Pea Island Life-Saving Station was a life-saving station on Pea Island, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was the first life-saving station in the country to have an all-black crew, and it was the first in the nation to have a black man, Richard Etheridge, as commanding officer. On August 3, 2012, the second of the Coast Guard's 154-foot Sentinel-Class Cutters, USCGC Richard Etheridge (WPC-1102), was commissioned in his honor.

Richard Etheridge was born a slave on January 16, 1842, the son and the property of John B. Etheridge, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Large plantations didn't exist in the Outer Banks; African Americans were relatively few and slavery limited. During his early life, Richard Etheridge, like most Outer Bankers, learned to work the sea, fishing, piloting boats, and combing the beach for the refuse of wrecks. Even though it was illegal to do so, his master also taught him to read and write.

After the outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861, the Outer Banks were the site of one of the first Northern invasions, in February 1862. General Ambrose Burnside, the Union commander, employed black labor to build fortifications for his armies, and the island soon became a refugee camp for fugitive slaves. The Union eventually realized the potential that the active recruitment of Southern blacks offered their forces, not only by bolstering the Union ranks but by simultaneously diminishing the opposition's labor supply. Black troops began being enlisted by the summer of 1863; Richard Etheridge joined on August 28 of that year.

The 36th United States Colored Troops, in which Etheridge enlisted, spent much of its first year of active duty like most of the other black units in the Union Army—playing secondary roles. After limited anti-guerrilla actions in North Carolina, the soldiers of the 36th served as guards at the prisoner-of-war camp at Point Lookout, Maryland, occasionally raiding into neighboring Virginia for contraband goods: supplies, horses, cattle, or slaves. Necessity eventually allowed the 36th to play a more prominent role in the fight for freedom and union. The 36th distinguished itself during the September 1864 Battle of New Market Heights, Virginia. During the fighting, the Union forces overran Lee's strong position and won an important victory on the road to take the Confederate capital at Richmond. Etheridge was promoted to sergeant two days after the battle. While fighting on the front to end slavery, Etheridge was also active in the struggle behind Union lines to end the mistreatment of blacks. During his duty in Virginia in 1865, he and William Benson drafted the following letter to Major General Oliver O. Howard, the Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, protesting the mistreatment that blacks on Roanoke Island were suffering at the hands of the occupying army. "[T]he white soldiers break into our houses act as they please steal our chickens rob our gardens and if anyone defends their-Selves against them they are taken to the guardhouse for it, so our families have no protection when Mr. Streeter is here to protect them and will not do it." Etheridge and Benson's letter was not merely a cry of grievance but was also a call for action. "General we the soldiers of the 36th U.S. Co Troops having families at Roanoke Island humbly petition you to favor us by removing Mr. Streeter the present Asst Supt at Roanoke Island under Captain James." Etheridge signed the letter, "on behalf of humanity."

At the War's close, Etheridge, now a Regimental Commissary Sergeant, and the black troops of the Army of the James were regrouped into the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry and sent to Texas. These units would become known as the "Buffalo Soldiers." Instances of abuse against black soldiers were rife in the period immediately following the Civil War. The men were due ten months back-pay, had had their rations cut in half, and were unruly over the continued reports of mistreatment that were coming from their families back home.

In December 1866, Etheridge left the service at Brazos Santiago, Texas. He returned to the Outer Banks, where he married. Etheridge made his living fishing and serving in the newly formed Life-Saving Service, first at Oregon Inlet in 1875, then at Bodie Island.

In the early years, nepotism and political cronyism tainted many Life-Saving Service appointments. A series of highly publicized maritime disasters off the North Carolina coast appeared to be leading to the annexation of the LSS into the Navy. In two months, 188 lives and more than a half million dollars in property was lost off the Outer Banks, within sight and with little or inexpert assistance from the lifesavers on shore. The New York World reported, "It begins to be painfully clear that the terrible loss of Human life … on the North Carolina coast … must be attributed directly to the inefficiency of the Life-Saving Service."

In 1879, the commander of the Pea Island station (called a "keeper") was a white man and he had a crew of both white and black men. A rescue effort in November 1879 was bungled, and the keeper and some of the crew were held responsible. The Revenue Cutter Service investigated the situation, fired the white keeper, and appointed in his place Richard Etheridge, one of the best surfmen on the North Carolina coast, to serve as keeper.