Biographical Note
Samuel L. Gravely Jr. was born June 4, 1922, in Richmond, Virginia. After graduating from Armstrong High School in Richmond, he attended Virginia Union University in Richmond but enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve before graduating. After graduating from the V-12 Navy College Training Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, and then completing United States Naval Midshipmen's School at Columbia University in 1944, he was commissioned as an ensign in the United States Navy on December 14, 1944. His first assignment was on PC-1264 (submarine chaser), one of two United States Navy ships with a predominantly African American crew, which he served on for the remainder of World War II. In 1946 he left active duty and returned to the Naval Reserve. That same year he married Alma Bernice Clark and reenrolled at Virginia Union University, graduating in 1948. After President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981, mandating the desegregation of the United States Armed Forces, he was recalled to active duty in 1949 and worked as a Navy recruiter in Washington, D.C., before serving as a communications officer on the battleship Iowa during the Korean War. In 1955 he transferred from the Naval Reserve to the United States Navy. In 1961 he became the first African American to command a United States Navy ship, the destroyer Theodore E. Chandler. From 1962 to 1963 he commanded the destroyer escort Falgout. In 1963 he became one of the first two African American officers to attend the United States Naval War College, graduating in 1964. During the Vietnam War, he became the first African American officer to lead a ship into combat when he commanded the destroyer Taussig. In 1967 he became the first African American to achieve the rank of captain, and in 1971, rear admiral. In 1973 he was named Director of Naval Communications. He was promoted to vice admiral in 1976. From 1978 until his retirement in 1980, he was the director of the Defense Communications Agency. He died October 22, 2004, at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.