He stood up for our country on the USS West Virginia. On his birthday, a West Virginian draws him home

LEWISBURG, W.Va. — Eighty-five years ago, Dorie Miller stood up for his country on the deck of the USS West Virginia. Today, a young West Virginian is standing up for him.

Gavin Brown grew up playing in Dorie Miller Park without knowing who Dorie Miller was. Now he is putting the man back in the picture, panel by panel.

Brown, a 22-year-old Concord University student and graphic designer, releases [TK TITLE], a graphic story about the Waco, Texas, cook who grabbed an anti-aircraft gun he had never been trained on when Japanese planes hit Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Miller was born Oct. 12, 1919. Black By God: The West Virginian is publishing the graphic story as a digital flipbook and sharing it across BBG’s social channels starting today.

The latest: A fight over his name

The launch lands in the middle of a national fight over how Miller is remembered. In August, CNN reported that the Navy was weighing a new name for CVN-81, the Ford-class carrier announced in 2020 as the USS Doris Miller, with internal talk of naming it for President Donald Trump. As of Oct. 11, the Navy has not announced a decision.

Pushback has grown since. More than 70 House members, led by Reps. Kweisi Mfume, Wesley Bell and Marilyn Strickland, wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao urging them to keep Miller’s name, Mfume’s office announced. In early October, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey introduced bills that would bar federal money from being used to rename the ship, stop naming Navy ships for a sitting president or vice president, and require more transparency about how ships are named. No Navy response to the bills has been reported.

If the name holds, CVN-81 would be the first aircraft carrier named for an enlisted sailor and the first named for a Black American.

“Dorie Miller’s black history is American history that should not be erased.”

– Gavin Brown

From the park to the page

Brown’s interest started last summer. While designing graphics for the Lewisburg Surf Shop, he started asking about the name on his childhood park. Visits to the Greenbrier Historical Society and the North House Museum filled in the story, and he began working on a plan to re-brand Dorie Miller Park so more visitors would learn who it honors, RealWV reported in August.

When the carrier news broke, Brown told RealWV that removing Miller’s name would erase history. “He earned it,” he said.

“The experience I had with my internship at the Lewisburg Surf Shop was welcoming, creative and educational,” Brown said. “While volunteering on this amazing project for our local park, I learned that Dorie Miller’s black history is American history that should not be erased, forgotten, or renamed!”

Where the carrier stands

• The Navy has largely stopped calling the ship the USS Doris Miller internally and uses only its hull number, CVN-81, according to CNN’s sources.
• The decision rests with Hegseth and Cao, NBC News reported.
• Miller is under consideration for the Medal of Honor, but the White House has not approved it, according to NBC. The Navy has also discussed naming a different warship for him.
• Miller’s great-nephew, Thomas Bledsoe, said the family was not told about the possible change. He called the Medal of Honor effort very positive, CNN reported.
• The Black Veterans Project has urged the Navy to keep Miller’s name on the carrier, arguing another ship would not make up for it, theGrio reported.
• The Navy faces pressure to settle the name before the keel-laying, expected at the end of 2026, Marine Insight reported. Delivery is not expected until 2034.

Why Lewisburg claims him

Miller likely never set foot in Lewisburg. But in 1945, during segregation, Bolling School principal Earl Clay asked the city to rename the “Lewisburg Colored Recreational Center” behind the Black school for Miller, according to RealWV. It has been Dorie Miller Park ever since.

The Black Press said his name

Miller’s own name almost went unrecorded. After the attack, the Navy praised the heroism of an unnamed Black messman. Black newspapers wanted to know who he was. The Pittsburgh Courier, one of the most influential Black papers in the country, found out. On March 14, 1942, its headline read “Messman Hero Identified,” RealWV recounted.

The Black press and civil rights groups kept pushing for Miller to be honored. In May 1942, Admiral Chester Nimitz pinned the Navy Cross on him aboard the USS Enterprise. He was the first Black sailor to receive it. He was killed the next year, in 1943, when the escort carrier Liscome Bay was torpedoed in the Pacific.

The fight over how to honor him has not ended. His family has pushed for years for him to receive the Medal of Honor. Now the question is whether his name stays on the carrier.

Eighty-four years after the Courier said his name, a Black West Virginia press is saying it again, this time in the drawings of a young man who grew up in the park that carries it.

About the artist

Gavin Brown is senior at Concord University with a double major in graphic design and studio art. He was born and raised in Lewisburg, West Virginia and graduated from Greenbrier East High School in 2023. Attending Concord has allowed him to stay connected to his community while expanding him academically and artistically. [ Gavin’s IG] @gagin_plays_fools104