Baltimore, Maryland
Many of Albert Grillette Wood’s friends back home in Baltimore schemed to flunk their Army induction medical exam. Not Wood, even though he was terrified of being shipped to a training camp in the Jim Crow South. He had heard stories about black men arrested on false charges and forced to work on chain gangs. While he never confronted that horror, the daily racism he experienced during his years in the Army left him bitter, particularly after entreaties to fight in the name of freedom. "Discrimination hurt me more than anything in the world,” he said. "And I had to fight for these sons of bitches?"
Albert Grillette Wood in 2012
Photo: Linda Hervieux
Albert Grillette Wood holds his wartime portrait.
Photo: Linda Hervieux