William McAbee Seaborn

There were four other boys beside Bill in the Seaborn household. They were all born and raised in Seneca, South Carolina not far from the college town of Clemson.

During the first few years of the Great Depression, Bill joined the Great Migration of six million African Americans between 1910 and 1970 who moved from the South to northern cities. They were motivated by the hope of a better life and escaping discriminating “Jim Crow” laws and customs. 

He was probably around 20 when he came to Philadelphia and found 18-year-old Mae Robinson to be his wife around 1938. Finding a full-time job was more difficult. In the 1940 census he said he worked as a porter but only for 14 hours a week. It also showed that both of them attended school through the eighth grade.

American men began registering for the draft in October of 1940 even though the coming war was more than a year away. At age 22, Bill stood 5-foot 5-inches tall, and weighed about 129 pounds. The young couple lived on North 18th Street in what was sometimes called Templetown. It was later renamed the Cecil B. Moore neighborhood after the local civil rights attorney and politician of the 60s and 70s.

William enlisted in the Naval Reserve in October of 1943 as a Steward’s Mate, 3rd Class. That was changed to 2nd Class a month later when he was assigned to the Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, New Jersey. It was the Navy’s least glamorous job.

Stewards were essentially servants wherever they were stationed. They cleaned the living quarters of the officers when they weren’t in the galley (kitchen) or scullery (washing dishes). Stewards and Steward’s Mates were almost exclusively Black or Filipino and usually at the lowest pay grade.  

Bill was received onboard a newly-overhauled destroyer, the USS Dorsey in September of 1944. It sailed from Pearl Harbor to the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea to undertake minesweeping operations. The first thing that his fellow sailors must have commented on was that his name was appropriate for a Navy man.

By year’s end his rating changed to 1st Class and he went to a receiving station on the west coast. There’s a gap in the records until he was admitted to the Philadelphia Naval Hospital on April 5, 1945. (The 15-story building, shown here, was demolished in 2001 and the space is now an overflow parking lot for the sports stadiums in South Philly.)

While there, Bill was diagnosed with Ludwig’s angina, a serious bacterial infection that occurs in the floor of the mouth. It can cause severe swelling, leading to difficult breathing and swallowing.

He died six days later, with the immediate cause of death being bilateral bronchopneumonia. The Navy took care of providing burial space and a headstone.