Your kind letter was welcome. I understand them very easily without
my dictionary, and I thank you very much for the kind feelings you
express me. Be not anxious about my health, I have recovered now.
I was very touched by all the sympathy you have showed me on this
occasion, and I was surprised of it, very agreeably. Thank you for
your friendship, I am happy to give mine in exchange, because I know
now what is your hard condition. I have spoken to white men, and
always I have seen the same flash (lightning) in their angry eyes,
when I have spoken them of colored men. But I do not fear them for
myself; I am afraid of them for you, because they have said me the
horrible punishment of colored men in America. As I am a French girl
I have answered, “It is not Christian.” I am full of pity for your
unhappy condition, more still when I think you are very intelligent,
and you have quality of the heart more than many white men....
When a colored man goes in the house of a white girl, the policeman
wait for him and kill him when he goes away! I have thought this way
to do is savage, and it is why I was pitiful for the colored man.
But I see you are not unhappy as I believed, and I am glad of it for
you....
I should like to express you how much I am revolted of that I have
learned of your condition, and how amused I am to have heard many
injurious opinions of white men upon ourselves, French women! I write
you in English and I cannot express my feelings as well as in French.
Naturally these “injurious opinions” about the French women were
resented, not only by the women themselves, but the Frenchmen as well.
The result of this, and other difficulties, was that two or three
months before the American soldiers were out of France, it became
generally known that the French people were tired of them and wanted
them out of their country. The spirit of dislike became so great that
sometimes French people were overheard saying that if the American
soldiers had on German uniforms, they could not be told from the Huns!
And that if they were to judge from their actions it would seem that
they had a desire to treat them in the same manner as they treated the
colored Americans.
After the signing of the Armistice there were frequent riotings between
the American white soldiers and the French people. On the first Sunday
in April, 1919, the city of St. Nazaire was changed from a quiet port
city into a tumult of discord, during which a number of people were
killed and wounded. It grew out of the fact that a white French woman
and a colored Frenchman entered a restaurant frequented by American
officers, in order that they might enjoy their lunch together. An
insinuating remark concerning the woman was overheard by her brother,
who understood English, and immediately resented it. The restaurant was
demolished in a free-for-all fight, which grew in proportions until the
French people mounted a machine gun in the middle of the public square,
to restore order.
In the city of Nantes a colored French soldier was shot by an American
Military Policeman, under the guise that he thought that the Frenchman
was a colored American deserter disguised in French uniform.
During the writer’s period of service at Brest there were
ever-recurring conflicts, and Camp Pontanezen was frequently closed
and the soldiers not permitted to enter the city. Some of these were
said to have occurred because of insults offered to colored Frenchmen.
Rumor had it that these riots always resulted in a number of killed and
wounded.
In order to substantiate our statement concerning these conflicts,
we wish to quote from Sergeant Alexander Woolcott’s article in the
October, 1919, issue of the _North American Review_:*
“Whatever turn is taken by international politics during the next two
years, whatever the official post bellum relation between Washington
and the government in France, the degree of understanding and the
nature of the sentiment existing between our people and the French
is going to be of incalculable importance in shaping the twentieth
century. It is going to give the true validity to whatever doctrine
our ministers may from time to time endorse.
“That is why it is worth while to look back over the A. E. F., and
by so doing, to measure and search for the causes of mutual rancor
which developed between the French people and our troops—the rancor
which broke out here and there in riots, as at Brest; which made the
irritated army of occupation lean over backwards in their affability
towards the Rhinelanders; which moved Le Rire to some caustic
cartoons at the expense of the A. E. F.; and which poured into our
astonished ports a stream of returning doughboys all muttering under
their breaths a disparagement of the ‘French Frogs.’[5]
“Perhaps it would be well first to consider two rather fixed
delusions on the subject. For one thing, stay-at-home Americans have,
quite pardonably, come to the easy conclusion that all the rancor
could be explained by overcharging.... As a matter of fact, the
amount of overcharging was slight, astonishingly slight, when one
considers that there were more than two million spendthrift Americans
in France, far from home, overpaid, irresponsible, and loose in an
impoverished country. It is against the nature of the French peasant
or shopkeeper to go in all at once for resourceful profiteering,
just as it is against his nature to part lightly with a sou on which
he has once laid his thrifty hands. Furthermore, both the French
government and the American Army were vigilant in the matter, so that
the doughboy was not despoiled with half the unscrupulousness that
would have been practised among his own people—certainly no more than
is the average lot of the expeditionary soldier, anywhere under the
sun....
