John E. Rudder

Who is John E. Rudder?

John E. Rudder became the first black Marine officer commissioned in the regular United States Marine Corps, in 1948.

He was born in Paducah, Kentucky. After serving as an enlisted Marine in World War II, he graduated from the Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps. On May 28, 1948, he received his commission as a 2nd lieutenant, and entered the Marine Corps Basic School in Quantico, Virginia, on August 25. He resigned in 1949. Though he experienced discrimination at Quantico, he stated his departure was for personal reasons, and the matter was handled quietly.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, however, was skeptical and put him under long-term surveillance as a suspected communist, eventually accumulating eight volumes of material on the Rudder family by 1967. Settling in Washington, D.C., John Rudder - a Quaker - and his wife Doris became anti-war and anti-discrimination activists. The FBI caused trouble for their daughter Miriam many years later.