As Caroline County historian Cleo Coleman sauntered through the Black History Month displays at the Sidney E. King Arts Center in Bowling Green Friday morning, she paused to reflect on the contributions of Sgt. Reginald Arthur Beverly, who is being honored with an exhibit at the museum this month.
“I am just very pleased, very pleased, to see the county’s public recognition of folks whose shoulders we stand on today,” Coleman said. “Pleased that this display is here for our younger people, our younger generation, to see it and know from whence they have come and therefore to where they might go. It is wonderful.”
The display, organized by the Caroline Historical Society with donations from the Beverly family, is open Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Beverly, a Caroline native and World War II veteran, was a surveyor and key figure in the 95th Engineering Regiment, an all-Black unit that supported a mission to create the Alcan Highway, which connected the continental United States to Alaska across Canada and enabled movement of military supplies.
Officials in Delta Junction, Alaska, awarded Beverly the key to the city in 2017 in recognition of the 75th anniversary of the construction of the highway, which spans 1,700 miles. Beverly died on Aug. 12, 2017; he was 102.
In addition to the display at the museum, the Caroline NAACP honored Beverly at its Black History Month celebration last week.
“Throughout our lifetime, he shared these stories — not stories, but previous experiences in the military — and believe me, they were so touching,” said his daughter, Katrina Gill. “He shared many, many, many details, which I can’t tell you right now because we’ll be here until tomorrow. I encourage you to go to the Historical Society displays. When I walked in there, it touched me so much.”
Caroline Historical Society Secretary Linda Thomas highlighted Beverly during the Black history ceremony, noting that he and the other Black troops who worked on the project lived in tents, enduring conditions as cold as 67 degrees below zero.
A 2013 History Channel documentary featured Beverly extensively. According to the proclamation from Delta Junction’s City Council, Beverly and his fellow troops constructed eight to 10 miles of highway per day despite having to plow through frozen ground.
“When plowing through black spruce forests proved impossible because of underlying frozen ground, aka permafrost, workers would lay down a corduroy road of timber and brush to insulate the frozen ground and keep it from melting into a bottomless river of mud that slips like custard under road equipment and sticks to truck wheels like black chewing gum,” the proclamation stated. “The Alcan trailblazers punched through as much as eight to 10 miles per day, enduring the hardships of an untamed, rugged, and unforgiving wilderness with limited provisions and equipment, brutal climates and unbearable living conditions.”
A May 2017 video by the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) honoring Beverly discussed how white soldiers working on the same project were allowed to stay in hardened barracks, while the Black soldiers dwelled in canvas tents.
“The cloth on the tent was about an inch thick on the inside and that kept the cold air out,” Beverly said on the DVIDS presentation.
Beverly, a Virginia State College graduate, was a high school math and science teacher in Caroline and Louisa counties before being drafted into the military. He was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, when the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor forced the U.S. to join World War II.
“They didn’t have time to teach the other soldiers the mathematics and so forth, and since I was a high school math teacher, that’s why they sent me to Fort Bragg,” Beverly recalled in the video.
The DVIDS narrator noted that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers “undertook an ambitious project to help troops and supplies get to Siberia in order to combat the Pacific threat.” There were more than 11,000 soldiers, including four all-Black regiments. A book on display at the museum, entitled “The Black Soldiers Who Built the Alaska Highway” by John Virtue, tells the story as well.
“They would construct a road more than 1,700 miles long and cut through the Yukon and Alaskan wilderness,” the narrator of the video added.
The narrator stated that the frigid winter, muddy summer and inferior equipment compared to that of their white counterparts did not stop the 95th Engineering Battalion from excelling in their mission. They finished the project in less than seven months.
“We knew they had different standards for the white soldiers and Black soldiers,” Beverly said in the video. “We finished in way less time than they gave us. That was a positive thing for the Black soldiers.”
The project was completed in October 1942, and in April 2017, Alaska declared Oct. 25 a state holiday, recognizing the service of the Black regiments who helped build the highway.
According to the video, after the completion of the highway, members of the 95th including Beverly were sent to join the European Campaign. There, they continued to serve by repairing the damaged infrastructure and enabling the Allied offensive, the large-scale military operation launched by the Allied powers, including the U.S., Great Britain and the Soviet Union, to liberate Nazi-occupied Europe.
It was 75 years after the 95th began its mission when Delta Junction honored Beverly with a key to the city and a proclamation declaring him a “true soldier” who was being recognized for his “exceptional dedication and selfless service to his duties and his country.”
“Not only were you the trailblazers out on the Alcan, but you were also trailblazers for the American Civil Rights Movement that was yet to come,” a Delta Junction official said of Beverly and members of the regiment in the DVIDS presentation … “Be assured that after 75 years, your contributions are still appreciated daily.”
Beyond his duties as an educator, Beverly he also served on the Caroline Planning Commission, was vice president of the county’s branch of the NAACP and treasurer of Oxford Mount Zion Baptist Church in Ruther Glen. He was honored with a lifetime achievement award by the District of Columbia Association of Land Surveyors in 2001.
His daughters said despite his many accomplishments, he was humble and reserved.
“He was very modest,” said his daughter, Claudia Beverly Rollins. “He didn’t understand why he received a proclamation from Delta Junction, and he didn’t understand all the hype about what he did when he was a soldier. I said, ‘Daddy … it’s definitely a good feat that you did, and we’re proud of you.’”
