Loyalty in Time of Trial

Nina Mjagkij is professor of history at Ball State University. She serves as coeditor of Rowman & Littlefield’s African American History Series, as well as director of Ball State's African-American Studies Program.

African Americans have served in virtually every US war from the Revolution to the present. But their loyalty has not always been appreciated or rewarded. This was never more the case than during and after WW I. Historian Mjagkij (Ball State Univ.) meticulously describes the feudal world of the Jim Crow South with its sharecropping, lynching, and segregation on the eve of the war. During the war, more than 2 million African Americans reported to draft boards, and nearly 370,000 were inducted into the military. Black Americans hoped that loyalty to country and sacrifice on the battlefield would reinforce claims for equal rights once the war ended. Black soldiers served valiantly in segregated black units, but were routinely mistreated by white soldiers and subjected to atrocious conditions. African American soldiers returned home to lynchings and a wave of race riots. White supremacists such as Theodore Bilbo proclaimed 'This is strictly a white man's country,' and others insisted that the 'Negro' would have no more after the war than he had before. For African Americans, WW I was an experience of bitter betrayal. Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

• ChronologyIntroductionChapter 1: The Land of Jim Crow: African Americans at the Eve of World War IChapter 2: From Field to Factory: The Wartime Migration of African AmericansChapter 3: Fighting to Fight: The Struggle for Black Officers and Combat SoldiersChapter 4: Raising a Jim Crow Army: The Mobilization and Training of African American TroopsChapter 5: Over There: African American Soldiers in FranceChapter 6: Closing Ranks? African Americans on the Home FrontEpilogue: Returning to RacismDocumentsBibliographic Essay