Vernon J. Baker

This marker honors Vernon Baker, a war hero who grew up right here in Clarinda. Born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in nineteen nineteen, he was raised by his grandparents in Clarinda and graduated from the high school here in nineteen thirty nine. During the Second World War he served as a lieutenant in the segregated ninety second Infantry Division.

In April of nineteen forty five, near Viareggio, Italy, Baker single handedly destroyed enemy positions and covered his company's withdrawal under heavy fire. For decades, no Black soldier of that war had received the nation's highest honor. Then, in nineteen ninety seven, President Bill Clinton awarded the Medal of Honor to seven Black veterans of World War Two.

Vernon Baker was the only one still living to accept it in person. The town renamed a street for the quiet Iowa hero who waited more than fifty years for his recognition.