Veterans Day

Join us in honoring Veterans Day with a conversation with Edna W. Cummings about her book: A Soldier's Life: A Black Woman's Rise from Army Brat to Six Triple Eight Champion. A book signing will follow. Books will be available for purchase by Possible Futures.

Sponsored by the Afro American Cultural Center; American Legion Post 210; Commission on Women, Children, Seniors, Equity & Opportunity; Faculty Development, Office of the Provost; National Veterans Council for Legal Redress Inc.; Office of Community Engagement and Dialogue at Yale School of Management; The New Haven Club of The National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Club’s Inc.; Working Women’s Network; Yale Black Culture Network; Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration; Yale Library Staff Development & Engagement; and Yale Veteran and Military Affairs.

About Edna Cummings:

A Fayetteville, NC, native and Army brat, Col. Cummings is a distinguished alumni from Appalachian State University, Boone NC and its Army Reserve Officer Training Corps program. She had a distinguished 25-year military career including assignments at Georgetown University, the Pentagon, and NORAD/USNORTHCOM in Colorado Springs, Colorado. After retiring from the Army, she held management positions and led homeland security and information technology initiatives for federal contractors. She is Vice President of Windsor Group, LLC and an Army Reserve Ambassador for Maryland.

Col. Cummings works to bring recognition to the all-Black WWII Women’s Army Corps unit, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion (Six Triple Eight). She championed Congressional effort to enact passage of the Six Triple Eight Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2021, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Congress also enacted legislation to designate a Buffalo, NY postal facility as the Indiana Hunt-Martin Post Office. She co-produced two documentaries about the 6888th, The Six Triple Eight, and Two Wars.

She has a master’s degree in the Foundations of Education from Troy State University, Troy AL, and a Master of Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA. Her highest military award is the Defense Superior Service Medal. In 2020, she was inducted into the Army Women’s Foundation Hall of Fame and currently serves on their Board of Directors. In 2020, Military Officers Association of America recognized her as a national Changemaker and she received the 2022 the NAACP’s Jesse Brown Distinguished Leadership Award. The Center for Women Veterans named her as a 2023 Trailblazer and the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc., inducted her as an honorary member. In November 2023, the U.S. Army War College Foundation honored her as an Outstanding Alumnus and in January 2024, the Afro American Newspaper named her Person of the Year. Cummings is also a recipient of 2025 The Daughters of American Revolution Medal of Honor and recognized as a Mighty 25. Through her advocacy, the 6888th’s history has reached millions of audiences worldwide. In May 2025 the University of Virgina Press released her memoir, A Soldier’s Life: A Black Woman’s Rise from Army Brat to Six Triple Eight Champion.