clear similar backlogs. In February 1946, the unit was returned to the U.S. and disbanded without ceremony.
Honoring African American military history
In recent years, relatives and service members have mounted a campaign to have the unit recognized for its meritorious service. Their efforts have led to a monument erected at Fort Leavenworth and all 855 women who served in the unit receiving the Congressional Gold Medal in 2022. In 2023, Fort Lee was renamed Fort Gregg-Adams, to honor 6888th leader Lt. Col. Charity Adams (who became one of the highest ranking African American women in the army during WWII) and Lt. Gen. Arthur Gregg (the first African American to achieve such a high rank). In 2025, the Trump administration renamed the base Fort Lee. Currently there is a campaign to have the unit recognized with a commemorative postage stamp. Oberlin, Ohio, where then-Lt. Barnes lived, has recently proclaimed March 9 as “6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion and Major Margaret E. Barnes Day."
In 2024, The Six Triple Eight, a film directed by Tyler Perry, brought the legacy of the unit to the public.
“It’s ironic, but it’s also important that this particular movie should bring the 6888th to wider attention at the same time that a lot of erasure of African American contributions to our history is going on,” said professor Barnes, citing recent efforts to remove African American historical figures from Pentagon websites and the Arlington National Cemetery website.
She said the erasure of African American service to the military dishonors the people who died, or were willing to, in service of their country.
“We lose awareness of the sacrifices people had to make when they had to find ways to uphold their personal dignity at a time when they were still considered to be second class citizens,” Barnes said. “If you don't know all of that history then you can't really appreciate what the desegregation of the army meant under Eisenhower later in the 1950s. If you ignore all of that it really does a disservice to the history of the army as a whole.”
Preserving family history
Professor Barnes’ mother, Dr. Pat Barnes-McConnell, is currently working on a book about Lt. Barnes’ and her husband, Maj. Everett Jones, to preserve their history and legacy. Lt. Barnes remained in the army after the 6888th was disbanded and spent many years stationed in Europe. She and her husband both retired as Majors. The Barnes family is currently trying to locate issues of the unit newsletter Lt. Barnes created, Special Delivery, which would give insights into the social life of the 6888th. So far only issue 10 has been found.
Like her mother, professor Barnes also has an interest in family history and it’s led to generative avenues for her historical research. She’s written an as-yet unpublished novel based on the story of her grandmother’s birth family. Discovering another family member who lived in a mental hospital in Kentucky for 50 years has led her to explore the history of African Americans in mental institutions. She recently published an article in The Black Scholar, “Raising Hell: Rebellions of the Black Insane,” which explores six African American rebellions in mental institutions during the 1920s-60s. She’s written about the trade of cadavers from mental hospitals to medical schools and about the use of the first major tranquilizer, Thorazine, which was given to mental health patients with little oversight or regulation in the 1950s.
There’s always more work to be done, Barnes said, to uncover the stories of those who have been marginalized in history.
Sources:
- "'No Mail, Low Morale' The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion", Military Review Jan-Feb 2019.
- "A Different Kind of Victory: The 6888th Central Postal Battalion," National Museum United States Army
- "Historical figures cut from military websites while others are restored following ‘DEI’ ban," NBC News
- "Arlington Cemetery website drops links for Black, Hispanic, and women veterans," Task and Purpose