Things that should not need saying: #BlackLivesMatter . Watching events in America recently as a historian I've been greatly reminded of similar moments in the past. This is a thread on black American experience during and after the #FWW /1
The audience for this thread is not really black Americans. They don't need somebody like me to tell them ts they already know about their own history. Rather it is to the white audience who wonders why those protesting cannot do so in some undefinably 'better' way /2
It is also heavily influenced by this quote from the late great James Baldwin: /3
When America declared war on Germany in 1917 the necessity of building an army from nothing quickly saw questions raised over whether black men would be permitted to serve. It was not a new question... /4
Proposals had been placed before Congress ‘every year from 1906 to 1916’ that aimed to ‘prevent blacks from joining the military’ (Woodward). Although the decision was made to allow blacks to serve little effort was placed on pretending they were viewed equally or welcome /4
The arrival in training camps of the black men who would make up the 93rd Division, in fact an incomplete division that would lack supporting or service troops, had initially been delayed in 1917 so that they could complete the picking of South Carolina’s cotton crop. 5/
White soldiers & civilians near these camps did not want black soldiers there. Rumours regularly spread that black men had been lynched by nearby civilians & black soldiers nearlyed riot in response to the idea they could be killed by their own countrymen whilst in uniform 6/
White responses remained inherently violent. At Camp Merritt in New Jersey a letter signed by ‘Southern Volunteers’ threatened to ‘clean this place out’ if the assigned YMCA continued to pay ‘entirely too much attention to the n******’ whilst the ‘white men are neglected’ 7/
The black author Kelly Miller had fallen foul of American censorship during the war when publishing a pamphlet against the lynching of black men whilst the government turned a blind-eye ... 8/
After this pamphlet began circulating in training camps it was banned in October 1918 on the grounds that it threatened morale and army unity because it ‘tended to make the soldier who read [it] a less effective fighter against the German’ /9
Upon arriving in France black divisions found out the extent to which they were not wanted by the AEF. Some were turned into labour divisions whilst men of the 92nd & 93rd were summarily given away to the French. Even the officers in charge had not realised it was happening. /10
If this was thought to solve a problem for the US they had miscalculated. Whilst not a 'post racial society' (Fogarty), France's interaction with black soldiers was markedly different than the American's. /11
Black soldiers within the regiments and divisions now loaned to the French rapidly discovered that the norms of segregation back home did not apply to French units who ‘knew no colour line’ & black American soldiers were urged to ensure that no such line was introduced. /12
The white AEF commanders had made recommendations for the treatment of black soldiers which appalled the French, particularly Blaise Diagne, a black African deputy from Senegal (the very existence of such a man holding a place of office would have been an aberration in US) /13
These recommendations included avoiding treating black Americans with any semblance of equality or praising them too heavily in front of white Americans as it would ‘deeply offend the latter’. In Diagne’s eyes such these were ‘outrageous prejudices’ & an affront /14
Soldiers who served with the French did remarkably well. The most famous perhaps being the 'Harlem Hellfighters' who spent more time in the front lines of the war than any other unit and won numerous French battle honours. These men were active participants in the war. /15
What should have been a source of pride was viewed very differently in the eyes of white AEF commanders. The plan had not been to give black soldiers away so they could be treated better by the French and then empowered. This was a problem that needed solving. /16
After arriving in Brest in January 1919, ready to return home the black men of the 369th Infantry Regiment were in a jubilant mood and they sung about their victories. One soldier asked a white Military Policeman where the latrine was and had his skull split open in response. /17
Even the white officers of the 369th were appalled and demanded an explanation. At first the MP refuses stating he was under orders not to obey commands from white officers of black soldiers but eventually he relented... /18
The man to revealed that ‘they had been warned that our “N******” were feeling their oats a bit and that instruction had been given to “take it out of them quickly just as soon as they arrived, so as not to have trouble later on”’. Here was the AEF's solution /19
Empowered black men were a problem. Such confidence could not be carried back to America with them. So the decision was made to try and beat it out of them where possible in France. Things would be much worse in America. /20
The ‘Red Summer’ of 1919 saw attacks against black Americans across the United States. Returning African-American soldiers in particular were targeted for having ‘physically and symbolically disrupted the southern color line’ (Chad Williams). /21
Among those targeted in 1919 were a number of black veterans. Men who had served their country and won honours for it. Having been attacked in the street by a white man in April 1919, Daniel Mack retaliated and was arrested... /22
At his trial Mack declared, ‘I fought for you in France to make the world safe for democracy. I don’t think you treated me right in putting me in jail and keeping me there because I’ve got as much right as anybody else to walk on the sidewalk’ /23
As he was sentenced to thirty days in ‘a chain gang’ the presiding judge reminded him that ‘this is a white man’s country and you don’t want to forget it’. /24
Mack would not forget; whilst in prison he was seized by a white mob in cooperation with the police & beaten nearly to death on the outskirts of the town. /25
In Sept 1919 a black officer was accosted outside of a train by a white crowd who demanded to know his rank. Fearing for his safety he made a dash for the train. When in his seat another white passenger walked over and shot him to death. /26
Malcolm Aitken, a white soldier, was part of a casual company putting down race riots in Washington and Baltimore. A white man who had been all through the war in France, was shot and killed from an upstairs window Aitken and his men became ‘terrible’. /27
After a ‘pitched battle’ for a minute or two in which they used all of their ammunition Aitken and his men ‘proceeded to finish the war’. Aitken ‘did not care to report the number killed on the other side’ but referred to this incident as ‘Special Duty with the Blacks’. /28
There are many stories such as the ones outlined above but what strikes me is how very little has changed. They are all stories of black men being denied access to a world thought of as intrinsically white. Violence was used to enforce the distance. /29
Andwhen I hear today about how there must be a 'better way' to protest I am moved to think that if men who had joined up to serve their coutnry in the #FWW were still not viewed as having found a 'better way' then perhaps one does not exist? /30
#BlackLivesMatter . How much time do we want for our 'progress'...? /end
Because I slightly fouled up the numbering: @threadreaderapp unroll, please!
