Sidelights on Negro Soldiers by Charles H. Williams - HTML preview

CHAPTER X
 HOME-FIRES

“Keep the home-fires burning,
 While your hearts are yearning;
 Though your lads are far away
 They dream of home;
 There’s a silver lining
 Through the dark cloud shining;
 Turn the dark cloud inside out
 Till the boys come home.”

To the American returning from France in 1919, the whole country that had been the scene of the war came back like a panorama or a dream. The moans of the dying and the devastation of homes and villages mingled with the treasures of art and the shrines of devotion. Perhaps he recalled the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, the Palace of Kings at Fontainebleau, the tombs of Voltaire and Rousseau and Hugo, the Luxembourg, or the never-to-be-forgotten Promenade at Nice. Roman ruins and amphitheatres, the parade on Bastille Day, fireworks on the Seine, nights at the opera, the games at the Pershing Stadium, the endless coming and going at Brest, even memories of Héloïse and Abelard, all crowded upon the mind to awaken wonder. But above all, far above all, came back the France of the Great Soul, of Liberty and Fraternity and Courage, of the “Marseillaise,”—of Verdun and the deathless word, “Ils ne passeront pas.”

It is a country to love, a country worth dying for. Yet few Americans would prefer even France to their own wonderful land. Memories of those at home rushed back even on the field of battle; and though he lived in Mississippi or Montana, to the returning soldier even the harbor of New York spoke of home. After all there is nothing like the land of one’s birth and loved ones. “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”

To the Negro soldier who went to France the experience was, as for every soldier, one ever to be remembered. Some men who in Alabama or Louisiana had in all their lives hardly been twenty-five miles from home were suddenly taken thousands of miles away, across the Atlantic, to decide the fate of empires. Altogether four hundred thousand Negro men answered their country’s call. Of these a little more than half saw service abroad, and many never came back.

Of those who remained at home importance attached to an organization of which little has been said in these pages, that of the Students’ Army Training Corps. Units of this were established in twenty representative educational institutions, and with inspiring ceremony on October 1, 1918, the flower of the young men of the nation, in these and other colleges, took the oath of loyalty to the flag. Meanwhile black fathers and mothers invested millions of dollars in Liberty Bonds and War Savings Stamps and contributed generously to all the numerous “drives”; and history has not yet told of how much the Negro woman, working hard in the fields of the South, did to feed her country and the world while the war was on.

To the Negro soldier no thought was dearer or more inspiring than that of these women at home, so largely defenceless; and no hope was stronger than that the future might be better for them and their children. Only such feeling explains the tenderness, even the tears, with which the men in uniform greeted the women of their race who in one way or another strove to help them. At Camp McClellan one man was daily growing weaker from pneumonia. One morning a Negro woman who was a member of the Red Cross brought some flowers to be given to him. A beautiful rose was selected by the Chaplain who, when giving it to the soldier, said, “This is the flower that the lady brought you this morning.” “For me?” asked the man; then, looking at the gift with all its beautiful suggestion, he said, “Chaplain, I am twenty-three years old. Do you know that this is the first time anyone ever gave me a flower?” Overseas it was the same. To one talented young woman who went to France to try to bring good cheer, and who inspired the men by her beautiful playing on the piano, a soldier wrote appreciatively: “I just want to thank you for the way you entertained us soldiers last evening and say that you really did bring sunshine to us all. To-day it seems that a burden has been lifted off us, and we wish you could stay in our camp forever. I feel better than I have felt in the whole eleven months that I have been overseas. All the soldiers are talking of you to-day; it has been a year since some of them saw a colored woman. A friend of mine is from Cincinnati and he joins me in wishing you Good Luck and Godspeed.”

Not only through the personal presence of such a worker as this but in far-reaching and unseen ways the influences of home were brought to bear upon the men at the front. Sometimes in the darkest night the great good cheer and the big heart of the Negro shone forth. More than one man “higher up,” while on patrol in No Man’s Land, was buoyed up by the simple faith of an untutored Negro lad. “Officer,” said one, in such a situation, “it is hard, but I’m with you to the end.” On another night, before they went over the top, six boys were in a dug-out. After talking things over, one suggested that they say the Lord’s Prayer. Only one knew it; but while a game of dice was going on in another corner, the little group knelt and repeated the words, gathering strength for the attack that was to come before the new day. Hearing a slight noise toward the close, they turned and saw that a major had come into the dug-out. “Let’s say it again, boys,” he said, “it gives me more courage too.” Then they knelt again and the officer joined with them in the prayer.

