It’s been 60 years since a Black teenager was denied an award because of his race, but this week, the teen who’s now a military retiree in Washington state has finally received the recognition and honor he so rightfully earned.
Sam Jones, 75, was 11 years old when he first saw images of a forest in a movie, an experience that forever changed his life. An urban boy raised by a single mother and growing up in the Rochester, New York, projects, he remembered hearing a voice tell him as he watched the film that if God exists, he lives in the woods.
“So, I started looking for God in the woods,” recalled Jones, according to The Tacoma News Tribune. “I wanted to go to those woods, but I didn’t have a way. I didn’t know how to do it. But I knew Boy Scouts.”
Jones quickly became a member of a Boy Scout troop in his housing building, where most of his troopmates were also Black.
Jones excelled in the Boy Scouts, earning roughly 25 merit badges in various areas, such as canoeing, first aid and citizenship. After a few years, at age 15, he became the first member of his troop to achieve the rank of Eagle Scout.
However, after a few months of silence, Jones went to the Baden Street Settlement, which sponsored the troop and organized its traditional Court of Honor awards ceremonies, to find out why he had not received his proper recognition.
Nobody responded when Jones first inquired about his medal at the office, he said. Then after asking a particular seated staffer, the man reached into his desk drawer, located the award, and threw it across the table to the teen. When Jones asked about the ceremony, the staffer told him a Scout raised by a single mother didn’t represent the ideal Black child the nonprofit sought to promote.
As a result, Jones lost interest in scouting. He didn’t tell his mother what happened, but let his white scoutmaster know.
“No words came from him,” said Jones, then 17, The News Tribune reported. “But I don’t fault him. He was between a rock and a hard place. I have been blessed by a number of white Americans that have absolutely been in my corner. But I also know they are in difficult places themselves for doing so.”
Charles Perham, Jones’ biology instructor in high school, eventually took the teen under his wing and continued to encourage his love of the outdoors by taking Jones and other young men on summertime camping excursions to Canada, where they would participate in fire crews and receive search and rescue training.
Perham eventually suggested Jones enroll at the University of Michigan, where Jones enlisted in the Navy ROTC while a student. He entered the Navy as a career after graduating, and he retired in 1991.
Jones had spent his entire life applying his Boy Scout abilities but still harbored animosity toward the organization. Darel Roa, a fellow Mountain View Lutheran Church member, was unaware of what happened to his friend all those decades ago and had been encouraging him to participate in the church-sponsored Boy Scout troop.
Jones repeatedly declined, but a persistent Roa eventually persuaded him to attend a March benefit dinner for the BSA’s Pacific Harbors Council. A preacher requested those who had previously earned the Eagle Scout rank to stand at the end of the meal.
“I stood,” Jones shared. “But when I stood up, it was like a dam burst. The emotion began to pour out. And it’s still coming.”
A day later, he revealed what happened to Roa, who set out to make amends for his comrade. Roa said that the Baden Street Settlement’s Rochester staff members, generations removed from those of the 1960s, were shocked to learn of Jones’ tale.
The New York Scouts discovered records that attested to Jones’ Eagle Scout status. He was one of seven Boy Scouts who received their Eagle Scout medals in an official ceremony, along with other memorabilia, on Monday, which was Juneteenth.
“It validates a life that I have earned,” Jones said of the event. “What a boy needs early in life is to know that he is valued and he has value to offer.”
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