Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Harriet Ida Pickens (left) and Close a suitcase after graduating from the Naval Reserve Midshipmen’s School (WR) at Northampton, Massachusetts, circa December 1944. They were the Navy’s first African American WAVES officers and graduated with the Northampton school’s final class. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

The first class of African American women completed the Navy’s officer’s training program, 1944.

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