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Indiana Hunt Martin

Born on 5-30-1922. She was born in Uvalda, GA. She was accomplished in the area of Community. She later died on 9-21-2020.
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My mother, Indiana Hunt Martin is a living testament to the statement "It takes a village to raise our children." Just recently I was able to visualize the meaning of this statement when she gave me something she had written many years ago. I was amazed to see how she remembered many of her/our ancestor's and the role they played in placing her here before you all today.


Her journey began in Uvalda, Georgia 97 years ago. She was the third of 5 children. She was born in a time and place where share cropping, lynching, hatred of people especially males of color were common everyday occurrences and justice was just that, just us! There was a concern for her two brothers and her father, and a need to escape to the North was eminent.


At the age of 3, the plan to move north was put into place. Aunt Effie Hunt Lattimore (her father's sister), was married to Uncle Marion Lattimore. They had come up North years earlier. Mr. Marion Lattimore was the brother of Mrs. Lubealie Lattimore Mosley. Mrs. Lubealie Mosley was the mother of Zorie Bell Mosley Boling. Mrs. Lubealie's Mosley's mother and Mr. Brooks's were sister and brother. Aunt Ellean Brooks and Mr. Brooks were brother and sister.


Aunt Ellean was supposed to be married to Uncle John Westley Robinson (my grandmother, Beatrice Robinson Hunt Coleman's, brother). Aunt Effie Lattimore sent for Uncle Waymon Hunt and Uncle Elmer Hunt, both were brothers to William Hunt, my mother's father. Once the two Hunt brothers came north they first sent for their brother William in 1926, because he was running from a lynch mob. Later that year her father (William) and all the above named people helped send for my mom and the rest of the family.


Housing for Blacks in Niagara Falls was a challenge in 1926, so many coming from the south lived on 11th Street near the rail road tracks in a place known to all during that time as "Green Alley."


My mother attended Niagara Street School until 5th grade and transferred to 13th Street School for 6th grade. She went on to South Junior High and was 1 of 2 blacks to graduate from Niagara Falls High School with a diploma in Business in 1940. Upon completion of high school, she wanted an office job, but she soon learned the reality of the world and her options were very limited. Her choices at the age of 18, a black female with a high school diploma, was domestic work, bar tending, house wife, prostitution or picking fruit. She chose picking fruit in Lewiston at the peach orchard. Little did she know where this would lead.


WWII was beginning in 1939 and US joined it in 1940. Uncle Sam came to Niagara Falls, and took over all the peach orchards in Lewiston, stating they needed to develop a "TNT Factory", once all the peaches were picked. Needing a job and the war was starting, my mother accepted a job at the "TNT Factory". She was hired to clean rest rooms. It wasn't until 78 years later that she found out what the "TNT Factory" really was.

The TNT Factory in Lewiston, NY played a major role in the development of the Manhattan Project also known as the "Atom Bomb".


She loved reading and while at work she found herself with a lot of free time for reading because the workers rarely came out to use the bathroom. One day, in 1942 while contemplating leaving Niagara Falls, she saw the article where Mrs. Roosevelt and Ms. Mary M. Bethune were looking for women of color to join the war effort, by joining the Woman's Army Corps. She applied and waited for about 6 months but no response.


Her parents had separated and the family was splitting up. Her mother had moved to New York with her sister; her older brother had long been gone and the second brother was drafted to the Army. By 1943 she was in New York City staying with her mother and sister, while waiting to hear from the Women's Army Corp. When she went to check her status at the draft board in NY they told her "they had lost her application from Niagara Falls and she would have to reapply". This "lost application" cost her one full year of military service. She reapplied and I guess with Mrs. Roosevelt being determined to see her project through, she was called up to serve in 1944.


During basic training there were several Black camps in the Southwest and she thought she would be stationed in one of them. Word came down that a few black women from the different camps were being chosen to go overseas. She had no idea what she had signed up for, because she was one of the chosen 800 Black women to venture overseas. The trip from NY to DesMoines, Iowa then to Fort Ogelthorp, Georgia was an education in itself.


In Washington DC, she saw racism first hand. Signs for Negros to go to the back of the train, and the white solders were told to move to the front of the train, separate water fountains for whites and blacks. Once on post, Blacks and Whites were segregated. The Woman's Army Corp now had 800 Black females known as the "6888th Central Postal Battalion" for the purpose of getting mail to the soldiers on the front line. Mom was one of the first 500 who went across the Atlantic on the Ocean liner called the SS lle de France. During the trip she recalls moments when they thought their ship was almost spotted by the Germans and they would not make it to England.


Upon arrival in Liverpool, England, these 500 Black WAC's marched through the streets to the railroad station that took them to their place of residence which was an abandoned school for boys in Birmingham, England. England was in bad condition from the German bombing. Once cleaned up and set up they went to work. They had no idea what was in store. Their job wasn't just to sort mail they had to find moving troops and get the mail to them, but also readdress all the mail that had accumulated over the years, that no one knew what to do with. It took these 800 women 3 months to clear up the mail.


In 1945 they were reassigned. They crossed the English Channel and arrived in Rouen, France. Once there they were given straw mattresses, that had to be burned because they had bed bugs in them. Again they went to work clearing up the mountains of undelivered mail for the solders.