“Then, too, there was the delusion from which the French government
suffered—the notion that the whole source of bad feeling was the
friction between the French and American staffs. There was such
friction, and during the first few weeks of the Armistice the staff
officers of the Third Army were on edge with irritation at the
neighboring French command....
“I think that if the dislike developed on one side before the other,
the first appearance can be traced to a certain disdain for the
French which the outspoken Americans were only too wont to display.
To the resulting friction a hundred and one things contributed, of
which high prices constituted the least—little things, like the
French truck driver’s enraging habit of driving dreamily in the
middle of the road; _big things, like the French street walker’s
unprejudiced habits of accepting the Negro’s attentions as affably as
a white man’s_.”
——
* By permission of _North American Review_.
It is interesting to note the comment of an English paper upon the
mutual rancor which so unfortunately developed, and which must have
some bearing upon the future relationship between the French and the
American people. The following significant excerpt is from the London
_Saturday Review_ of June 28, 1919:*
“No one at this or any other time should write, or even say things
likely to create international ill-feeling, but facts will not be
ignored. There are indeed certain truths, which, like mushrooms,
grow best in the dark. It is not only absurd, it is also in the long
run contrary to international good will, to ignore the fact that
Americans are not as popular in Paris to-day as they were twelve
months ago. There can be surely no harm in discussing publicly what
everyone privately knows....
“At the present moment the Americans are regarded by the ordinary
Parisian as a barbarian nation, and the prospects of beholding them
rejoice on July 4th, possibly on a large scale, already fills him
with apprehension and disgust. The nation which a year ago was the
most popular nation in Europe, has become in Paris a burden almost
too grievous to be borne. The other evening we heard a lady whose
profession brings her into rather close contact with the American
soldiers and minor diplomatists in Paris, proclaim amid general
assent, that the Americans are at the best children and that at the
worst they are brutes. We are not subscribing to this opinion, we are
merely recording that it was passed. The Americans could not avoid
being unpopular in Paris. The mere fact that they came late into the
war, and that the importance of their share in the peace negotiations
is out of all proportion to their sacrifices, is in any event a
difficult matter to discount or obscure....
“Socially the Americans in Paris are in the position of a man staying
in the house of a friend, and forced to behave much as though the
house were his own. It is even worse than that. We have to consider
that the man who thus stays in the house of his friend, and behaves
just as though it were his own, has in effect, a mortgage on the
house. We are most of us the debtors of America, and France not least
of all. The American army in Paris may almost be described as the man
in possession, and there is no possibility of avoiding him. It was
an unlucky decision to make Paris an American military headquarters.
The wild west sprawls in the restaurants, and patrols the grand
boulevards. The American army could no more be popular in Paris than
the Canadians could be popular in Epsom. When on top of the military
invasion of Paris there came an American delegation 1,400 strong,
filling the air with principles and viewpoints, and amusing itself
loudly and continuously, not the most civilized president in the
world could quite cover with his professional mantle the nakedness of
his countrymen.
“All of this would be of merely passing interest were it not for
the peculiar position which America will occupy for the next thirty
years. What is happening in Paris will happen on a large scale in
Europe as soon as peace is signed. During the war America has become
the creditor of the civilized world. Her chief problem will be how
to spend the money she has made. She is so rich that she has begun
to be alarmed for her foreign trade, for it is impossible for Dives
to trade with Lazarus unless Lazarus can be induced to borrow the
necessary capital to set himself up in business. Whatever ultimate
arrangements are made it is fairly clear that America will have more
money than she knows what to do with, and that Europe will be, to an
extent unknown before, an American playground and Europe will hate it
to-morrow as Paris hates it to-day.”
——
* By permission of _The World’s Work_.
For a period of time many of the colored fighting troops were brigaded
with the French troops, which brought them into very close contact with
the French life. As has been noted in another chapter, four regiments,
those that were to have composed the 93rd Division, became a part
of French Divisions of Infantry. It is interesting to note that by
far the greatest majority of colored soldiers or organizations that
were cited or decorated for bravery were these troops, and that the
decorations were with few exceptions French and not American. It is
also interesting to note that the regiment from Illinois, under command
of colored officers, was awarded 30 Croix de Guerre decorations for
officers, and 38 for non-commissioned officers and privates, while only
3 officers received the American Distinguished Service Cross, and 19
non-commissioned officers and privates. These colored officers have
many happy recollections of the overflowing appreciation of the French
people.
