Remember The Time -The Black Soldier

: The You Tube Clip is from the excellent PBS documentary "For Love of Liberty: The Story of America's Black Patriots"

Happy Memorial Day : Here is an excerpt from my show "Memories Of Self Journey to Weeksville" The character has just returned home from WW1. He is missing an arm that he lost in battle. This is a fictional character -but a very real history.


"Don’t mean to sound bitter, but Brooklyn is a long way from Germany where my brothers died. so that Europe could be free while we fight for every inch that we can get here at home.
Funny thing is, there was a whole lot of folks who doubted us from the beginning. See, we Men out of New York and Brooklyn was all a part of the National Guard. How we became part of the French Army is all part of the story. Before we even left the States, they had us segregated from the Whites. Many of the Men had left the South thinking that they had seen the last of old Jim Crow. Basic training put a stop to that wishful thinking. On some days during training we were treated like the soilders that we dreamed of being. On other days we were given equipment including guns that didn’t work right. Things were explained to us as if we were too dumb to understand what they really meant. Sometimes we would have Colored Officers, but they suddenly wouldn’t be there. We were told to ask no questions. Every man to a fault in spite of this was still ready to show the world that our race was just as qualified as ANYBODY else. We was even more determined after they gave all of the troops leaving for the war a big parade on fifth Avenue; all of the troops except us the 369th. We was only good enough to die in some people’s eyes. I guess that they had to eat their words when we came back known as The Harlem Hellfighters.
We were sent to the Western Front. At first we had to do all of the dirty work that the White Boys wasn’t being asked to do like dragging dead bodies out of the way while bullets flew over our heads. Lots of times we was asked to match parts that were separated from the bodies. Digging graves or trenches, no job was to dirty for us. Mr. Williams would have been proud to see that we did everything with pride. We had a feeling that the whole world might be watching us. When the orders came for us to fight, we fought like hell. That’s how we got our name. Although just as many of us was from Brooklyn, Harlem was getting a reputation as the home of the Negro. Didn’t matter to us. Race is a strange thing aint it? At first the Europeans was cheering us dark fellows whenever we would go into a town. We was taking care of business when it came to stopping the Germans. Everybody knew it. The children would run after us just so they could touch our uniforms. Then all of a sudden the look in their faces changed. We couldn’t figure out why until one of our men who spoke French told us that the White American troops was telling them that we had tails and other animal parts. We was also being told by our Superior Officers not to fraternize with civilians. Meanwhile lots of them were taking up with their women. I forgot to mention that we fought so well that we were given to the French army. We spent 191 days in combat. That was longer than any other American unit. We were the first troops to reach the Rhine. One time we were defending an outpost and were attacked by the Germans. So many of our men were wounded that it looked like a blood bath. We didn’t surrender, but kept on fighting. I killed two men with my bare hands. We finally won that battle. Take that Jim Crow. The French gave us their highest award called the Croix de Guerre. If that didn’t show them what we men can do then nothing will.
So here I am home in Brooklyn. I hope that Mr. Williams can come to our parade tomorrow. It’s going to be on 5th Avenue. I hope that he feels that we did our race proud."
by Daniel Carlton -copyright 2007