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WASHINGTON >> The Marine Corps is promoting Col. Anthony Henderson, a combat-tested Iraq and Afghanistan veteran, to brigadier general, a move that cracks the doorway for the service to potentially promote an African American to its most senior ranks.
The Marine Corps, which had passed over Henderson for four years, has placed him on a highly selective list of nine colonels to be granted a coveted one star that denotes general rank status — brigadier general. The list, which was signed by President Joe Biden, arrived Wednesday evening at the Senate Armed Services Committee to start the required confirmation process, according to the committee’s website.
Normally, such promotions would not garner much attention. But Henderson is a Black man with combat command experience in a service — the Marines — that has never, in its 245-year history, had a four-star officer who was not a white man. And even the one-, two- and three-star Marine Corps officer positions are predominantly white and male — particularly the ones in the combat specialties that feed the four-star ranks.
If Henderson is confirmed by the Senate, he will become the rare Black general with a shot of getting all the way to the top.
“Tony Henderson has the potential to be the commandant of the Marine Corps,” said retired Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Bailey, the first Black man to command the 1st Marine Division, from 2011 to 2013. “He’s an individual who will work above and beyond what is required. This is well overdue.”
Henderson, 53, was passed over three times for brigadier general. In 2019, the Navy secretary, Richard V. Spencer, even added a handwritten recommendation to Henderson’s candidacy.
But each time, the promotion board demurred and instead forwarded slates made up primarily of white men.
Since the Corps first admitted African American troops in 1942, the last military service to do so, only 25 have obtained the rank of general in any form.