SAVANNAH, Ga () — Annie Beatrice Knight, a pioneering member of the ‘Six-Triple-Eight’, resided in Savannah before her death in 2010. Her daughter attended the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony on Tuesday to represent her late mother.
The Six Triple Eight was the only all-black, all-female battalion sent to Europe during WWII, and it has now been awarded one of the country’s most prestigious civilian accolades, the Congressional Gold Medal.
This unit was responsible for resolving a massive backlog of undelivered mail to boost morale among U.S. troops. Karen Jordan, Knight’s daughter, remarked that such recognition has been overdue.
“The happiest part is that we did finally get the coin,” Jordan said. “The saddest part about it is there are only two of the women left. The whole time I’m sitting there thinking, ‘boy, my mother would have really loved this.’”
It took 80-years for the nation to recognize the unit for their extraordinary feats.
“When you’re doing a job, you’re just doing it, and you just want to do your best and you’re not thinking about what it means on a grander scale,” said Jordan. “You’re not thinking about how people will view it 80 years later. You just want it to do a good job. So, it’s not surprising that it took 80 years for people to recognize things.”
She said the 855 women left a lasting impact on generations.
“They say that if our mothers, these women, had not done the job that they did, that the black women who went into the military after feeling like they would never have had the opportunities that they had,” she said. “They showed the military, and they showed the country that black women in the military can make a major contribution of historical significance.”
Jordan said she will continue to preserve her mother’s legacy and carry their story forward.
“We need we need to spend time trying to find out who our ancestors are and what they’ve contributed to the United States history, because we’re major players in this country,” she said. “And it’s not just the few that you see in history books. I would say, if anything else, this has taught me that we need to do a lot of digging and we need to find out who we are.”
Congress voted unanimously in 2022 to award the unit with the highest honor.
