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Well said, @AndreaWillWrite! @MLDoyleauthor, @msdc14. Thread: a list of some of the books about black women in military history thatrough @tracycrow1 & I found in writing It’s My Country Too: 1/
Taylor, Susie King. A Black Woman’s Civil War Memoirs: Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops, Late 1st South Carolina Volunteers. Edited by Patricia W. Romero. New York: Markus Seiner, 1988. 2/
Telford, Emma P. “Harriet: The Modern Moses of Heroism and Visions.” 1905. The Telford Manuscript. Cayuga Museum of History and Art, Auburn, NY. 3/
Burrell, Prudence (Hathaway) Burns. Hathaway. Harlo, 1997. (Memoir, African-American nurse who was not allowed to treat white patients because of her race.) 4/
Earley, Charity Adams. One Woman’s Army: A Black Officer Remembers the WAC. Texas A&M University Military History Series 12. College Station: Texas A&M University, 1989. 5/
Burton, Cora. If I Don’t Laugh, I’ll Cry Forever: My War Experience in Vietnam. Copyright Lieutenant Colonel Cora L. Burton. Printed by Central Plains Book Manufacturing, 2005. 6/
Cleckley, Julia Jeter, Brigadier General (Ret.), with M. L. Doyle. A Promise Fulfilled: My Life as a Wife and Mother, Soldier and General Officer. CreateSpace, 2014. 7/
Johnson, Shoshana, and M. L. Doyle. I’m Still Standing. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010. Print. Memoir: Army, OIF, POW. 8/
Armour, Vernice. Zero to Breakthrough: The 7-Step, Battle-Tested Method for Accomplishing Goals that Matter 9/
Tucker, Philip Thomas. Cathy Williams: From Slave to Buffalo Soldier. 10/
I know that list is missing a few! There are also some remarkable black military women whose stories are not yet documented in book form: /11
Sally St. Clare, KIA at the Battle of Savannah; the 1st woman killed in action in the service of the United States (1778) /12
The black women nurses and the black women who cross-dressed to fight alongside men during the American Civil War; /13
Mary Bowser, a formerly enslaved woman in Richmond who was literate, had a photographic memory, & posed as an illiterate slave to gain employment in the Confederate White House, where she spied in Jefferson Davis & his staff & reported on their plans to Union headquarters; /14
The 100 black contract nurses—a few trained in nursing at Tuskegee University—recruited serve in the Spanish-American War b/c white doctors believed women of color had “natural immunity” to tropical diseases like malaria & typhoid (4 died of typhoid); /15
Eileen Coleman, the most senior of 18 black Army Nurse Corps nurses who volunteered in WWI but were not sent to nurse the 200K black men fighting in Europe—they were called to active duty to serve stateside caring for soldiers suffering from influenza AFTER the Armistice; /16
Diane Lindsay, Army Nurse Corps, who earned the Soldier’s Medal (highest Army award for valor in a non-combat situation) for disarming a confused wounded soldier who’d thrown 1 grenade & was about to pull the pin on another; and /17
My personal heroines, the Golden Fourteen—the first black women to serve officially in uniform (US Navy, WWI, female yeomen). I’ve been researching their story for 2 years, almost ready to write the article, would LOVE to read a novel about them! /18
From a historical perspective, black women were at the forefront of women’s integration into the US armed forces—insisting on inclusion when most white women were content to wait for men to get over themselves & “allow” women to serve to the fullest of their ability. /20
Black women novelists, please write these stories as historical fiction! I can’t wait to read them! Publishers, grab these stories! Representation matters. 21/x
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