Gilda Jackson stood at attention in her dress blues, the midday sun glinting off the eagle, globe, and anchor on her cover. As the band struck up the Marine Corps Hymn, her eyes scanned the crowd. Rows of proud faces filled the parade deck at Camp Pendleton, but for her, one face stood out—a young Black girl in the front row, watching her with wide, hopeful eyes. Gilda saw herself in that little girl.
She had once been just a name on a classroom roll sheet in a segregated school in Louisiana. Back then, there were no Black female Marines to look up to. There were teachers who told her to “stay in her lane,” recruiters who raised eyebrows when she said she wanted to serve, and commanding officers who assumed she wouldn’t last through her first tour. But Gilda Jackson never believed in lanes. She believed in missions.
She joined the Marine Corps in 1965, at a time when the nation—and the military—was struggling to integrate not just races, but ideas about what women, especially Black women, could do. Boot camp was brutal. The uniform didn’t make people see past her skin or her gender. But she endured.
In Okinawa, she became known for her precision and discipline. In D.C., she earned the respect of generals with her strategic mind. And in every unit, she carried more than orders—she carried history on her shoulders.
When she pinned on her colonel’s eagles in 1997, she became the first Black woman to hold that rank in the Marine Corps. The ceremony was quiet by Marine standards, but the ripple it created ran deep. For the Corps, it was a milestone. For every young woman of color dreaming of a uniform, it was a door swung open.
Gilda wasn’t interested in being a symbol, though. “I didn’t come here to be the first,” she once told a reporter. “I came here to do my job—and to do it damn well.”
Her leadership style was firm, but empathetic. She mentored young Marines, often the ones others overlooked. She demanded excellence, not perfection, and believed the strength of the Corps came from its diversity—of thought, background, and experience.
Now retired, Colonel Jackson returned often to bases and schools to speak—not just about the Corps, but about courage, tenacity, and the quiet power of believing you belong even when no one else believes it yet.
Back on that parade deck, as the ceremony closed, Gilda stepped down from the platform. She walked over to the girl in the front row and handed her a coin—shiny, heavy, etched with the Marine Corps emblem and the words: Honor. Courage. Commitment.