Charity Adams Earley

Charity Adams Earley ( Adams; December 5, 1918 – January 13, 2002) was a United States Army officer. She was the first African-American woman to become an officer in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (later WACs) and was the commanding officer of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only African-American and multi-ethnic US Women’s Army Corps (WAC) unit sent overseas during World War II. Adams was the highest-ranking African-American woman in the army by the completion of the war.

A monument honoring her was dedicated at Fort Lee, Virginia, on November 30, 2018. In 2023, the base was renamed Fort Gregg-Adams in honor of Earley and Lieutenant General Arthur J. Gregg, becoming the first U.S. military base to bear the names of African Americans. The base was again renamed in 2025, following Donald Trump's campaign promise to restore the base's Confederate name.

Adams is portrayed by Kerry Washington as a lead character in 2024 film The Six Triple Eight showing the experience of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion during their service in Europe.

Early life and education Adams was born on December 5, 1918, in Kittrell, North Carolina, and grew up in Columbia, South Carolina. Her parents believed strongly in education and were high achievers. Her father, Eugene Adams, a college graduate, was an African Methodist Episcopal minister and her mother, Charity née Nash Adams, was a schoolteacher. Adams was the oldest of four children. One of her younger brothers, John Hurst Adams, went on to become a Bishop within the AME and founded the Congress of National Black Churches. She graduated from Booker T. Washington High School as valedictorian and from Wilberforce University in Ohio in 1938, majoring in math and physics.

By the completion of the war, Lieutenant Colonel Adams was the highest ranking African-American woman in the military. At the conclusion of the war, when asked about her groundbreaking achievements, Adams responded simply: "I just wanted to do my job."

Fighting segregation and racism in the Army

Growing up in the South, Adams experienced the hardships of segregation. When she entered the Army, she still faced discrimination but was not afraid to speak up and fight for desegregation in the Army. One of the first battles Adams fought for equality was when the Army proposed segregating the training regiment. When she was told she would head one of the segregated regiments, she refused. The Army subsequently decided against creating separate regiments. Dayton Public Schools also named one of their schools the "Charity Adams Earley Girls Academy" in her honor.

Community service Adams devoted much of her post-war life to community service. She served on the Board of Directors of Dayton Power and Light, the Dayton Metro Housing Authority, the Dayton Opera Company, the Board of Governors of the American Red Cross, and the Board of Trustees of Sinclair Community College. She volunteered for NAACP, United Way, the United Negro College Fund, the Urban League, and the YWCA. She also co-directed the Black Leadership Development Program.

Personal life In 1949, Adams married Stanley A. Earley Jr. They moved to Zurich, Switzerland for a time while Stanley completed medical school. In Zurich, Earley spent ten months learning German at the Minerva Institute. Once she mastered the language, she studied for two years at the University of Zurich. Earley attended the Jungian Institute of Analytical Psychology in her second year as well, but she chose not to pursue a degree. They returned to the U.S. in 1952 and settled in Dayton

Awards and honors Adams received many honors and awards, including a Woman of the Year from the National Council of Negro Women in 1946, the Top Ten Women of the Miami Valley Dayton Daily News in 1965, and Service to the Community Award from the Ohio State Senate in 1989. In 1987, she received the Senior Citizens Gold Watch Award. She was listed on the Smithsonian Institution's 110 most important historical Black women list, Black Women Against the Odds, in 1982. She was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame in 1979 and the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame in 1993. She was also inducted into the South Carolina Black Hall of Fame and named citizen of the year by The Montgomery County Board of Commissioners in 1991. In 1997, Adams was included in the BellSouth African-American History Calendar. On October 6, 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin accepted the recommendation and directed that the name change occur no later than January 1, 2024. The name change officially occurred on April 27, 2023. The base became the first US military fort named for African Americans. In 2025, Fort Gregg-Adams was renamed Fort Lee. President Donald Trump, who had made a campaign promise to restore the bases' Confederate names, The fort has officially been renamed in honor of Buffalo Soldier Private Fitz Lee, a Spanish-American War veteran who, under enemy fire, rescued wounded soldiers in Cuba, earning him the Medal of Honor.

In October 2023, the Dayton Branch NAACP honored Lt. Col Charity Adams Earley by implementing The Lt. Col. Charity Adams Earley Award of Excellence during its 72nd Dayton NAACP Hall of Freedom Awards. Her daughter, Judi Earley, presented the first award to the Honorable Judge Adele Riley.

On June 12, 2024, the Dayton Veterans Affairs Medical Center honored her by renaming their women's clinic as the “Lieutenant Colonel Charity Adams-Earley Women’s Clinic."

In the 2024 movie The Six Triple Eight, Adams was portrayed by Kerry Washington.

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