Montford Point Marines' final battle: Become an 'everyday story' before taking last breath

A new documentary special is sharing the story of the Montford Point Marines and highlighting those who have worked tirelessly to locate and honor those Marines and their families with the Congressional Gold Medal earned by them in 2012.

ABC Owned Television Stations debuted the trailer of "Our America: Mission Montford Point" on Aug. 26, the 80th anniversary of when the first Montford Point Marines set foot on base in Jacksonville, according to a press release from National Geographic Media.

The documentary special began airing on Sept. 20 on ABC Owned Stations 24/7 streaming platforms, 32 connected TV apps across Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku and Hulu.

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One of Jacksonville's own is featured in the special.

Retired United States Marine Houston Shinal is the former executive director of the Montford Point Marine Museum. He led national fundraising efforts for the development of the Montford Point Marine Memorial at Lejeune Memorial Gardens and has been very active in the Montford Point Marine Association.

He said the documentary special is about "preserving the legacy" of the Montford Point Marines.

"It tells the Montford Point story in an 'official sense,' if you will," Shinal said. "If you made it to National Geographic, you must be real. By them picking up the story, it helps to add substance to the fact that one of our (Montford Point Marine Association) main objectives, is to simply have the Montford Point Marine story be an everyday story, not something that you hear about and go, 'oh, I didn't know that.'"

The three-part one-hour special chronicles the history of the Montford Point Marines, the release said, also highlighting the dedicated individuals who are locating these Marines and their descendants in an effort to honor them with the Congressional Gold Medal the men collectively earned in 2012.

The release added that currently, an estimated 2,000 men have received the medal, leaving about 18,000 who are still due the honor.

"Most people are familiar with the Buffalo Soldiers and the Tuskegee Airmen, them being the first African Americans to be in those respective branches of the military," said Jacksonville Veterinarian and Montford Point Marine Association Member Gina Francis. "Most people are not aware of how, just like that happened in the Army, that also happened in the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps was the last branch in the Armed Services to allow African Americans to come in."

Francis said most people don't even know the Montford Point Marines existed.

"A lot of these gentlemen have passed on, but a lot of their family members are not aware that Congress has tried to right some wrongs from the past and put a Congressional Gold Medal on them, and they're not even aware that this medal exists," Francis, whose late father was a Montford Point Marine, said. "So, it's good in that it helps to get that word out, so if there are next of kin who wish to receive the medal, they can at least become aware that it exists and they can receive it."

With no official record of those who served from 1942 to 1949, the Montford Point Marine Association has sought to recognize and continue awarding the medal to the families of the men who served but were not recognized, according to Visit Jacksonville NC.

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The documentary special came to fruition when Coral Springs, Florida resident Mallorie Berger discovered in 2021 that her grandfather was a Montford Point Marine. She reached out to her old high school friend, Retired Marine Reginald Moore, who also discovered his grandfather was a Montford Point Marine as well, according to Visit Jacksonville Public Relations Professional Susan Dosier.

Berger and Moore planned their families' medal ceremony in Jacksonville in February, hoping to gain more visibility. Berger landed media coverage in multiple states, determined to find more Marines.

Dosier said right before the ceremony, Moore and Berger reached out to a friend of Moore's who leads diversity media efforts at Disney, hence the conception of the documentary idea. Because ABC, Disney and National Geographic are all under the same ownership, an ABC affiliate from Durham covered the medal ceremony to gather footage. Visit Jacksonville NC assisted with the background.

"August 2022, the 80th anniversary of Montford Point Marines and medal ceremony in Jacksonville provided more opportunity for footage and public relations support," Dosier said. "I supplied a National Geographic writer with background info and did a Zoom interview to give context to the story and possible interview leads, including surviving Montford Point Marines John Lee Spencer and Houston Shinal."

The documentary has now launched and Dosier said a strong, black-owned agency/PR team in Washington, DC is handling outreach for ABC and Disney.

"To me, it's really a good piece of broadcast journalism," Francis said. "It is not investigative journalism in its purest or rawest form where you're uncovering a cover-up of some sort, but it tells a story that needs to be told. As a daughter of a Montford Point Marine and as a former print journalist, I'm glad to see it."

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The Montford Point Marine Association is comprised of about 38-40 chapters nationwide, Francis explained, adding the local chapter is chapter 10. The Association also has an auxiliary comprised of family members of military members.

Jacksonville is also said to be home to the only national memorial for the Montford Point Marines. Shinal and Francis played big roles in the development of that memorial.

"The memorial, again, is a physical element that those Marines existed," Shinal said. "The fact that it's in Jacksonville, and on the scale that it is in Jacksonville, says that our history does not define us. Because in 1942-43, there was probably not a single person in Jacksonville that had said, 'let's build a memorial.' But the fact that once the project got started, the city, the county, the residents of this town all saw the value and the importance of it and they helped to make it happen. The fact that it is here says that Jacksonville's a great place to be."

Francis said the memorial helps to educate and tell the story that wasn't told, and she appreciates the forces that had to come together to make it a reality.

Shinal, also the monument director, said there is work still to be done. They are still working to locate more of the Marines and put bricks into the memorial.

"As Marines, we've always felt like our history preceded us, it set the standard that we had to adhere to," Shinal said. "Well, Jacksonville is just the opposite. The history set a higher standard and Jacksonville has definitely lived up to that standard."

Reporter Morgan Starling can be reached at mstarling@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Daily News: ABC documentary streaming to preserve legacy of Montford Point Marines