In the Shadows No More

Horace Pippin. Jim Europe. Noble Sissel. Henry Johnson. Napoleon Bonaparte Marshall. Until now their names sounded only in the roll call of history.

They were the 369th Infantry Regiment; the first African American regiment mustered to fight in WWI. And Thursday night author Peter Nelson told their story.

Nelson wrote "A More Unbending Battle: The Harlem Hellfighters' Struggle for Freedom in WWI and Equality at Home."

Not allowed to fight alongside white American soldiers, they were assigned to the French. The Germans nicknamed them the Harlem Hellfighters. They were porters, bellhops, doctors, and lawyers.

The intimate gathering at the Wilton Library listened while Nelson spoke of their courage.

"They fought for a country they thought would exist when they got home," said Nelson, who lives in South Salem, NY. "They saw themselves as legitimate American soldiers."

When World War I started, church ministers argued whether their congregants should fight, Nelson said. After all, blacks had no civil rights. Lynching was common, and racial violence rampant.

In fact, a mob in Waco, Texas lynched Jesse Washington, one of the first black recruits. Thousands watched and cheered.

Still they volunteered.

Jim Europe, a famous musician, was like a patriotic pied piper. Crowds in Harlem followed him down the street while he played. They followed him straight to the recruiting office.

Eight black combat regiments served.  The rest were in service and supply. The men trained in various camps, including Camp Wadsworth riots in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

But fearing racial violence, the troops were deployed early, their training cut short, Nelson said. On New Years Eve, 1918 they arrived in France aboard the Pocahontas.

White officers led the black troops.

"To be a white officer of a black troop was not a road to advancement," Nelson said. "But some thought they should be treated with equality."

Colonel William Hayward was one of those officers. Like Robert Gould Shaw who led the 54th Massachusetts during the Civil War, Hayward believed these men deserved no less than their nation's loyalty.

Hamilton Fish was another officer with the 369th. After the war, Fish served in Congress.  He worked tirelessly for a Federal anti-lynching law. Fish died in 1991 at age 102.

Two hundred anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress during the first half of the 20th Century. The House approved three, the Senate none.

Because of segregation, the men were assigned to the French.  They wore French helmets and carried the Lebel rifle.

In the end they served 191 days in combat, the most out of any American there. They never gave up an inch of ground. And they were the first regiment to reach the Rhine River.

They received the French Croix de Guerre and Legion of Honor, but no Medal of Honor. The War Department said they weren't eligible because they were assigned to the French, Nelson said, not even after Henry Johnson fought a virtual one-man battle on May 18, 1918.

Alone in No Man's Land, Johnson emptied his rifle.   He then killed four more Germans with his trenching tool. Johnson was shot 16 times. The skirmish came to be known the 'Battle of Henry Johnson.'

Wayward wanted glory for his men, Nelson said. So he convinced Irvin S. Cobb, a southern journalist, to write a piece. Cobb, actually a racist, wrote a positive story and it ran in The Saturday Evening Post.

However, Johnson never received any recognition. Years after the war, suffering from what is now called post-traumatic stress disorder, Johnson turned to drugs and alcohol. His wife divorced him.  He died broken and penniless in a Veterans Administration hospital.

The War Department buried him in Arlington Cemetery, but didn't bother to tell his family. They didn't know where he was buried until 2001.

In recent years both Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer campaigned with others for Johnson's recognition, to no avail.

Nelson started his book in 2001. By the end of the project he slept only three to four hours a night.

 "I really felt committed to conveying this story. This was undiscovered," Nelson said. "I'm a historian, sort of. But not an academic."

The only other work written about the 369th was published in 1936.

Nelson has been published in Harper's, Esquire, Men's Health, Outside, and Rolling Stone. His most recent book before this was "Left for Dead".

When the 369th came home not allowed to march in Rainbow Parade, told black wasn't a color of the rainbow, that summer race riots began across the US, hence the name: "Red Summer."

Still, Nelson said these troops inspired thousands of black.  They began change.

"One kind of America ended with that war, and another kind of America started," Nelson said.

The troops wore bellhop uniforms and carried broomsticks for their first parade through the streets of New York. When they came home they carried rifles and wore true American uniforms.

But the struggle wasn't over. American troops would not be desegregated until 1946 when President Harry S Truman signed Executive Order 9981.