DIVER’S DAUGHTER TELLS THE CONNECTION TO MOVIE
The story of Sherman Byrd’s determination to become a Navy diver in the 1950s quickly calls to mind the life of Carl Brashear, who was played by Cuba Gooding Jr. in the 2000 movie inspired by his life, “Men of Honor.”
After all, both were the sons of sharecroppers, and both were Black men who overcame racism in a newly desegregated military to become pioneering Black divers in the Navy. And they knew each other well — they were even neighbors, living a couple of blocks apart in a segregated housing development in Portsmouth, Virginia.
Cynthia Byrd Conner, of Jacksonville, one of Byrd’s six daughters, shared with the Times-Union the story of her father who died at just 40. During his journey, she noted the connections with Brashear and told how she went to school with his sons DaWayne, who was a year ahead of her, and Phillip, who was two or three years behind her. The families also occasionally visited each other’s homes.
She told how about 10 months before he died in 2006, Brashear reached out to Conner by telephone, eager to talk and intent on clearing up something that had been bothering him.
He told Conner, “I just want to tell you girls that I never said I was the first Black deep sea diver. Your dad was. I wasn’t even the second, I was third.”
By then on an oxygen machine, he had to pause frequently as he explained that filmmakers regularly take creative detours with the facts and that if moviegoers got the wrong impression about his place in history, he wanted to correct it with her family.
“He said how important it was that he made sure that we knew that,” Conner said.
Brashear was indeed the first Black U.S. Navy diver and in 1970 became the first Black master diver.
Byrd, though, was the first Black service member to become an explosive ordnance disposal technician and had another prestigious first to call his own. Conner shared a recent email she received from a historian in the office of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who did some research and shared these distinctions.
In 1954, Brashear became the first Black sailor to graduate from the Navy Salvage Training and Diving School. Shortly afterward in April 1955, Byrd became the first Black sailor to graduate from the Deep Sea Diving School.
The historian noted that “it seems like both your father and Carl Brashear share firsts.”
Conner said she was touched by Brashear’s call and thanked him for making the effort.
“I said, ‘Mr. Brashear, everything is fine. I loved the movie. My parents always said you were a good diver. It’s fine. I comforted him because that was something on his heart.’”