Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos, who pushed that these Marines finally be recognized and that Marine histories be rewritten to include their stories, described the discrimination faced by these pioneers.

"Once you crossed the Mason Dixon line," Amos told Fox News, in an exclusive interview. "They were put back, or actually put up, in a coal car, which is right behind the locomotive and that's where they stayed until they arrived in Jacksonville, North Carolina."

At first they were only allowed to provide supplies on the front lines.

"There was a reluctance to put them right in the heat of the battle so for the first little bit they were on the fringes of the battle and they would run ammunition out to the front lines to places like Pelelieu, and eventually Iwo Jima. They would bring back white Marines, who were wounded."

Eventually, they fought side by side with those white Marines when those iconic battles turned tough. Later they broke barriers together back home.