The Golden Thirteen
Verdict: Mostly accurate, with some overstatement about intent.
Credibility score: 78/100 · 5 claims checked · 4 accurate, 1 misleading, 0 false, 0 unsupported.
TikTok · The MBA Shop · 2:18 · Jul 21, 2026
The video gets the basic history right about the Navy’s first Black officers, but it overstates why the training program was created and how certain the “set up to fail” narrative is.
Claim-by-claim breakdown
- Accurate (98% confidence): In 1944, the U.S. Navy commissioned its first Black officers, known as the Golden Thirteen. The Navy’s history page says the Golden Thirteen were the first African-American Navy officers, commissioned in 1944; Naval Institute sources likewise describe them as the first Black officers commissioned in March 1944.
- Accurate (93% confidence): The Navy had never commissioned a Black officer before 1944. Official Navy sources say there were no Black officers in the Navy in January 1944 and that the Golden Thirteen became the first African-American Navy officers later that year.
- Accurate (96% confidence): The Navy created an accelerated officer training course for 16 Black enlisted men at Great Lakes in early 1944, and 13 of them were commissioned on March 17, 1944. Navy and Naval Institute sources describe 16 Black enlisted men reporting to Great Lakes in January 1944, and the official photo/records show the commissioning date as March 17, 1944.
- Misleading (71% confidence): The training was specifically designed to prove Black men were unfit for leadership. Sources support that the men expected the course to be a possible setup and that Navy leaders were reluctant. They do not directly prove that the course was explicitly created with the declared purpose of disproving Black leadership…
- Accurate (84% confidence): The men studied by flashlight through the night and eventually achieved a 3.89 average, the highest class average in Navy history at the time. Official Navy history and Time report the 3.89 average as the highest in Navy history at the time. Oral-history sources describe the men studying late at night and drilling each other; the flashlight detail is consistent with those…
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