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From ABC-CLIO's The African American Experience website https://africanamerican2.abc-clio.com/

Military Service in World War I African Americans proved themselves able soldiers in World War I. While stationed in Europe, many Black soldiers experienced for the �rst time white people who welcomed their aid and enjoyed their company. These experiences overseas made the prospect of returning to a segregated South unappealing to a number of Black soldiers.

Draft and Assignments

More than 96% of the 367,710 Black people who served during World War I were conscripted. African Americans formed 13% of the wartime army even though they represented only 10% of the civilian population at the time. There were several reasons for this. During the limited time that the army accepted volunteers, it reserved only 4,000 slots for African Americans; therefore, there were many able-bodied Black men available to draft. Southern draft boards proved notoriously unsympathetic to Black claims for deferments, as fears circulated that the draft would drain Southern communities of all their white men. In addition, Black servicemen were paid $30 a month, which was a signi�cant raise for many Black workers and made it easier to support their families while in uniform.

Within the military, Black soldiers found themselves disproportionately assigned to labor and service positions rather than to combat units. African Americans made up approximately one-third of the army's laboring units and one-thirtieth of its combat force. Noncombatant work was essential in a modern army that assigned more than 60% of its total force to positions that helped train, transport, and supply the frontline forces. Despite the importance of noncombatant work to the overall war e�ort, these were still considered low-status assignments given to troops who did not have the physical or mental ability to �ght in the trenches along the Western Front. Assignment to a noncombatant post in the rear did not even protect Black troops from death because the in�uenza pandemic of 1918 hit domestic training camps, troop transport ships, and rear-area camps particularly hard. Many civil rights leaders initially hoped that the example of Black troops �ghting valiantly for their country would help undermine the entire Jim Crow system. Limited opportunities to �ght, however, meant few chances for African Americans to demonstrate their equality to white America. Instead of receiving consideration from a grateful nation, civil rights groups realized midway through the war that they would have to demand and insist upon the end of discrimination and segregation, a crusade that Black veterans enthusiastically joined when they returned home.

Experiences in France

Black people served in segregated units and were often commanded by white o�cers. Only 1,200 (less than 1%) of the 200,000 o�cers who held commissions during the war were Black. More than 40,000 Black troops served in the two combat divisions reserved for African Americans, the 92nd and 93rd divisions. The 92nd saw limited combat in France. After one of its regiments performed poorly at the beginning of the Meuse-Argonne o�ensive in September 1918, the division spent the rest of the war trying to redeem its reputation. The 93rd Division existed only on paper, composed solely of four infantry regiments that spent the war serving under the French. The 369th Infantry Regiment, a National Guard regiment from New York popularly known as the Harlem Hell�ghters, boasted the most illustrious war record of all Black units during the war and served for 191 days at the front, the longest of any American regiment. The 369th and two other infantry regiments of the 93rd Division all received the Croix de Guerre from the French in recognition of their bravery under �re. The 369th also claimed the most celebrated Black heroes of the war, Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts, as their own. On the night of

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May 14, 1918, Johnson and Roberts fought o� a patrol of 25 Germans who attacked them as they sat in a listening post in no-man's land. The two were severely wounded but lived to return home to acclaim within the Black community.

The positive experiences of the 200,000 Black troops who went to France during the war extended beyond the French willingness to use them as combat troops and decorate deserving units with military medals. Behind the lines, Black troops found the white French population welcoming and eager to make contact with the American troops who had come to help them drive the Germans out of their country. Angered by the hospitality the French bestowed on American Black troops, American white soldiers tried to transport American-style racism to foreign soil by warning the French that Black people had tails and were all rapists and thieves. The willingness of French women to date African American soldiers was a particular point of controversy between white and Black troops. As a result, racial violence between white and Black American soldiers overseas was common. Army o�cials tried to stop racial confrontations by reserving French villages for one race or prohibiting Black soldiers from appearing in public with respectable French women. These measures only slightly curtailed contact between African American soldiers and the French civilian population and instead mostly served to underscore the racist character of the American army to its Black troops. By the Armistice on November 11, 1918, the image of France as a color- blind society that alone understood the true meaning of democracy was solidly established among Black troops.

Military service gave large numbers of Black soldiers their �rst experiences outside the South when they trained in Northern training camps or served overseas in France. Both experiences gave African American troops a taste of living in a society that, if not exempt from all racial prejudices, was at least free of legal segregation and disfranchisement. Many Black veterans thus resolved to join the Great Migration of Black Southerners and seek their fortunes in the North. Jennifer D. Keene Further Reading

Barbeau, Arthur E., and Florette Henri. The Unknown Soldiers: African American Troops in World War I. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1974; New York: Da Capo Press, 1996; Ellis, Mark. Race, War, and Surveillance: African Americans and the United States Government during World War I. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001; Keene, Jennifer. Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001; Schneider, Mark Robert. We Return Fighting: The Civil Rights Movement in the Jazz Age. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2002.

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Image Credits

Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts: National Archives

APA Citation Keene, J. D. (2024). Military Service in World War I. The American Mosaic: The African American Experience. Retrieved June 23, 2024, from https://africanamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1400516   http://africanamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1400516? sid=1400516&cid=0&oid=0&subId=0&view=print&lang=&useConcept=False Entry ID: 1400516

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