High Point's Forgotten Gold Star Soldiers

In March of nineteen forty-four, as American forces fought on two fronts around the world, the city of High Point, North Carolina, honored its fallen servicemen. But the names of African American soldiers who gave their lives were left off the tribute. The City Council later called it an injustice.

Decades passed before the city formally acknowledged the wrong. The High Point City Council eventually passed a resolution admitting the injustice and recognizing the African American Gold Star families whose sons had died in uniform and gone uncelebrated in their own hometown. The marker standing here today is part of that reckoning, a belated acknowledgment that the sacrifice was equal even when the recognition was not. It stands near Washington Street, the historic heart of High Point's African American community, a reminder of the distance between the nation's ideals and its practice.