In World War II, he was given an insulting “blue discharge”; more than 70 years later, he was upgraded to “honorable.” He died of the coronavirus.
This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.
On a late summer day last year, Dean Henry had already driven through Philadelphia traffic once to visit his father, Nelson Henry Jr., at the Watermark assisted living community in the Logan Square neighborhood.
Then he drove straight back to deliver something that had in the meantime arrived in the mail and that his father had been waiting more than 70 years to see: Army review board documents upgrading his discharge classification for World War II service to “honorable.”
Nelson Henry was among the many Black Army soldiers originally given “blue discharges” (so named for the color of paper they were printed on), a discriminatory bit of militarese also used on soldiers who were thought to be gay. A blue discharge was neither honorable nor dishonorable, but deprived those who received one of certain military benefits and was a stain that could affect future employment.
Mr. Henry had made several unsuccessful attempts to get the discharge upgraded. Dean Henry made a push in recent years and, assisted by legal aid groups, Pennsylvania’s senators and coverage in The Philadelphia Inquirer, finally succeeded.
But Mr. Henry didn’t get to savor his success long; he died on May 9 at a Philadelphia hospital of the novel coronavirus after an outbreak at the Watermark complex, his son said.
