Tag: African-American Soldiers

Hellraisers Journal: WEB Du Bois on Black Soldiers: “We Return. We Return from Fighting. We Return Fighting.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote WEB DuBois, Disfranchise Citizens, The Crisis p14———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 23, 1919
W. E. B. Du Bois on “Returning Soldiers”

From The Crisis of May 1919:

Cover The Crisis, Returning Soldiers DuBois, May 1919

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RETURNING SOLDIERS

We are returning from war! THE CRISIS and tens of thousands of black men were drafted into a great struggle. For bleeding France and what she means and has meant and will mean to us and humanity and against the threat of German race arrogance, we fought gladly and to the last drop of blood; for America and her highest ideals, we fought in far-off hope; for the dominant southern oligarchy entrenched in Washington, we fought in bitter resignation. For the America that represents and gloats in lynching, disfranchisement, caste, brutality and devilish insult—for this, in the hateful upturning and mixing of things, we were forced by vindictive fate to fight also.

But today we return! We return from the slavery of uniform which the world’s madness demanded us to don to the freedom of civil garb. We stand again to look America squarely in the face and call a spade a spade. We sing: This country of ours, despite all its better souls have done and dreamed, is yet a shameful land.

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Hellraisers Journal: W. E. B. Du Bois for The Crisis: 349th Field Artillery Regiment Admired for Gallantry by French Mayor

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote DuBois, WWI We Return, The Crisis, May 1919 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 4, 1918
French Mayor Bids Fond Farewell to 349th Field Artillery Regiment

Of the sojourn of yourself and your colored soldiers amongst us, we will keep the best memory and remember your regiment as a picked one. From the beginning a real brotherhood was established between your soldiers and our people who are glad to welcome the gallant Allies of our France.

From The Crises of November 1918:

WWI, Soldier on Battlefield, Cover The Crisis, Nov 1918

Opinion by W. E. B. Du Bois:

The Crisis, Opinion of WEB DuBois, Nov 1918

SOLDIERS

SLOWLY but surely the effort of the Government to satisfy just Negro public opinion increases: The registration card for the selective draft omits the inexcusable discrimination attached to the first registration; a colored correspondent has been sent to the front by the Public Information Bureau; a loan to Liberia has been announced; Haiti and Liberia were prominently featured among the Allies during Liberty Loan weeks; colored colleges have been designated as official military training schools, and there will be a colored man on the War Service Commission soon to go abroad.

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Hellraisers Journal: An Editorial From The Messenger: “The Hanging of the Negro Soldiers” on December 11, 1917

Janet RayeA. Philip Randolph
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How can America hold up its hands
in hypocritical horror at foreign barbarism
while the red blood of the Negro
is clinging to those hands?
-Hubert H. Harrison

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday January 9, 1918
“One law for the white man…and another for the black man.”

From The Messenger of January 1918:

THE HANGING OF THE NEGRO SOLDIERS
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Court Martial of 64 Members of 24th Infantry, Fort Sam Houston, ab Nov 1, 1917
Court Martial of 64 members of 24th Infantry at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio

The hanging of thirteen Negro soldiers for the shooting up in Houston, Texas, a few months ago marks the acme of national indiscretion, on the one hand, and the triumph of Southern race prejudice, on the other. THE MESSENGER is not prepared to pass upon the guilt or innocence of the colored men, but, for the sake of argument, we shall assume their guilt. We shall next proceed to compare the punishment of the Negro soldiers with other soldiers guilty of similar or greater offenses. And if we find that the punishment of the black soldiers has been harsher, sterner and more merciless than that meted out to the other races, we shall seek to find out what the cause of the difference was.

Briefly to compare. On the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of July in East St. Louis, white troops from Illinois in broad daylight, under the eyes of tens of thousands of people, shot, wounded and killed over one hundred Negroes without any reasonable or apparent provocation from the Negroes of East St. Louis. It was the most disgraceful and unabashed exhibition of mob violence ever known in the United States. Evidence against the soldiers was not circumstantial, but direct. It was also overwhelming and abundant. Yet in spite of the brazen, unmitigated contempt for the law, no white soldier was even apprehended or tried.

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