In many ways the war meant the awakening of new impulses. As one traveled through the South, again and again he noticed a service flag at the window, sometimes in a cabin forlorn and dilapidated, sometimes in one neat and in a cluster of trees or surrounded by cotton. Sometimes there was only one star, but often there were two; and whenever those stars appeared they meant that the deeper springs of life were being stirred, and that a people whose horizon had been limited was beginning to think in terms of the world. If such was the influence at home, even stronger was that with the men who went to France. They were thrilled with a new hope. One and all they were willing to give their very lives if things might be better for those in the little home in South Carolina or Georgia. They had seen their glorious Stars and Stripes and they knew that they had not fully realized its benefits; but now as never before that banner unfurled meant democracy, and as a beacon light it pointed the way for all lovers of liberty. Negro men went to war believing that a new day was dawning for them, and that loyalty to their country’s cause in her hour of need would be the means of their enjoying in fuller measure the blessings for which they were fighting. In that faith they were willing to face shells and gas at Verdun, in Champagne, and in the Argonne, or wherever duty might lead them.

When the war closed then, it is unfortunate that the experiences of thousands of these men had embittered them instead of bringing them into the freedom for which they had longed. Let us pass over smaller matters and consider only two of the larger reasons that accounted for their feeling. It is possible that no group similarly situated did more to make Armistice Day possible than did the American Negro soldiers; and we have seen that the record of the 369th Infantry was such that it was given the honor of leading French troops to the Rhine. When, however, in Paris, on July 14, 1919—on Bastille Day, the day of freedom—the Allied generals and their armies participated in the greatest military demonstration in the history of the world, the American Negro was not there. Other nations had all the races that fought under their flags in line. Belgium had her black colonial troops; England had Indians and Africans with her own sons and her soldiers from the colonies; and France had her Senegalese, Moroccans, Algerians, Soudanese, and Madagascans: every race that came to her defence was in her victorious army on that memorable day. Only America left her Negro troops behind. The last soldiers in the Victory Parade passed down the Champs Elysees, and still the hero of the 369th or the 371st had not appeared. He alone in the day of glory was the Disowned, the Disinherited.

Then there was “Le Panthéon de la Guerre,” a great painting by “Pierre Carrier-Belleuse, Auguste François Gorguet, and their associates, who on the morrow of the victory of the Marne undertook a work for the glorification of France.” Standing before the painting one beheld thousands of French heroes, officers of all ranks, and soldiers, gunners, horsemen, sailors, and aviators—every group that represented France. Along the right of this great circular painting were seen the Allied nations, represented by their sovereigns, statesmen, and military leaders, with representatives of the groups that assisted in the great struggle. Colonial as well as European soldiers were there. In the American group President Wilson stood in the center with one of his peace documents, and on either side were members of the cabinet, statesmen, military and naval leaders. Every group of Americans was supposed to be represented, and all were there—soldiers, sailors, business men, farmers, cowboys, Indians,—all except the Negro, the Negro soldier, and the stevedore who bore the heavy load. It was not sufficient to say to the Negro that this was an accidental omission; he knew better.

This, then, is the question for Americans. Either these things are true or they are not. Either they are just or they are not. That they are true everybody knows. That they are just we leave to the conscience of our readers.

Meanwhile let us remember that now as ever the Negro has faith in his country and in the principles for which it stands. In every crisis he has been loyal and true. In the World War, in spite of propaganda, he answered promptly every call. For him, as for others, the draft was a great Americanizer. It did within a year what decades of quiet existence would not have done. It carried him far from his home and showed him other peoples and other customs; and as never before he realized that he was to do a man’s part for his own country’s welfare.

As a result of the war also there was co-operation between the races in communities where previously little or none had existed. The inter-racial committees that have been organized throughout the South are the direct outgrowth of efforts to work together in the course of the war. The welfare organizations moreover introduced for Negro young men and women such wholesome recreation as had not been enjoyed by them in large numbers before. Through this work standards developed and a new appreciation of the place that such recreation should have in the lives of the youth of the race.

And in the years to come who will read of the work of the Negro stevedores without feeling that America owes a great debt to these men? They had a heavy and sometimes an unpleasant task, but the zeal with which they worked hastened the peace and saved the lives of thousands of men. In the 92nd Division also more than 20,000 Negro men were moulded into a great fighting organization, officered largely by Negroes for the first time in the history of America; while the record of the 93rd Division is one to make not only every Negro but also every American proud.

Such memories linger in the mind of every man who played his part on the field of battle, and also of that one who offered himself for his country but happened not to be called to the front. Forgetting themselves, but uplifted with hope, they went forth in the spirit of the Master. Risking life itself, they were willing to die, if need be, that others might live. They had only sublime faith in their country, and over all was the divine purpose, “For God and Home and Native Land.”

END