Highest Ranking Officer

Charity Enda Adams was born on December 5, 1918, in Kittrell, North Carolina. Her parents were both high achievers and valued education. Eugene Adams, her father, was a college graduate and an AME minister. Her mother, Charity, was a schoolteacher. Charity was the oldest of four children. Her brother, John, became a bishop with the AME and founded the Congress of National Black Churches. 

The family moved to South Carolina when Charity was just a young girl. Her mother’s support and home tutelage helped her navigate prejudice and discrimination. She entered the public school system as a second grader. Charity graduated two years early from Booker T. Washington High School as class valedictorian. In 1938, she graduated from Wilberforce University; Delta Sigma Theta Sorority initiated her. She majored in math, Latin, and physics. After graduation in 1938, Charity returned to South Carolina and taught math at a local high school while taking classes to further her education. 

In July 1942, she joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Cops (WAAC) becoming the first African American Woman to become an officer. Fort Des Moines housed Charity and other African American women, as the Army remained segregated. The minute they set foot onto the Fort, full segregation was the rule. Within thirty minutes of their arrival, the Army separated the Black from the white and sent them to different living quarters. Despite the oppressive environment, Charity excelled. The Army promoted her to major in 1943, making her one of the highest-ranking female officers at the fort and in the nation.

Major Adams became the training officer at the base headquarters. In 1944, they appointed her control officer in charge of improving efficiency and job training. Additional duties included surveying officer (finding lost property) and summary court officer (handling women’s minor offenses.

In December of that year, she led the only battalion of African American WACs to serve overseas. They were stationed in Birmingham, England, where Charity was in charge of a postal directory service unit and rising the morale of women. The women faced some prejudice when they arrived, but soon began to socialize, and those prickly prejudices on both sides vanished. 

Because Charity grew up in the south, she was used to segregation, its hardships and degradation. She continued to face segregation and often spoke up and fought for desegregation I the Army. One of her first fights was when the Army proposed segregating the training units. She vehemently refused to head one of the units. The Army decided against the creation of separate unity. Another time, a general said to her directly: “I’m going to send a white first lieutenant down here to show you how to run this unit.” By now she was Major Adams, and she replied, “Over my dead body, sir.” She was threatened with court martial but she filed a suit against him for “language stressing racial segregation, and ignoring a directive from Allied headquarters. Both sides dropped the matter with positive results. Major Adams gained respect from the general, and others. She was often the bridge builder to help educate and ease racial tensions. 

In January 1945, they appointed Charity Adams as commanding officer of the first battalion of African American women, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Service, stationed first in Edgbaston, just outside of Birmingham, England. The team received a six-month deadline to clear mountains of backlogged mail. Her unit completed the job in just three months. The unit then transferred to Rouen, France, and then to Paris. These women delivered millions of pieces of mail to the soldiers during World War II. When the war ended, Charity was the highest ranking African American woman in the military. Interviewers asked her about her outstanding achievements, and she responded, “I just wanted to do my job.”

After celebrating the end of the war in 1946, the Women’s Auxiliary discharged Charity; she then completed her studies and earned a master’s degree in psychology from Ohio State University. Charity accepted a position in the Veterans Administration in Cleveland but left to teach at the Miller Academy of Fine Arts. She moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where she accepted a position as director of student personnel at Tennessee A&I College. Charity then moved to become an assistant professor at Georgia State College. 

In 1949, Charity married Stanley A. Earley, Jr. The couple lived in Switzerland for a few years while Stanley completed medical school. They returned to the U.S. in 1952 and settled in Dayton, Ohio, where Dr. Stanley Earley worked as a physician. The couple had two children, Stanley the third, and Judith.

Faced by challenges all her life, Charity’s commitment to activism helped her better her life and the lives of others. Charity Early devoted much of her life to community service, serving on the Board of Directors of Dayton Power and Light, the Dayton Metro Housing Authority and on the Board of Governors for the American Red Cross, as well as serving as a member of the Board of Trustees of Sinclair Community College. She volunteered for the NAACP, United Way, the United Negro College Fund, the Urban League, and the UWCA. Charity also co-directed the Black Leadership Development Program. 

Charity Adams Earley received many, many awards and honors in her lifetime. The Smithsonian Institute lists her among the 110 most important historical Black women. The South Carolina Black Hall of Fame inducted her, and in 1995, President Clinton publicly recognized her during the groundbreaking of the Military Women’s Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery’s entrance. The National Postal Museum honored her, and she was inducted into the BellSouth African American History Calendar. Dayton Public Schools named one of their all girls elementary in her honor. President Biden signed legislation awarding Charity Adams and the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, the highest level of civilian honor in the nation. In 2024, the movie The Six Triple Eight, Charity Adams, was portrayed by Kerry Washington. 

These are just a few of the honors rightfully bestowed on one amazing woman with intelligence, grit, and fortitude.