Anna Mae Robertson served in the 6888th Battalion during World War II, the only battalion of Black women to serve abroad during the war. Leaders in Milwaukee, Robertson’s adopted hometown, are advocating for the honor of the veteran who died in May at the age of 101.
U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, recently introduced the bill to name the women’s clinic at the Clement J. Zablocki Veterans Affairs Medical Center after the veteran.
“It seemed appropriate to me that as a member of the storied ‘Six Triple Eight,’ and of course a member of the Milwaukee community who worked at Zablocki Veterans Center … to name the women’s health clinic in Milwaukee as the Anna Mae Robertson VA Well Women Clinic,” Moore said told Wisconson Public Radio.
Robertson received a Congressional Gold Medal in April after Representative Moore introduced a bill to honor the Six Triple Eight unit in 2021. Congress voted to bestow it, and former President Joe Biden signed the act into law in 2022.
While serving in the English Army Corps’ 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion during World War II, Robertson and her fellow soldiers were tasked with boosting soldiers’ morale by sorting through a year’s backlog of mail and reconnecting them with their loved ones back in the United States. The all-female unit of 855 women completed a task predicted to take six months in just three. The battalion, referred to as the “Six-Triple Eight,” was featured in a 2024 Netflix film produced by Tyler Perry starring Kerry Washington.
Robertson relocated to Milwaukee and later worked as a nurse’s aide at Zablocki Veterans Hospital. The mother of eight remained in Milwaukee for the rest of her life.
Robertson’s daughter stated that renaming the wing would not only honor her mother but also help preserve the history of the Six Triple Eight.
“I think it is only fitting that they name the women’s clinic after my mother, so everyone who goes to that clinic would know about my mother’s history, her life, the story of the Six Triple Eight,” Sheree Roberts said in an interview with The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
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