The HistoryMakers and World War I

Hello! I need to say off the bat that this was a very weird (read: bad) week for me. Not only did I contract Covid-19 from my roommate (during Black History Month, of all months), but I also had a death in the family. I’m not feeling sick anymore, which is good, but I have to admit that it was overall not a productive week for me.

But, hey. C’est la vie. Que será, será. Whatever. Today I’m going to write a bit about what I learned from the HistoryMakers Digital Archive about Black involvement in World War I. Not for any particular or newsy reason; I just sort of woke up with the inclination to see what HistoryMakers had to say about World War I. So I did.

I’m by no means an expert in World War I, but as a historian, I’d say my knowledge is… decent. With regards to African-American soldiers who served in the conflict, I was already aware before going into this research that they served in segregated units and were typically not in combat, on account of a prevailing white supremacist belief that Black men were incapable of being good soldiers. I knew that America’s most famous World War I officer, John J. “Blackjack” Pershing, got that nickname (which was originally Nigger Jack) because he initially commanded Black soldiers. I knew that those few units that did see combat were attached to the army of France, whose soldiers (or at least their officers) were less averse to the notion of serving alongside Black men. Lastly, I knew a bit about the famous 369th Infantry Regiment, better known as the “Harlem Hellfighters”—a nickname they received from their German adversaries.

To be honest, a lot of what I knew came from a graphic novel written by Max Brooks (son of Mel Brooks) and illustrated by Canaan White. It’s definitely worth checking out if you haven’t read it.

The cover of the Harlem Hellfighters graphic novel created by Max Brooks and Canaan White.

You might also remember that I’m big into genealogy. I learned about a decade ago that my grandfather, Richard Turner of Norfolk, Virginia, served in the U.S. Army in the last year of World War I. Born sometime between 1896 and 1898, he was still a young man when he was conscripted into the service. As far as I know, he served briefly overseas in France in the last year of the war—but I don’t think he saw combat. He reportedly did not like to discuss his time in the Army, and apparently never told his daughter (my grandmother) that much about it.

My great-grandfather’s draft registration card from 1917, taken from Ancestry.com.

The HistoryMakers Digital Archive is just the sort of resource one might use if they wanted to learn about the experiences of some Black people in World War I. Not only are some of the older HistoryMakers old enough to remember the war themselves, but many more of them can tell us about their parents or older relatives who were directly involved in it. So, I’m going to briefly take you through some of the most interesting clips I found in my perusal of the Digital Archive.

In a couple of different clips, academic administrator Robert L. Green (born 1933), relayed in considerable detail the things his father Thomas, a World War I veteran, told him. A lot of what he said was indicative of the lack of respect afforded to Black men in uniform that pervaded the twentieth century. “All the officers [in charge of Black soldiers in World War I] were white, non-commissioned [officer (NCO)] and commissioned officers [CO], were white,” Green said in his interview. “And all the troops were black. And he didn't talk a lot about the conflict. Whether he saw direct action or not, I don't know, but there was direct action. And I would imagine he was a part of it, but he was able to make it back to the [United] States [of America]. And he often talked about how--that's how the first impression I had about the conflict that faced blacks, especially black men who would fight abroad for America, and come back to the South, or to America, and be treated as they were treated, in a very difficult way. For example, my dad said he never wore his uniform once he returned to the South, and even Detroit [Michigan] because black soldiers were targets. If a black soldier, my dad would tell me, would travel South with his uniform on, whites would assume he was uppity.”

Another interesting tidbit I found was from the interview with journalist Chuck Stone, whose father Charles was also a soldier in the war. Stone repeated something I heard in a few other interviews—that some of the Black Americans who served in France returned home with a thorough knowledge of the French language.

“He tells a wonderful anecdote, my father spoke French a little bit, he was pretty good at speaking French and he tells a story,” Stone stated in hi They were marching in the, on a hike, backpacks, it was hot, it was a very hot day, really terrible and so the French women saw, le soldat noir, the black soldiers and they dug the black soldiers 'cause they were such a unique, I think they'd never seen black soldiers there. "Ah bonjour monsieur, monsieur, le son da noir. Bonjour! Comment ca va? Comment ca va?" How are you? And so on, and said it was so hot, and they said, "Ah monsieur, il fait chaud." He means it's hot, il fait chaud, C-H-A-U-D. "Il fait chaud, il fait chaud," and my father said, they all looked at him and said, "Il fait chaud, il fait chaud," and they looked in and they said, "Il fait chaud, il fait chaud," and my father said one of the soldiers said, "It sho' am ma'am, it sho' am." (Laughter) That's called com- cultural communication, il fait chaud, it sho' am.”

But perhaps the most interesting interview, for me, was that of Janet Angel MacLachlan. MacLachlan was of Jamaican heritage, and both of her parents were from that country. Her father, James McLachlan, served in World War I, but as a member of the British Army—since Jamaica was still part of the British Empire and would not gain its independence until 1962. Here’s some of what she had to say about his service:

“So that meant he [her father] was about nineteen years old, nineteen. Twenty,” MacLachlan said. “He, he joined the Army, the British Army. They had a West Indian division [British West Indies Regiment], and he went to war for England. He ended up in Italy, and he ended up as a, as a sergeant. He said that, that, in the British Army a black soldier could only go so high. But he ended up as the highest because he could read and write and, and because he was very flowery, you know. And so, he spent his time in the Army in Italy. When he came back to Jamaica, he and a friend went to Panama. They were building the [Panama] Canal, and he went to Panama. And because he could read and write and because he was so literate, somebody had found a letter that he'd written to his mother, and they called them into the office and they wanted to know, "Did you write this," because they thought, my God, this black man wrote this letter. And he said, "Yes, it's my mother," and they gave him an office job. He was, he wasn't there very long. A friend, another friend came by and offered him the adventure of going to sea. So, they left, they left Panama, and they got on this boat, or this ship, whatever it was, and he ended up in New York [New York]. By that time, he said that my--the four sisters, the four of my aunts that I spent the most time with were already in New York. He was going to look for them. He thought that they may have left New York and gone up to Massachusetts or what have you. At any rate, he stopped in New York, and he ran into them on the street. So he stayed in New York, and some years later he met my mother [Iris South MacLachlan] in church [First Church of Illumination, New York, New York].”

So, overall, my foray into researching this particular topic was pretty interesting and I learned a considerable deal! Of course, had I more time, I might’ve been able to report back with more research findings from the extensive Digital Archive. But, this’ll have to do for now.

It’s going to be a busy week for me, as I do my darnedest to drum up participation for my Digital Archive contest. Stay tuned for news about how that goes!