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Narrated by Thomas Penny
Christopher Paul MooreUnabridged — 10 hours, 29 minutes
Narrated by Thomas Penny
Christopher Paul MooreUnabridged — 10 hours, 29 minutes
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This book is filled with heroes of whom Americans of all colors have never heard. Their stories will both inspire you and break your heart … Fighting for America is an important, engaging book that brings to light the often harsh yet heroic experiences of a generation of soldiers.
— The Washington Post
The Allied victory in WWII was a triumph of logistics as well as combat power. Moore (Jubilee: The Emergence of African American Culture) looks deeply and broadly into those efforts and comes up with a major addition to the literature. He finds African-American units building the lion's share of the logistical infrastructure in Europe and the Pacific, as well as transporting everything from artillery pieces to bottles of plasma. Among combat units, the familiar Tuskegee Airmen and the Black Panthers of the 761st Tank Battalion are here, but so are the 93rd Infantry Division, which never fought as a unit in the Pacific, and the 92nd Infantry, much maligned for one failure in an otherwise respectable record in Italy. African-American WACS saved the European theater's mail system from total chaos. A great many black Americans who served endured incidents of racial discrimination; Moore vividly depicts their coping strategies. The son of two WWII veterans who met in Europe, Moore contributes a somewhat rambling essay on the development of his own racial identity, but scores of letters and photographs counterbalance that minor deficiency. Agent, Charlotte Sheedy. (On sale Dec. 28) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Proudly hailing his parents' U.S. Army service in World War II, Moore (Jubilee: The Emergence of African American Culture) fondly unfolds his personal story on a journey to understand racial identity in the land of his and his forbears' birth. Central to this book is the nagging question, Why would African Americans defend a nation that has treated them so miserably? Moore reminds readers that despite being repeatedly rejected for regular service, blacks have persistently shouldered arms and borne the burden of defending the United States. His 25 chapters tell the personal stories of black veterans in their Double-V campaign for victory against America's enemies abroad and against America's invidious racism at home. The deft narrative intersperses sparkling historical detail, vivid illustrations, and documentary excerpts that show the daunting conditions courageously faced by black men and women in the segregated U.S. armed forces of World War II. This near-patriotic paean offers the respect not found in other recent works on blacks in the U.S. armed forces. Highly recommended for collections on black, military, or modern U.S. history.-Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
| BN ID: | 2940170969623 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Recorded Books, LLC |
| Publication date: | 08/27/2009 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Chapter 1
Two Americas?
[1776 to 1941]
I once had a conversation with historian Stephen Ambrose, who was gracious enough to listen quietly as I made a complaint about the movie Saving Private Ryan. Ambrose had served as consultant on the movie, and so I asked him why black soldiers had been left out of the D-Day invasion. He told me he had provided the filmmakers with information about several hundred blacks at Utah and Omaha Beach on D-Day, but that the story was taken in a “different direction.” Among the ablest historians of World War II, Ambrose believed that racism was at the heart of Nazi philosophy, and that its arteries extended to many nations, including our own. He assured me that military historians were taking a fresh look at the subject and that Americans would come to learn and appreciate more about the contributions of African-American soldiers throughout American history.
Black Soldiers and American Freedom
On the night of March 5, 1770, Crispus Attucks, a free black dockworker, marched together with fifty laborers and sailors into a dangerous confrontation with British soldiers, whose presence in Boston was sharply resented. The soldiers fired into the crowd and Attucks fell instantly, becoming the first of five men to die that night.
American patriots hailed Attucks’s heroism and declared the Boston Massacre the event that sparked the American Revolution.
In January 1776, Gen. George Washington finally lifted a prohibition against black enlistment in the Continental Army, thus opening the ranks to free black men. Some colonies also allowed slaves to win their freedom by serving the American forces. Between 5,000 and 8,000 blacks fought for the patriot cause. At the climactic Battle of Yorktown,
about a quarter of Washington’s Continental Army was made up of black soldiers. More than 10,000 enslaved men, women, and children also provided labor for the Americans, transporting munitions, provisions,
and constructing fortifications and barricades in the Thirteen Colonies. Interestingly, many enslaved Americans took advantage of a British offer of freedom in return for military service, and more than
20,000 slaves fought and labored for the British side during the war.
By the time of the War of 1812, federal law restricted militia service to “free and able-bodied white citizens,” and the U.S. Army and Marine Corps did not permit blacks to enlist. Although free blacks and slaves did fill support roles as laborers and teamsters in army camps, the navy was the only service that officially admitted blacks in a fighting capacity. Black troops served at the Battle of Lake Erie and at the Battle of New Orleans, under the command of Gen. Andrew Jackson,
although they were excluded from later parades commemorating the New Orleans victory.
From the opening salvo of the Civil War, thousands of free blacks and fugitive slaves volunteered for the Union Army, only to be denied service by President Lincoln, who maintained that the war was being fought to restore the Union, not to end slavery. Believing the war would be short-lived and the Union successfully restored, Lincoln prohibited black soldiers from the Union ranks in order to avoid angering his own border states, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri, where slavery was still protected by the Constitution.
