Theodore Peters
U.S. Marine Corps, World War II
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Theodore Peters was born in Mississippi, but moved with his family to Chicago when he was young.
He found out he was being drafted for war before he graduated from high school. Not long after, he was trained to become a Marine in North Carolina.
Peters was one of the first black Americans to enter the U.S. Marine Corps after President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the Marines Corps to lift its long-standing ban that excluded blacks. The first black Marines trained at a location known as Montford Point.
Today, Theodore Peters serves as the chaplain for the Montford Point Marine Association's second chapter, which is based in Chicago. He and his wife Mary live in suburban Chicago. Peters is active as a deacon and Sunday school teacher at his church, Mt. Calvary Baptist Church on the city's South Side.
Peters was employed for many years by the Chicago Transit Authority, where he spent some time as a bus driver, and later retired as a supervisor.
Theodore Peters is one of the first African-Americans to enter the U.S. Marines.
Holding his Bible, Theodore Peters prays at Mt. Calvary Baptist Church on 111th Street in Chicago. “In the military I never really lost my faith,” says Peters, who serves as a church deacon.
Theodore Peters directs this church choir and serves as a chaplain for the Chicago Chapter of the Montford Point Marine Association. Montford Point, a segregated section at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, was the training center for the early African-American Marines.
Theodore Peters reaches out for a resident at a nursing home on Chicago’s South Side. Peters, 87, along with about a dozen other church members, visits the nursing home once a month.
At the nursing home visit, Theodore Peters greets Tezell Hanson. Both men were Montford Point Marines and served together in the Pacific. They have been friends since the war.
Tezell Hanson is the oldest member of the Montford Point Marine Association in Chicago. Montford Point opened in 1942. Hanson and Peters began training there the following year.
A wall of honor at the Montford Point headquarters. The group was organized to commemorate the men who served at Montford Point through 1949, when the camp closed. Now the Montford Point Marine Association welcomes all veterans who have been honorably discharged.
The Montford Point Honor guard. The Marines Corps was the last branch of the armed forces to admit African-Americans.
Theodore Peters and his wife Mary at their home on the Far South Side of Chicago. Peters retired after 25 years at the CTA as a bus driver and supervisor. Photographs of the Peters’ family—kids, grandchildren and great-grandchildren—are on the refrigerator. “I always had faith in God. And still do,” he says.
