page_title: Cornelius H. Charlton
section_title: Burial and honors
hierarchical_section_title: Cornelius H. Charlton / Biography / Burial and honors
caption_attribution_description: English: Grave of Cornelius H. Charlton at Arlington National Cemetery
context_page_description: Cornelius H. Charlton was a soldier in the United States Army during the Korean War. Sergeant Charlton posthumously received the Medal of Honor for his actions near Chipo-ri, South Korea on June 2, 1951.
  Born to a coal mining family in West Virginia, Charlton enlisted in the Army out of high school in 1946. He was transferred to the segregated 24th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, fighting in the Korean War. During a battle for Hill 543 near the village of Chipo-ri, Charlton took command of his platoon after its commanding officer was injured, leading it on three successive assaults of the hill. Charlton continued to lead the attack until the Chinese position was destroyed, at the cost of his life. For these actions, Charlton was awarded the medal.
  In the following years, Charlton was honored numerous times, but was controversially not given a spot in Arlington National Cemetery, which his family claimed was due to racial discrimination. The controversy attracted national attention before Charlton was finally reburied in Arlington in 2008.
context_section_description: Charlton's parents were presented with his Medal of Honor on March 12, 1952 by Secretary of the Army Frank Pace.
  In 1952, the US Army renamed its New York-based Ferryboat 84, a ferry boat that traveled to Governors Island in the Upper New York Bay, for Charlton. In September 1954, West Virginia renamed a bridge on the West Virginia Turnpike in honor of Charlton, the Charlton Memorial Bridge on Interstate 77. Charlton was also memorialized in the Bronx, with a park in the Morrisania area being named for Charlton in 1952, and in 1958 several gardens in Van Cortlandt Park in South Bronx were planted in his honor. These gardens are the site of annual Memorial Day gatherings of the local neighborhood where Charlton and other Bronx residents killed in the Korean War are honored. In 1993, a new barracks complex for US Forces Korea in South Korea was also named in Charlton's honor. In 2000, the United States Navy commissioned the USNS Charlton, a Watson-class vehicle cargo ship. Charlton's sister, Fairy M. Papadopoulos, served as the ship's co-sponsor. The Distinguished Honor Grad for the Basic Leaders Course at the Wightman NCO Academy in Korea receives a statue in his honor.
  There was some controversy over Charlton's burial after his death. In 1951, Charlton was not offered a burial plot in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, a custom which is routinely afforded to all Medal of Honor recipients. The US Army later claimed that this was due to an "administrative error," but Charlton's family believed the omission was due to racial discrimination. Instead, Charlton was buried in Bryant Cemetery, a segregated cemetery in Bramwell, West Virginia in 1951. The military did not offer to rebury Charlton in Arlington until 1989, and the family refused on the grounds that the oversight had been discrimination. Instead, American Legion Post 32 in Beckley offered to bury Charlton in their own cemetery. On March 10, 1989, Charlton was reburied there with full military honors at a ceremony attended by congressmen, several US Army generals, and an honor guard. Of 252 buried there, Charlton was the only African American. The controversy received national coverage when it was written about in the Los Angeles Times. On November 12, 2008, following efforts of other Medal of Honor winners, Charlton was finally reburied in Arlington National Cemetery, where his remains currently reside.
caption: Grave at Arlington National Cemetery
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