However, as the war dragged on, President Lincoln’s slavery policy (or strategy) changed profoundly. On September 22, 1862, he issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which effectively warned that if the South did not end its rebellion within 100 days (by January 1,
1863) all slaves in the South were to be freed. The edict also permitted former slaves and northern blacks to enter the armed services.
On July 18, 1863, the Massachusetts 54th, the first all-black regiment organized in the North, fought courageously during an attack on Fort Wagner in South Carolina. Though underpaid and often assigned hard labor, black men signed up by the thousands. Volunteers from South Carolina, Tennessee, and Massachusetts filled the first authorized black regiments. By the end of the Civil War, about 179,000 black men served as soldiers in the Union army (comprising 10 percent of that force), and another 19,000 served in the navy.
On April 9, 1865, at the Appomattox Court House, twelve “colored”
regiments, or about 3,500 black soldiers, stood guard outside along with white Union soldiers as Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen.
Ulysses S. Grant. About 38,000 black soldiers died during the war. With nearly eighty black commissioned officers, black soldiers served in artillery and infantry and performed support functions that sustained the army. Black carpenters, blacksmiths, cooks, laborers, teamsters,
nurses, scouts, spies, steamboat pilots, and surgeons also contributed to the war cause. Black women, who were not formally allowed to join the army, served as nurses, spies, and scouts–among them, Harriet Tubman, the Union’s most famous scout.
Buffalo Soldiers
So impressed were American military commanders by the bravery and valor of the Union’s black soldiers that in July of 1866, the first black post—Civil War regiments came into existence by an act of Congress, approved by President Andrew Johnson. By April 1867, six regiments of African-American soldiers were recruited into the regular peacetime army. Many were veteran United States Colored Troops from the Civil War, but among them were also newly freed slaves who wanted to serve their country. Organized as the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 38th through 41st Infantries, each regiment consisted of approximately a thousand men. In 1869 the infantry regiments were consolidated into two, the 24th and 25th. All four regiments–two of cavalry and two of infantry–were sent to the western frontier to fight in the Indian wars.
In the winter of 1867—68, the newly formed 9th and 10th Cavalries were engaged in Gen. Philip Sheridan’s campaign against the native Comanche,
Kiowa, and Cheyenne in Texas and the western Oklahoma Territory. In the cold, harsh winters, the black soldiers wore coats made of buffalo hides. On account of the appearance of those coats and their own tightly curled hair, the Indians called them the “Buffalo Soldiers.” According to legend, it was the fighting spirit of the black soldiers that reminded the Native Americans of the bison, and the soldiers accepted the name as a term of honor and respect. About twenty years later, when designs for regimental coats of arms were being prepared, the 9th Cavalry adopted a galloping Indian-on-a-pony as its emblem, and “We Can, We Will” as its motto. The 10th Cavalry took the buffalo as its crest, and “Ready and Forward” became its motto.
Their duties were not limited to fighting. Known as “guardian angels,”
the Buffalo Soldiers protected frontier towns and farms, wagon trains,
stagecoaches, and Pony Express riders. Guarding railroad work crews and cattle herds, the black troops also built and repaired frontier forts and outposts. Stringing hundreds of miles of telegraph lines, they explored and mapped vast areas of the Southwest, and helped develop the early national parks. In garrison, the Buffalo Soldiers drilled, stood guard, and maintained horses, weapons, and equipment. Serving fifty-nine forts of the Old West, the black regiments developed into four of the most distinguished fighting units in the army during the remainder of the nineteenth century. Though completely overlooked in Hollywood’s glamorization of the cavalry-to-the-rescue myth, black soldiers made up over 20 percent of the cavalry engaged in the Indian wars, fighting in 85 percent of the Indian battles.
In 1877, Henry O. Flipper became the first African American to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Promoted to lead a 10th Cavalry unit, he saw his promising career ended in 1881 with a dishonorable discharge. His commanding officer had charged him with embezzling $3,791.77 from commissary funds. Flipper denied the charge,
claiming he was framed by white officers who disliked him because of his color. A court-martial cleared Flipper of the embezzlement charge but convicted him of conduct unbecoming of an officer and ordered him dismissed from the army. He died in 1940 without vindication. In 1976
the U.S. Army changed his discharge to honorable and a pardon issued by President Bill Clinton in 1999 completely cleared Flipper’s name.
On the seas, Capt. Michael A. Healy, the highest-ranking black officer in the Revenue Cutter Service (precursor to the U.S. Coast Guard)
commanded the cutter Bear from 1887 to 1895. In charge of patrolling Pacific waters from San Francisco to the Aleutian Islands, Captain Healy was considered by many the best sailor of the North Pacific.
Commended by the U.S. Congress for his seafaring skills, an article in the January 28, 1884, New York Sun termed the black captain among the world’s best seamen: “Captain Mike Healy is a good deal more distinguished person in the waters of the far Northwest than any president of the United States or any potentate in Europe has yet become.”
