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NAACP Mourns the Death . . .
NAACP MOURNS DEATH OF FIRST BLACK NAVY ADMIRAL
Broke ground during 38-year career
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) mourns the loss of Samuel L. Gravely, Jr., the Navy’s first black admiral and the first African American to serve as a fleet commander. Gravely, who recently suffered a stroke, died last week at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
Kweisi Mfume, NAACP President and CEO said, “The NAACP was honored to give the Roy Wilkins Renown Service Award to Admiral Gravely for not only his outstanding service but also for advancing the image and opportunities for African Americans. He will be greatly missed.”
Admiral Gravely retired in 1980 as director of the Defense Communications Agency in Washington, overseeing the communications network linking Washington with American and allied bases worldwide.
In 1942, Gravely attended Virginia Union University before postponing his education to enlist in the Naval Reserve, two years before the Navy commissioned its first black officers. As the first African American to graduate from midshipman’s school at Columbia University, he served aboard a segregated submarine chaser.
Upon completion of his bachelor’s degree in history, in 1949, he resumed active duty in the reserves and was placed in Washington to recruit African Americans for the newly desegregated Navy. After serving in the Korean War, he transferred from the Naval Reserve to active duty in 1955.
After commanding several destroyers including the Falgout, Taussig and the Jouett, Gravely went on to command a cruiser-destroyer and the 11th Naval District in San Diego before being promoted in 1976 to vice admiral by President Gerald R. Ford. As vice admiral, Gravely was in charge of the Navy’s Third Fleet, a command of 100 warships and 60,000 sailors and marines based at Pearl Harbor.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its half-million adult and youth members throughout the United States and the world are frontline advocates for civil rights in their communities and monitor equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.
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