By Hasan Kwame Jeffries, The Ohio State University
As World War I raged, so did the great debate among African Americans about serving in the military. Although the issue remained unsettled, one million African Americans responded to the draft call, prompting all-white local draft boards to induct some 370,000 Black men into the army. But, as the soldiers involved in the ‘Houston Mutiny’ knew, joining a Jim Crow army meant separate and unequal everything. How true was that? Read on to find out.
Racial Discrimination and the Jim Crow Justice
During the Great War, African Americans were outraged by the Jim Crow treatment that the men of the 3rd Battalion received at the hands of Houston police, and they were infuriated by the Jim Crow justice meted out by military officials.
Radical activists A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen wrote in the Messenger, a Black socialist monthly published in Harlem:
The Negro is probably the best and most loyal soldier in the United States. He does his duty in a fine, manly, courageous way. But the Government has failed too often to do its duty by the Negro soldier.
The so-called Houston mutiny caused many African Americans to balk at W. E. B. Du Bois’s suggestion that they “forget [their] special grievances” and answer the government’s call to arms. Their hesitancy stemmed in part from the fact that it was impossible to ignore the pernicious effects of racism.
This article comes directly from content in the video series African American History: From Emancipation through Jim Crow. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Racist Beliefs of the Whites in the Military
Racial discrimination touched every aspect of every Black person’s life; it could neither be ignored nor forgotten. The young radicals Randolph and Owen put it plainly when they wrote, “Patriotism has no appeal to us; justice has. Party has no weight to us; principle has.”
Racist beliefs were ubiquitous among whites in the military, from officials in Washington to commissioned officers and soldiers in the field. They insisted that African Americans lacked the intellectual ability, courage, and moral character to serve in leadership positions. In fact, very few thought that African Americans were capable of doing much more than fatigue duty—digging latrines; building roads; loading and unloading supply trucks, trains, and ships; constructing barracks; and preparing meals.
These beliefs translated into military policies that discriminated against African Americans. Black soldiers bedded down in areas apart from whites that were often overcrowded and lacked proper sanitation facilities. They received separate training that rarely prepared them for anything beyond menial labor. And they suffered tremendous verbal and physical abuse at the hands of blatantly racist white officers and soldiers.
White Supremacy
The pervasive nature of white supremacy meant that there was no chance that military officials would allow African Americans to serve alongside whites. Accordingly, they set up segregated units to accommodate the influx of Black men.
White supremacist beliefs also meant that military officials were not inclined to let African Americans engage directly in combat. The army, therefore, assigned the vast majority of Black soldiers to service units. Throughout the war, these units did the thankless tasks, the drudge work, that was absolutely necessary to propel America’s mighty war machine.
Lobbying the Army for Black Officers
But African Americans’ long history of meritorious combat service could not be ignored. Acknowledging this tradition, military officials created two combat divisions, the 92nd and the 93rd, exclusively for African Americans. The 93rd Division was made up mostly of National Guard units from Northern cities like New York, Chicago, and Washington DC. With the National Guard as its foundation, the 93rd had a preexisting leadership structure that included African Americans.
But the 92nd Division, which consisted mainly of draftees, needed officers. Military officials were content to have white men lead these troops. And like the Union Army officials in charge of reconstructing the South after the Civil War, they were most interested in having Southern white men command, believing that they knew best how to extract the most out of the formerly enslaved.
African Americans knew better, prompting civil rights activists, led by the Black press and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), to lobby the army for Black officers. The pressure paid off. Military officials agreed to include African Americans in the officer corps of the 92nd Division and created the Colored Officers Training Camp, a segregated site at Fort Des Moines in Iowa, to prepare an elite group of African Americans for command.
Common Questions about WWI and Racial Discrimination in the US Army
Racist beliefs were ubiquitous among whites in the military, from officials in Washington to commissioned officers and soldiers in the field. They insisted that African Americans lacked the intellectual ability, courage, and moral character to serve in leadership positions.
The pervasive nature of white supremacy meant that there was no chance that military officials would allow African Americans to serve alongside whites. Accordingly, they set up segregated units to accommodate the influx of Black men.
Military officials agreed to include African Americans in the officer corps of the 92nd Division and created the Colored Officers Training Camp, a segregated site at Fort Des Moines in Iowa, to prepare an elite group of African Americans for command.