Certificates of good behavior secured by these troops show that the
towns and villages through which they passed or in which they were
billeted found no cause for complaint; that they came in an orderly
manner and left in the same way. The same can be said of the thousands
of labor troops and engineers who built the roads, unloaded the ships,
laid telephone wires, built warehouses, and handled supplies.
[Illustration: 1. French Sergeants fraternizing with Colored American
Sergeants. 2. and 3. Colored Soldiers and the French children. 4. Two
colored Sergeants visiting in French home.]
Finally, we can happily say that it was a pleasure to note that the
relationship between the colored American and the Frenchman grew in
cordiality and friendliness until a strong, and we hope, lasting
bond was established between them. They were made welcome guests in
the homes of the wealthy and cultured, as well as in the most humble.
The understanding ear of the colored man seemed attuned to the French
language, and he learned more quickly than others, it seemed, how to
converse with this romantic people. The French people are affectionate
and demonstrative, which corresponds to the deep emotional spirit which
seems the heritage of the colored American. The colored soldiers were
naturally musical, and many of them sang with a wonderful penetrating
pathos, or with notes that brought forth joy that was unconfined;
others were talented and accomplished pianists. These things appealed
deeply to the artistic soul of our French comrades.
The variety of color among them interested the Frenchman much as the
light and shade in a picture, or the coloring in the drapery in his
store windows, or in the birds that flitted about in his mountain
fastnesses. He admired the way they fought, and the way they performed
without murmuring their tasks at the dock, on the railroads, or in the
warehouses. He loved them because they did all these things with a
song of joy, though perhaps with a crucifixion of spirit; and with all
earnestness and genuine desire he invited them to come again, that the
relationship thus begun might grow in strength and beauty and mutual
helpfulness.
——————————————————
Take fast hold of instruction, let her not go: keep
her; for she is thy life.—_Proverbs_ 4:13.
——————————————————
Education
————
The chief educational work to be done among the colored troops overseas
was that of teaching them to read and write, as large numbers were
unable to sign the payroll. These men were drafted into the army
often without regard to age or physical fitness. One man from Texas,
upon delivering a company of men to a lieutenant whom he thought to
be white, remarked that he had brought him a good bunch of Negroes,
and had plenty more down there if he wanted them. At first, he said,
they took all the men who had just purchased little farms, so that the
property would soon return to the original owners, and then they just
went out through the country and gathered them up everywhere, so that
they could get their full quota without sending their white boys. Of
course, he said, the Negroes didn’t know any better and just thought
they had to come.
This shows the dense ignorance that existed in no small degree among
them, and many of them knew only one name, didn’t know when nor where
they were born, and couldn’t tell the time of day. This ignorance
was not all confined to the colored men, however. One white captain
remarked publicly that he had white men in his battalion who were
equally ignorant, and that upon asking one man where he was born,
his reply was “Toons County,” which was the limit of his knowledge
concerning the matter.
In Camp Lusitania, St. Nazaire, France, there were 9,000 colored
stevedores, and out of this number 1,100 could not write their names,
and a large per cent. of the remainder had only mediocre training. On
the other hand, some were college graduates and undergraduates, and
were of great value to those who undertook the task of teaching the
large number of illiterates. They readily volunteered their assistance,
and took great pains with their unfortunate comrades, helping them
in school and out to get the amount of training that the limited
facilities offered.
The writer, during her nine months’ period of service at Camp
Lusitania, gave most of her time to this kind of work, and while it was
difficult, the gratitude of the men fully compensated her for all the
trouble. Upon first entering the camp, there was no provision made to
assist in reaching these men, or ascertaining who they were. The Y. M.
C. A. had furnished a large number of books, which were piled away in
the hut unused. These books were taken and a request made at the cinema
for all who desired training in English to manifest it by remaining
in their seats at the close of the show. In this way we were able to
reach a large number, and through them others could be reached, so that
in time the work grew until the writer’s entire time was consumed in
teaching and directing the work.
One man told how his parents had died when he was quite young, and
that he was afterwards bound out to a white family to herd cattle for
fifty cents a week. He wanted to go to school so badly that he slipped
off and went two days, when the man for whom he worked found it out
and beat him so that he never went back any more. He said he had a
wife from whom he had not heard since he had been in France, but that
he couldn’t read her letters anyway, and he was not expecting her to
write. He worked very hard, however, and in time was able to write well
and read third grade reading matter. One day he came in joyfully and
said he had written his wife a letter and had gotten a reply. This, no
doubt, was a wonderful day in his life, when he had acquired sufficient
knowledge to make himself understood in a written communication. At
times their gratitude was most pathetic, and one man had tears in his
eyes as he told the writer how he had been so anxious to learn, but had
been ashamed to let her know that he couldn’t write his name, and had
hesitated a long time before he finally decided to come.