By the 1890s, Native Americans had been defeated and confined to reservations. On February 15, 1898, the battleship Maine exploded in Havana harbor and twenty-two Buffalo Soldiers were among the 266
fatalities. Again, the U.S. Army’s four black regiments were sent to war, distinguishing themselves in the ten-month-long Cuban campaign. In the famous charge up San Juan Hill, the black cavalrymen saved Col.
Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders from being massacred. Attacking through barbed wire and cannon fire, the 10th Cavalry charged up the steep hill to draw enemy fire away from the Rough Riders, capture the lethal blockhouse, and plant the flag of the 10th Cavalry on San Juan Hill.
Gen. John J. Pershing witnessed and later wrote about the heroism of the regiment’s charge: “The losses of the day were heavy–the Tenth Cavalry losing half of its officers and twenty percent of its men. We officers of the Tenth Cavalry could have taken our black heroes in our arms. They had again fought their way into our affections, as they here had fought their way into the hearts of the American people.”
In 1899, the United States sent troops to the Philippines to stop an insurrection. For the next three years, portions of all four regiments saw action in the Philippines. In 1903, the Buffalo Soldiers served as a presidential escort during President Roosevelt’s visit to San Francisco–the first time black soldiers were assigned to protect an American president. The Buffalo Soldiers also patrolled and helped develop the Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks.
In 1906, the black soldiers of the 25th Infantry Regiment were involved in a racially charged incident at Fort Brown in Brownsville, Texas.
Several troopers were alleged to have “shot up the town,” killing one resident. Although officials at Fort Brown confirmed that all black soldiers were in their barracks at the time of the shooting, local whites claimed that black soldiers were responsible. Without trial or hearing, President Roosevelt ordered 167 black infantrymen discharged without honor because of their alleged conspiracy of silence. In 1972
the U.S. Congress finally rescinded the less-than-honorable discharges and restored the members of the 25th Infantry Regiment to good standing. In 1916, when Pancho Villa crossed the border and invaded New Mexico, the 24th and 25th Infantries and the 10th Cavalry were sent to the border to assist General Pershing in his pursuit of the Mexican general. Between 1866 and 1912, twenty-three black soldiers won the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award.
Saving the President:
The McKinley Assassination
On September 11, 1901, President William McKinley lay in a Buffalo hospital bed, bleeding for a fifth day from two gunshot wounds to his stomach. A third shot would have killed the president instantly, the doctors surmised, and for one week, James Benjamin Parker, a black waiter from Georgia, was a national hero, for he had stopped the assassin from firing a third time.
On the previous Friday afternoon at 4:07 p.m., the president stood patiently greeting the first of more than a thousand well-wishers at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Among those waiting to meet the president were Parker, the waiter, and Leon Czolgosz
(pronounced: showl-golz), a son of Polish-German parents who had waited since morning to get near McKinley. At six feet six inches tall, Parker was likely more conspicuous than Czolgosz, who stood a few feet ahead of him in line.
Czolgosz, like many other people in the hot room–it was about ninety-five degrees–carried a white handkerchief, either to wipe their brows, or wave at the President. Unnoticed by Secret Service agents,
local police, and military guards, his handkerchief-wrapped hand concealed a five-shot .32-caliber revolver.
He fired two shots rapidly and the president grimaced and buckled to the floor. According to eyewitness accounts, Parker was the first to react–even before the security contingent. He lunged forward, knocked the gun from the attacker’s hand, and tackled him to the ground.
Newspapers also circulated the story of the “Herculean Negro . . .
Big Ben” who had saved the president’s life. In a speech before 4,000
people in Charleston, Booker T. Washington hailed Parker’s role as one of the greatest patriotic acts of any American. A black man, he emphasized, had risked his own life to save the nation’s leader and an act of deadly violence had been stopped. A song was written honoring Parker. In the terrible national tragedy, he emerged as an authentic American hero.
“I am glad that I was able to be of service to the country,” said Parker. But McKinley did not survive. Infection had caused the onset of gangrene in his pancreas, and on the fourteenth of September the president died.
The assassin’s trial was a quick affair. A jury found Czolgosz guilty,
and less than two weeks after McKinley’s death he was executed in the electric chair.
Parker’s heroic reputation lasted only briefly. He wondered why he was not asked to testify at the trial. No doubt it was because the Secret Service issued a statement declaring that he had played no role in the apprehension of the assassin. Many newspapers that had criticized the agency for failure to protect the president quickly retracted Parker’s heroism. Many black newspapers took issue with the Secret Service’s disavowal of Parker’s “heroic” role.
Parker’s dismissal as a hero angered Booker T. Washington. In an uncustomary and arguably the most militant statement of his public life, Washington directly associated the president’s death with his perception of the growing and pervasive violence in America in
1901–aimed particularly at African Americans:
In all sincerity, I want to ask, is Czolgosz alone guilty? Has not the entire Nation had a part in this greatest crime of the century? What is Anarchy but a defiance of law, and has not the Nation reaped what it has been sowing? According to records, 2,516 persons have been lynched in the United States during the past sixteen years. There are or have been engaged in this anarchy of lynching nearly 125,000 persons.
Violence could devastate America, warned Washington, if the nation did not take a stand against racial hatred.
From the Hardcover edition.
