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"You don't know you're making history when it's happening. I just wanted to do my job." - Charity Adams Earley
Early life and education
Charity Adams Earley was born on December 5th, 1918. Her father was an African Methodist Episcopal Minister and her mother a schoolteacher. Both of her parents believed strongly in education and were both high achievers.
As the eldest child, she graduated high school as valedictorian and graduated from Wilberforce University in 1938. In 1946 she received her masters degree in psychology after working full time teaching mathematics, studying part time and in 1942-46, served in WAAC.
Career
In 1942 Earley enlisted in the U. S. Army's Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC, later known as WAC - Women's Army Corps) when the U. S. army was expanding their military during World War II. After Earley completed training in Fort Des Moines, she was commissioned on August 29th. Before she was promoted to Major, making her the highest ranking female officer, she remained at the training centre and worked as a staff training officer, a station control officer and company commander.
Towards the end of 1944, Earley became the commanding officer of the unit 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. Her unit was the first WAC African American unit to go overseas to Birmingham, England. They were faced with air hangers of undelivered mail to US servicemen. After working around the clock, they managed to sort and redirect the mail in three months and later moved on to other cities. 65,000 pieces of mail is the number Earley estimated that they sorted each day.
Earley was promoted to lieutenant colonel and had the highest rank for any woman in WAC for three months before she requested to be relieved from active duty. Upon being discharged from the military, Earley was rewarded a scroll of honor from The National Council of Negro Women Inc.
Upon Charity Adams Earely's death, she lived in Zurich, Switzerland with her husband Stanley A. Earley Jr before moving to Ohio, US in the late 50s. She was active in community and civic work in Dayton, Ohio. She sat on a number of boards and founded The Black Leadership Development Program. The foundation sought out to train and educate African Americans to be leaders in their communities. In 1996, the Smithsonian National Postal Museum honored Earley's work with the unit 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion with a ceremony in Washington D.C.
