Lawrence demonstrated leadership qualities and ambition while growing up. He was tall, lean, and athletic, with chocolate brown skin and a narrow, handsome face with high cheekbones. At Milton High School and Cunningham Gym, Lawrence was captain of the basketball team, and he excelled in baseball, football, and track. When he graduated, he apprenticed and learned how to operate and repair elevator machinery, then took a job as an elevator operator at the Boston Custom House, a good, solid occupation that paid decently.15

After the United States entered the Great War in 1917, Lawrence dutifully enlisted in the United States Army to honor his country. He wouldn’t be the first Powell to serve. A relative, John Powell, had been in the 39th United States Colored Troops (USCT) Regiment Infantry in Baltimore for the Union Army in 1864–1865, during the Civil War.16 Once Lawrence cleared his physical, he left Milton and moved to Camp Zachary Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, as different from Massachusetts as any state could get.

Camp Zachary Taylor, named after the twelfth president, was once the country’s largest training facility for soldiers during World War I. Kentucky was a former slave state, and every aspect of its society was completely segregated; the U.S. military was no exception. And the role of black men in the army was minimized and diminished, similar to their standing in society. Ray Elliott, an African American veteran whose father fought in the Great War, learned about the racist treatment his father received in the army. “Growing up, my dad never talked about his experience,” said Elliott. His father was in the 92nd Division, the all-black regiment in the United States military sent to France under the direction of the French military because no American commander wanted to be in charge of black troops. “They felt that they weren’t good warriors and not good fighters, so . . . the French government took them under their command, and it was very exciting the fact that his regiment performed so meritoriously that the French government awarded them, the highest honor, the Croix de Guerre.”17

But most black soldiers, including Lawrence, didn’t see combat or serve overseas during the Great War. They usually maintained equipment or provided some labor reinforcement, roles typically without fanfare, prestige, or authority, let alone opportunities to rise through the ranks. For Milton-born Lawrence, who had enjoyed a comfortable and liberal upbringing, Kentucky would have been his first real encounter with a southern state and its mores. But if there were incidents of racism by white commanding officers or local Louisville residents stationed near the base, it had little impact on Lawrence, because he excelled in the army. In 1918, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant, garnering him a mention in the Milton Record with the headline “‘Larry’ Powell Wins Commission.”18