Sergeant Riley A. McCray, a Montford Point Marine, in his Service “A” Uniform. McCray is now 87 and resides in Oakland, Calif. McCray earned the Congressional Gold Medal by presidential order for being one of the 20,000 African-American Marines to serve in the Corps between 1942 and 1949 during a time of racism and segregation. “That was the worst thing that I have experienced in my life,” said McCray, who was from then-violent west Philadelphia. “It was worse than my neighborhood at the time.”