To learn to write one’s name seems an easy matter, but some of these
men would try patiently for an hour or so and the letters would have no
form, nor resemble in any way the characters they were trying to make.
Then the instructor would take each great rough hand in her own and
help the soldier to trace the form of the letter so that he would get
an idea of how to go about making the first curve of his initial. When
he would finally master the first initial of his name he would be so
delighted that he would go to his barracks and make all the boys whom
he knew give him assistance, so that in a day or two one could realize
that he was making splendid progress.
This kind of work went on without much difficulty until the Armistice
was signed; at this time every soldier became doubly sure that he
was going home “toute de suite” (at once); and to add impetus to an
already bad situation, their colonel got up in the auditorium and told
them that they would all eat Christmas dinner at home. This completely
demoralized the work until after the holidays. By this time they had
all concluded that they were going to remain in France a while anyway,
and some began to say that they would be glad if they were able to eat
dinner at home the next Christmas.
By the beginning of the new year the army decided to take a hand in
the educational work, and through its chaplains force all illiterates
to attend school. This brought the entire 1,100 at Camp Lusitania to
the Y. M. C. A. hut to receive instruction. All of them could not be
reached at one time, but two or three hundred could be crowded into
the class rooms twice a day, so that every two days the entire number
would be reached. The writer would teach them en masse, first from the
blackboard, having them follow her in sounding the letters, pronouncing
the words, and giving the diacritical markings; then from a small
booklet called “English Reading Lessons,” provided by the Educational
Commission of the Army and Navy Y. M. C. A. These booklets, containing
twenty lessons drawn from the soldiers’ experience in routine camp
life and drilling, would be furnished by the hundreds, free, so that
every man could have a book. After they had all read the lesson in
concert, the volunteer teachers, about twenty-five all told, would each
address himself to a group of the men, and hear them read individually.
In this way each man could get a small amount of individual attention.
One day, by some means, Mr. Ferguson, the hut secretary, found a French
mimeograph machine at the Y. M. C. A. warehouse. It was the only one,
it seemed, in the entire section. The writer, after many trials and
failures, learned to use it, and with the assistance of Private Stokes
and one or two others, was able to make a large number of copies of
written sentences. These would be taken by Chaplains Hodges, Jefferson,
and their assistants, including Reverend McCoomer, whom the army
had appointed to do educational and religious work. They would be
distributed among the men in the class room, pencils given them free,
and every man would labor earnestly to learn to write; then the men
would be permitted to take the copies to their barracks, where they
would practice during their leisure moments.
The mimeograph was also used to furnish problems in numbers to the
men who were learning to make figures, add and subtract. After having
a lesson from the blackboard, they would take the papers to their
barracks, solve their problems, and bring them in the next day for
correction. Mr. Julius Rosenwald visited Camp Lusitania during the
year, and left two hundred dollars to be used for the benefit of the
soldiers there. An automobile school was finally established and a
number of the soldiers took advantage of the training. In the white
camps much industrial training was introduced, and no small amount of
attention given to higher education as well.
The Y. M. C. A. made ample provision for the purpose of giving the
soldiers the opportunity to learn French. French professors were
employed to visit each hut at stipulated hours, where the men would be
taught en masse, the rudiments of conversational French. Small books
published for the express purpose were put without cost into the hands
of each man who had a desire to learn, and very few of them could be
found after a few lessons and a little contact with the French people,
who could not readily make themselves understood with regard to small
matters that concerned their everyday life.
[Illustration: COLORED MEMBERS OF ARMY EDUCATIONAL CORPS AND SOME
UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
1. Captain D. K. Cherry. 2. Secretary William N. Nelson. 3. Secretary
William H. Crutcher. 4. Secretary Benjamin F. Hubert and group of
students in attendance at Universities in Paris. 5. Secretary Joseph
L. Whiting. 6. Secretary George W. Jackson. 7. Secretary John C.
Wright.]
About the first of April, 1919, the Army decided to take over the
entire educational work of the Y. M. C. A., and invited the educational
secretaries, the writer included, to leave the organization and come
over to the army. It promised to carry out the original contract made
by the Y. M. C. A., and give them the rank and uniform of an officer.
