The Treatment of Negro Soldiers in Camp (1919)

The treatment of Negro soldiers in the various camps and cantonments of the country was a subject much discussed during the war. Reports of discrimination against colored soldiers because of race and color were heard upon all sides and at times the colored people were greatly exercised when alleged situations of a particularly outrageous character came to their ears. The morale of the race was at times lowered to a degree that was little short of dangerous. Prompt and vigorous action, however, on the part of officers high in command led to a correction of many of the evils complained of, and in this way countless episodes pregnant with the possibility of serious clashes and violent conflicts were happily adjusted and no end of trouble thus averted.

Before going into the analysis of a number of exceptionally trying instances of color discrimination---incidents that more than once attracted nation-wide attention---it might be well to make note of the manner in which the colored troops were apportioned throughout the country. As was perfectly natural, by virtue of the immense Negro population, the South furnished the bulk of the colored men called through the selective draft law. If the unwritten custom of assigning men to the camps nearest the place from which they were drawn had been carried out to the letter, the camps in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina would have been made up in many cases almost exclusively of Negro soldiers. For this reason, and to prevent concentration of over-large contingents of colored soldiers at any one camp,---a policy frankly decided upon long before the Special Assistant came to the War Department---thousands of colored draftees found their way to the North in the fall of 1917, being stationed at Camps Grant, Illinois; Funston, Kansas; Dodge, Iowa; Zachary Taylor, Kentucky; Sherman, Ohio; Meade, Maryland; Custer, Michigan; Dix, New Jersey, Upton, New York, and Devens, Massachusetts---all of these classed as Northern States from the Southern soldiers' climatic standpoint. The climate of the North---with its long winter, unusually severe in 1917-18---proved to be the source of much suffering, on account of its deadly effect upon colored soldiers bred and born amid the magnolia blossoms and in the balmy atmosphere of the "sunny South." These colored soldiers faced the hard winter of 1917 with sinking hearts and grave apprehensions, and with an equipment in many instances far from adequate, owing to the haste with which the preparations for war were made. There was great suffering among colored and white soldiers, and the mortality from pneumonia and like troubles was alarmingly heavy among the unacclimatized colored men from the South. Nevertheless, they bore their sufferings with a fortitude that approached the heroic.

It was unjust, but not strange, that there should be many attempts at discrimination against Negro officers and soldiers in many of the camps, particularly those in the South, and in other sections where white soldiers from the South were brought into contact with colored troops. Prejudice, based on race, was something too deeply implanted in the mental fabric of an element of the American people, it seemed, to be overcome over night through any pressure the war might bring to bear. Clashes between white and colored soldiers happened North and South, after a sporadic fashion, but at no time were their clashes so general or persistent as to endanger the well-being of the Army as a whole.

In many sections of the South violent protests against the quartering of colored troops were registered with the War Department, and the Governors, Senators, and Representatives of more than one State filed formal objections with the President of the United States and the War Department, insisting that Negro troops be not stationed at the camps within their borders. The War Department steadily declined to be moved by these protests and pursued unhesitatingly its practice of stationing units of troops, colored and white, at whatever posts the exigencies of tile service seemed to make their presence expedient or necessary. The dignified bearing of the Negro soldiers and their studious avoidance of any excesses, however, tended to mollify the feelings of the Southern people and they finally began to accept them, not as an inescapable burden "wished upon them," but with genuine pride in their progress, declaring that they were a part and parcel of the South and should be accorded full credit for their unquestioned valor, patriotism and loyalty.

The Houston Episode

The unfortunate episode at Houston, Texas, in 1917, which precipitated a so-called "race riot," in which were involved a number of the soldiers of the 24th Infantry, Regular Army, had its origin in the prejudice of a portion of the citizens of Houston against Negro soldiers, and the reciprocation of this dislike by the colored soldiers themselves. The clash that took place in that city in August, 1917, marked the beginning of the end of the disorder that had obtained throughout the earlier months of the stay of the colored troops at Houston, for afterwards, when the Eighth Illinois Regiment came to Camp Logan from Chicago and the West, there were but few ebullitions of race feeling between the whites and the men of the Eighth. The execution of thirteen of the colored soldiers implicated in the Houston riot was one of the dark spots on the escutcheon of the Army, but it did not dampen the ardor of the colored men who went to the front for the Stars and Stripes. They realized that neither the meanness of those who fomented the riot, nor the undue haste that led to the summary execution of the soldiers convicted of being guilty of murder and mutiny, was typical of the feeling of the great body of the American people, nor of even the large majority of Southern white people of real influence and standing.

Incipient race riots were reported at frequent intervals at various stations, North and South. Of these, mention might be made of the magnified reports of a fracas said to have occurred between Negro soldiers and the police at Newport News, Virginia, in September, 1918, and of other affairs of no great seriousness that were reported at Camp Upton, Camp Merritt, Camp Grant, and one or two others. Many minor encounters grew out of the refusal of white soldiers to salute colored officers, and of efforts to draw the color line in places of recreation and amusement. Most of these cases were adjusted by the commanding officers of the army camps.

At Camp Grant, Illinois, General Thomas H. Barry, Commanding General, faced this question as soon as it was presented. A newspaper reporter started a campaign of inquiry among certain of the white soldiers to ascertain whether or not they meant to salute colored officers. The question began to run through the camp, but this reporter was challenged by General Barry in the presence of others to cease his activity. The General plainly stated that in that particular camp the Commanding Officer designated by the War Department alone was in command, without the aid of journalistic helpers, and that the only color recognized in Camp Grant was to be the "O. D." the olive drab of the Army uniform.

Excerpted from "The Treatment of Negro Soldiers in Camp", Emmett Scott, Scott's Official History of the American Negro in the World War (1919)