We Remember and Honoring Harriet Pickens and Frances Wills: Trailblazers of the US Navy

“Lieutenant Junior Grade Harriet Ida Pickens and Ensign Frances Wills were members of the final graduating class at the Naval Reserve Midshipmen’s School (Women’s Reserve) in Northampton, Massachusetts. Commissioned as WAVES officers, in December 1944, they were the first female African-American U.S. Navy officers.”

Harriet Pickens, born in Talladega, Alabama, graduated cum laude from Smith College in 1930 and from Columbia University with a Master’s degree in Political Science. LTJG Pickens was the daughter of William Pickens, one of the founders of the NAACP. Prior to her military service, Harriet was the Executive Secretary of the Harlem Tuberculosis and Health Committee of the New York Tuberculosis and Health Association. In addition to this position, she was a supervisor of recreation programs in the New Deal’s WPA (Works Project Administration).

Frances Elizabeth Wills, of of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, held a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Pittsburgh. After the war Frances went to work as a secretary for Langston Hughes, the famous American poet. She detailed this in her memoir “Navy Blue and Other Colors,” published under her married name, Frances Wills Thorpe. Recalling her time in the Navy, she recounted the adventures and achievements she had and how later in life she began to care for and treat traumatized war Veterans. Francis passed away in 1998.

By the war’s end on September 2, 1945, 70 enlisted WAVES joined Pickens and Wills. One of them, Chief Yeoman Edna Young became one of the first enlisted women sworn into the regular Navy on June 6, 1948.