Wiggins, Jefferson “Jeff”, born 22-02-1925, in rural Alabama, 
United States. to Clemon Wiggens and his wife Essie Mae, born Dawson Wiggins. As a son of sharecroppers, 
he had little opportunity to attend school.
Jefferson enlisted in the United States Army 
as a teenager, escaping a life of crippling poverty and racism.
The peasant family in which he grew up lived on the land that his father rented from a rich landowner. He hardly enjoyed any education. The Ku Klux Klan 
ruled the area where he grew up. For Jeff, the army meant an escape, not just from a poor life without any prospects, but especially from the racism he no longer wanted to endure.
Jefferson Wiggins was 16 years old when he was recruited in his hometown of Dothan to go to the Netherlands during World War II. Dr. Wiggins served in Europe during World War II. He was one of the few black officers of that era.
Black American soldiers were deployed as gravediggers. 
They only served at the front shortly before the end of the war.
Jeff was a soldier in the war but never saw direct combat. Like the majority of African-Americans who donned uniforms during World War II, he was on the wrong side of a segregated Army, one that generally relegated them to jobs as laborers or restricted them to positions, which supported white troops performing the most critical missions.
Despite their places behind the scenes, Wiggins and his unit members literally found themselves face-to-face with the horrors of war – not as a result of wielding weapons of destruction – but clutching shovels and tossing dirt at a Netherlands cemetery, where they buried thousands of white Americans, who had died doing so.
The first body Jeff had to bury in Margraten was that of a German girl. Her head was partially blown open by a grenade, and there were fifteen bullet holes in her back. “We brought her over from the American side of the cemetery to the ‘enemy section’.” Jeff was 19 when he was stationed in South Limburg in the fall of 1944 with the 960th Quartermaster Service Company, along with the 313th Quartermaster Service Planning. Both companies were made up of African American soldiers.
In the vast fields of Margraten, they dug graves with shovels and picks and buried fallen soldiers. “During the sometimes ten hours a day they were digging, there was fear in the air,” Jeff said. Or maybe it was sadness. Every day was the same, yet you never got used to it. Military trucks drove back and forth with new corpses, which were often in a state of decomposition or severely mutilated. The stench lingered around us long after we were back in Gronsveld. It was absolutely filthy work. With that, the black soldiers laid the foundation for the only American war cemetery in the Netherlands. 8,300 soldiers are buried there, including 171 African Americans.
Toward the end of the war, due to heavy losses, Black soldiers were also deployed on the front lines. The 784th Tank Battalion, composed of African Americans, 
drove the Germans out of Venlo, Netherlands in March 1945.
Upon returning from Europe, he was awarded a high school diploma in his hometown of Dothan, Alabama and went on to study Political Science at Tennessee State University. 
As a reserve officer, he was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. After leaving the military, he taught for many years in both Alabama and New Jersey. His first book, White Cross, Black Crucifixion, 
documented his experience as the Director of Community Programs for a small, private New Jersey college during the turbulent 1960’s. His memoir, Another Generation, Almost Forgotten, 
was his most recent work. Since his retirement in 1991, Dr. Wiggins worked with school systems and colleges throughout Connecticut, serving as a mentor, guest speaker, and advisor. He was also a frequent guest speaker at military functions throughout the region, providing support for education initiatives and family support programs sponsored by the Connecticut National Guard. 
He was privileged to hold a book signing at the Pentagon and was honored to be the keynote speaker at the United States Military Academy at West Point 
on the occasion of the 100th Night Dinner for the 2009 graduating class. In 2009, as the guest of the Dutch government, Dr. Wiggins delivered the keynote address at the 65th anniversary celebration of the liberation of the Netherlands by Allied forces during World War II. 
In 1999, Dr. Wiggins was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Briarwood College, where he had been a Distinguished Visiting Professor. In 2001, the National Association for Multicultural Education named him Multicultural Educator of the Year for the State of Connecticut. Along with his wife, Janice, 
he founded the Wiggins Fund, a donor advised fund of the New Fairfield Community Foundation. The fund supported programs and initiatives that benefited children, promoted multicultural education, encouraged diversity, enabled mentoring, or contributed to building a more open and civil society.
Death and burial ground of Dr Jefferson Wiggins.
Dr Jefferson Wiggins passed away 09-01-2013 (age 87) in New Fairfield, Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. and is buried at Mountain View Cemetery New Fairfield, Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. 30 Mountain Ave, Bloomfield, CT 06002. Section R – 6.
Dr Wiggens is survived by his devoted wife, Janice, his sister, Freddie Mae Tucker of Dothan, Alabama, his brother, Glennie Wiggins, also of Dothan, a son, Kenneth Darryl Wiggins, his loving granddaughter, Felicia Wiggins of Hillside, New Jersey and her son, Malcolm, his grandson, Kevin Wiggins of Indian Head, Maryland and a host of grandchildren, nieces and nephews.
As a Black soldier, along with many others, Jefferson Wiggins 
fought against the Nazis and against racism in his own country. They trained, ate, slept, and relaxed strictly separately from their white colleagues. When dark-skinned soldiers were on a train, the shutters had to be closed to prevent people outside from seeing them. Black soldiers were not allowed to go to the front lines but were deployed in support units and held low ranks. They were responsible for supplying depots and front-line troops. Even the blood they donated was separated from that of white soldiers. We had to bury them. When they were alive, we couldn’t be in the same room.
This is his story – and that of 1.2 million African American soldiers – that has now been erased from the American military cemetery Margraten in my country, the Netherlands, out of fear of the deranged President Donald Trump. 171 African American boys are buried there, and gravestones have disappeared because of their skin color?
Now the world’s largest democracy, eighty years later, is fighting the world’s biggest, most deranged RACIST with a segregated army.
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