Eight colored men accepted this offer and went into the army. They were
Mr. J. C. Wright, formerly of Tuskegee Institute, Mr. F. O. Nichols,
of Philadelphia, Mr. Benjamin F. Hubert, State College, Orangeburg,
S. C., Mr. William Nelson, A. & T. College, Greensboro, N. C., Mr.
Joseph L. Whiting, Tuskegee Institute, Mr. Thomas Clayton, Piqua, Ohio,
Mr. W. H. Crutcher, A. & M. College, Tallahassee, and Mr. George W.
Jackson, Louisville, Ky. Of this number Mr. J. C. Wright was appointed
Supervisor of Instruction for colored troops and Lecturer in Civics;
Mr. F. O. Nichols, Lecturer in Civics, and Mr. Benjamin F. Hubert,
Supervisor of Agricultural Instruction among the colored troops.
These men were attached to the staff of the University of Beaune. As
Supervisor of Instruction, Mr. Wright was well qualified, being a
graduate of Oberlin College, Dean of Tallahassee Normal School, and
having done splendid work as a Y. M. C. A. secretary at Camp One, Hut
5, St. Nazaire. Here he found a large number of men from the 301st
Stevedore Regiment, one of the largest military organizations in
France, and among them the first colored American soldiers to land
on French soil. About 30 per cent. of these men were illiterate. On
the contrary, a number of them were college trained men, having been
engaged in professional and business pursuits.
Mr. Wright undertook the task of preparing these men to go back to
civilian life with at least the rudiments of an English education. His
first method was to get men who could not read and write to voluntarily
attend classes scheduled at the Y. M. C. A. hut; but this was quite a
difficult matter, for after ten or twelve hours’ work on the dock, the
men were usually too tired to do anything that was not compulsory.
Then he succeeded in getting it made a military duty for all men who
could not sign the payroll to attend class three nights in a week for
a certain period. This plan was successful only to a limited degree,
as compulsion was left largely with company commanders, who were not
entirely in sympathy with the idea. They contended that the army was
no place for a man to make up for his lost school advantages, and some
said it was too much to require such a duty of tired, hard-working
troops; but too anxious and determined to be discouraged, the effort
was continued, and after much advertising and several large public
meetings held in the interest of the work, there were over five hundred
men who enrolled for class work. Of this number 328 were actually
taught by volunteer teacher-soldiers. One sergeant compelled the thirty
illiterates of his company to attend school every night there were
classes being taught; and after eight weeks all but nine could sign the
payroll, and many of them, men still in the morning of their manhood,
received such an inspiration as to give them a desire to enter school
after their return to the States, and it is known to be true that some
of them are at this moment enrolled in different schools and receiving
instruction.
Mr. Wright, together with his colleagues, Mr. Nichols and Mr. Hubert,
as members of the staff of the University of Beaune, were sent out
singly and as a team to lecture and hold institutes in the different
sections of France where colored troops were located. It is estimated
by them that they reached as many as twenty thousand men, and impressed
them with the importance of community co-operation and collective
effort in bettering the conditions in the neighborhoods where their
civic lots would be cast; also with the importance of buying land and
taking advantage of the industrial opportunities which the war had
brought about.
The other five members of the colored army educational corps did local
work. Mr. J. L. Whiting, who had formerly been educational secretary
at Camp Montoir, near St. Nazaire, and who had already done splendid
work, went back to his original field of labor. Here in September,
1918, he began with an enrollment of forty, in classes in reading,
writing, arithmetic, and civics. By April, 1919, the enrollment, with
the assistance of the new compulsory rule of the army, had increased
to 868, with 19 soldiers detailed to assist in the work. He found that
there were more than 1,000 troops below the fourth grade, who would
be glad of an opportunity to attend school, and that there were in
every company of colored troops as many as 30 men who were unable to
sign the payroll. Mr. Whiting accomplished wonderful results in spite
of the handicap of no books, no suitable accommodations, and for a
considerable time no regularly detailed teachers.
He set writing copies for all of these men with his own hand, taking
their work home each day and reviewing and criticising it. He held
classes in the mess halls, many times cold and damp and with no
lights except that which could be gotten by the use of candles; and
by the close of the work he had not only done much towards wiping out
the X (his mark) sign from the payroll, but had given them sufficient
foundation for the acquiring of a fair education.
Mr. George W. Jackson had been assigned by the Y. M. C. A. to be
Educational Director at Is-sur-Tille. Here he found about 15,000
colored soldiers hailing from Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Florida,
Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. They were S.
