History of the American Negro in the Great World War: His Splendid Record in the Battle Zones of Europe; Including a Resume of His Past Services to his Country in the Wars of the Revolution, of 1812, the War of Rebellion, the Indian Wars on the Frontier, the Spanish-American War, and the Late Imbroglio With MexicoSweeney, William Allison
History
History of the American Negro in the Great World War: His Splendid Record in the Battle Zones of Europe; Including a Resume of His Past Services to his Country in the Wars of the Revolution, of 1812, the War of Rebellion, the Indian Wars on the Frontier, the Spanish-American War, and the Late Imbroglio With Mexico
Sweeney, William Allison
African American soldiers; African Americans -- History -- 1877-1964; World War, 1914-1918 -- Participation, African American
It is a well known fact that Negro religionists are members of the
church militant, so they could not be included in the self-declared
conscientious pacifistic sects.
Neither was the Negro represented in that class known as draft resisters
or draft evaders. A very good reason exists in the fact that opposition
to the draft came from a class which did not admit the Negro to
membership. Practically all draft resistance was traceable to the
activities of radicals, whose fantastic dreams enchanted and seduced the
ignorant and artless folk who came under their influence.
The resisters were all poor whites led by professional agitators.
Negroes had no such organizations nor leaders.
The part played by the Negro in the great world drama upon which the
curtain has fallen, was not approached in sublime devotion by that
displayed by any other class of America's heterogeneous mixture of tribe
and race, hailing from all the ends of the earth, that composes its
great and wonderful population. Blind in a sense; unreasoning as a child
in the sacredness and consecration of his fealty; clamoring with the
fervor of an ancient crusader; his eye on heaven, his steps turned
towards the Holy Sepulchre, for a chance to go; a time and place to die,
HIS was a distinct and marked patriotism; quite alone in "splendid
isolation" but shining like the sun; unstreaked with doubt; unmixed with
cavil or question, which, finally given reign on many a spot of strife
in "Sunny France"; the Stars and Stripes above him; a prayer in his
heart; a song upon his lips, spelt death, but death glorious; where he
fell--HOLY GROUND!
"The fittest place where man can DIE Is where he dies for man!"
A product of slavery, ushered into a sphere of civil and political
activity, clouded and challenged by the sullen resentment of his former
masters; his soul still embittered by defeat; slowly working his way
through many hindrances toward the achievement of success that would
enable both him and the world to justify the new life of freedom that
had come to him; faced at every hand by the prejudice born of
tradition; enduring wrongs that "would stir a fever in the blood of
age"; still the slave to a large extent of superstition fed by
ignorance, is it to be wondered at that some doubt was felt and
expressed by the best friends of the Negro, when the call came for a
draft upon the man power of the nation; whether, in the face of the
great wrongs heaped upon him; the persecutions he had passed through and
was still enduring, he would be able to forgive and forget; could and
would so rise above his sorrows as to reach to the height and the full
duty of citizenship; would give to the Stars and Stripes the response
that was due? On the part of many leaders among the Negroes, there was
apprehension that the sense of fair play and fair dealing, which is so
essentially an American characteristic, when white men are involved,
would not be meted out to the members of their race.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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