In 2019, Willet family members approached U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi about obtaining a Purple Heart for Sgt. Leander Willet, a member of an African American infantry regiment in World War I known as the “Harlem Hellfighters.”
On Tuesday, Sept. 3, six years later, Leander’s granddaughter, Debra Willet, accepted a Congressional Gold Medal in his honor in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
