African American manned Pea Island Life-saving Station

In 2005, we honored the African American manned the Pea Island Life Saving Station located on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was the first life-saving station in the country to have an all-black crew, and it was the first in the nation to have a black man, Richard Etheridge, as commanding officer. 

Along the Outer Banks in North Carolina, near where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Chesapeake Bay, are the treacherous waters known as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic.” More than 600 ships have wrecked off the sandbars of the Hatteras Islands. In 1871 the United States Lifesaving Service – a federal agency – was established to save the lives of shipwrecked mariners and passengers. These first responders were called “surfmen” and, in North Carolina, they worked the desolate beaches.  In 1915 the agency was renamed the United States Coast Guard.

In 1880 Captain Richard Etheridge, a former slave and Civil War veteran, was appointed as keeper of the Pea Island Lifesaving Station, 30 miles north of Cape Hatteras. When he arrived to assume his command, the white surfmen there abandoned the station, unwilling to serve under an African American. Other black surfmen from other stations were transferred to Pea Island which became the first all-black lifesaving station in the nation.  For 70 years the Pea Island station was manned by an all-African American crew until 1947 when it was decommissioned.

Known for their courage and dedication the Pea Island lifesavers led many daring rescues saving scores of men, women and children.  In 1896, during a hurricane, they rescued the entire crew of the E.S. Newman for which — 100 years later — they were awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal.

 In 1992 the U.S. Coast Guard commissioned a cutter, Pea Island, in memory of the African American crews who served there.

In 2012, the second of the Coast Guard's 154-foot Sentinel-Class Cutters, USCGC Richard Etheridge (WPC-1102), was commissioned in his honor.