Author: Tricia Williamson, Digital Content Producer
In December 2024, the movie The Six Triple Eight was released in theaters. It showcases the historic Women’s Army Corps (WAC) 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, also known as the Six Triple Eight. The unit was composed mostly of African American women, although at least three Latina members are known to have served as well. The movie stars Kerry Washington as Major Charity Adams, born in Kittrell on December 5, 1918. Adams was the first Black woman commissioned in the WAC.
The North Carolina Museum of History’s collection includes the uniform of Millie Dunn Veasey, a Six Triple Eight member born in Raleigh on January 31, 1918. It is the only known uniform of its kind still in existence.
In December 1942, a year after the United States joined World War II, Veasey saw war posters featuring White women, encouraging women to join the military. “I thought to myself that if those White women can do it, so can I,” she recalled, shortly before her 100th birthday. “And besides that, my country needs me.”
Veasey went on to join the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in North Carolina. By late 1944, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt—encouraged by Black activist Mary McLeod Bethune—pushed to make use of the women’s corps. From there, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion was formed.
The battalion was sent to the UK in early 1945, where they encountered a mountain of unsorted mail. There were millions of unopened pieces of mail to sort through due to a significant shortage of soldiers who were able to manage the postal service. Army officials believed that undelivered mail was hurting morale. Many letters and packages had only the first name of the intended recipient, a commonly used name, or nicknames. There was an estimated backlog of 17 million items, and the Six Triple Eight was assigned to work through it all.
The women worked with no natural light and difficult conditions, including a rat infestation. They worked around the clock in three 8-hour shifts, sorting through roughly 65,000 items every shift. The Six Triple Eight finished the job in only three months—half the time expected. After completing the task, the unit was sent to northern France, where they continued distributing mail.
For her service, Veasey was awarded the WAC Service Medal, the American Theater Medal, the European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal. In 2025, a post office in Raleigh was named in her honor.
Despite their hard work and achievements overseas, the more than 800 members of the battalion came home to the same segregation they had left. After returning to North Carolina, Veasey became a prominent civil rights leader. In 1963 she organized the group from Raleigh that took part in the March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King Jr. Two years later, she became the first female president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Raleigh and remained active in civic groups until her last years. Veasey was honored as a “living legend” by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, alongside former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The North Carolina Museum of History was honored to welcome Veasey in 2009 for a Veteran’s Day celebration when she was president of American Legion Post 751. In 2015 she took part in our African American Cultural Celebration and celebrated her 96th birthday with us.
Veasey passed away in 2018, shortly after her 100th birthday. Two members of the Six Triple Eight are alive and more than 100 years old: Major Fannie Griffin McClendon and Anna Mae Robertson.
In November 2018, a monument was dedicated to the Six Triple Eight. It stands in Buffalo Soldier Military Park at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Veasey was interviewed at the North Carolina Museum of History in August 2017 for that monument.
In 2022 the Six Triple Eight was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs Denis R. McDonough said of the unit, “With the eyes of the world upon them, these ordinary women did extraordinary things and drove extraordinary change for decades to come.”
