Aubrey Stewart Project Feb 22

West Virginia State University will host a presentation of the Aubrey Stewart Project at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, February 22 in the Culture Center Theater in the Capitol Complex. The event will take place on the eve of a resolution in the WV House of Delegates to name the road from Piedmont to Keyser West Virginia in honor of Aubrey Stewart.

The 333rd Field Artillery Battalion was an African-American unit of the then racially segregated United States Army during the Second World War. Piedmont, WV native, James Aubrey Stewart and his fellow soldiers of the 333rd were separated from their unit and captured by the German SS in Wereth, Belgium shortly after the Battle of the Bulge. Their lives ended tragically in one of the least understood, as well as unknown, war crimes of WWII.

Mr. T.J. Coleman, also of Piedmont, delivered his stirring account of the "Wereth Eleven" last year during WVSU's Founder’s Week. He has been invited back by the WVSU History and Culture Committee in appreciation of Aubrey Stewart’s heroism and of Mr. Coleman’s passion for securing Stewart’s place in West Virginia history.

On February 23, the West Virginia House of Delegates will vote on a resolution to rename the road which extends from Piedmont to Keyser in Mineral County, WV in honor of Aubrey Stewart. The resolution is being sponsored by Delegate Gary Howell.

Mr. Coleman’s presentation will run fifty minutes and the entire program is expected to run under an hour-and-a-half. WVSU President Hazo W. Carter, Jr. and First Lady Phyllis Carter are expected to participate.

To learn more about James Aubrey Stewart go to http://www.wvculture.org/history/wvmemory/vets/stewartjames/stewartjames.html