Edgar C. Robertson Jr. was born at Richmond, Virginia on Jan. 23, 1921. His father was a laborer at a tile works and his mother, Inez Haynes Robertson, a servant for a family.

The June 18, 1930 Census said the Robertson household, which then included nine children ages 15 to not quite one, lived in the Brookland district of Henrico County northwest of Richmond. The mother died in November 1933 of kidney disease and septicemia. 

Edgar Jr., who was black, attended the segregated Virginia Randolph High School at Glen Allen, Virginia, for at least one year, ending in 1938.

He also served in Yorktown, Virginia, in Co. 352 of the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Depression-era federal jobs program. The CCC, as it was known, employed single men 18 to 25 to plant trees, build roads and trails and make other improvements to public land, forests and parks. The men lived at camps across the country and were provided a bed and three meals a day. Of their $30 monthly pay, $25 was sent to their families. Mr. Robertson served in a segregated company that worked at Colonial National Historical Park.

He enlisted in the Navy on June 12, 1940. Mr. Robertson was a mess attendant third class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

Because he was African-American, the messman branch was the only job open to him in the Navy, which had been segregated since the administration of President Woodrow Wilson. Messmen cooked, cleaned, and performed other services. The branch also included men from Guam and the Philippines. They could advance to become a steward or cook for officers, but that was their limit. Jobs with greater skill and pay were off-limits.

Sources: Census; Virginia death and marriage records; military registration form; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; Virginia birth record. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.