O. S. troops, working just back of the combat area. Mr. Jackson was
returned here by the army to complete the work started by the Y. M. C.
A. During his period of service here he learned that about 2,500 of the
colored soldiers had very limited education or none at all. With the
assistance of detailed tutors he was able to eliminate 90 per cent. of
this illiteracy in about three months. Most of them learned to sign
the payroll after about three weeks’ instruction, and by the time they
were demobilized fully one-third had written letters to their relatives
at home. Classes in secondary and college subjects were also held, in
addition to instruction in French, bookkeeping, current topics, and the
Bible.
Mr. Thomas A. Clayton was secretary in charge of the educational work
at Camp Ancona, near Bordeaux, where on January 10 an Army Post School
was organized. Of 6,987 men in camp at this time, 1,378 could not sign
the payroll; 1,457 had had four years’ schooling or less; 584 had
attended high school, and 137 had attended college. By the close of
the work 367 illiterates had learned to write their names. Classes in
French and the study of the history and literature of the French people
were also organized, and became very popular among the soldiers.
Special attention was given at this school to the teaching of
agriculture. A Farmers’ Institute was held, which had a total
attendance of 18,000 in three days. The meetings were held under the
auspices of Dr. H. Paul Douglass, of Syracuse, N. Y., and farmers’
clubs were organized and a special instructor given them. In all
classes, including primary and elementary subjects, there were 503
students enrolled.
Mr. W. H. Nelson had been doing educational work at Brest under many
handicaps. For a long time they were unable to get a Y. M. C. A. hut
completed. In December, 1918, the writers of this volume went up from
St. Nazaire to visit them. They found the staff of two secretaries
and a chaplain struggling along as best they could, with no floor in
a large part of their building and no lights except what could be
produced by the use of numerous candles. They were very happy to see
some colored women, and brought us a bountiful supper from one of the
company kitchens. This we ate from a small, bare table, by the light
of one or two flickering candles. Then the writers were placed upon a
box to elevate them a little, while they talked for the encouragement
of the soldiers who gathered in a small room, which afterwards became
the school room. The little force of secretaries was badly discouraged
because they were unable to secure the facilities that had been given
to other huts, but by dogged determination they finally succeeded
in finishing a beautiful building which was kept immaculately clean
in spite of the fact that they were never able to secure any women
secretaries. To this place Mr. Nelson was returned after he became
a member of the army educational corps, and continued his work of
teaching. He had about 1,000 illiterates in the camp whom he attempted
to reach. Of this number a total of 372 actually received valuable
training.
In addition to the army’s taking over the entire educational work
of the Y. M. C. A., it provided means by which a limited number of
graduate students would have an opportunity to attend the great
universities of France and England; at the same time it established
the American University for undergraduates at Beaune, Cote d’Or. This
school provided facilities for training in all college courses as well
as vocational and technical subjects, and brought over from the States
a corps of the very best instructors that could be secured. It also
utilized much of the splendid ability already in the army. The French
Minister of Education loaned the school a corps of experienced French
teachers, who were supplemented through the courtesy of the French
Minister of War.
[Illustration: STUDENTS AT UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
1. J. Douglass Sheppard. 2. James L. Moran. 3. E. M. Brewington.
4. Ulysses S. Young. 5. Henry L. Marriott. 6. Walter A. Powers. 7.
Milton F. Fields. 8. Ulysses S. Donaldson. 9. Leonard Barnett.]
Post and Division Schools were established in connection with the
university, the purpose of the Division School being to accommodate
all who were not qualified to enter the university proper. Here
were taught vocational courses and academic and commercial subjects of
high school grades. The Post School was composed of those who needed
elementary training in English, arithmetic, and citizenship and of
men who were unable to read and write the English language. Special
provision was made for a Post School for colored soldiers with colored
instructors, but it never materialized. To attend the university came
120 colored soldiers who matriculated in the College of Arts and
Letters, Agriculture, Science, Journalism, and Music.
Colored American soldiers from all parts of France made application
for admission to the Foreign Universities. In some places they were
told that colored soldiers were not allowed to attend, and every
effort was made to get the young officers of the 92nd Division out of
France before they could make application for the coveted privilege
and thereby embarrass the army.[6] We have learned of only one whose
application was not refused, that of Capt. D. K. Cherry of A. & T.
College, Greensboro, N. C., who attended the University of Bordeaux.
Several non-commissioned officers were admitted, however, and in the
University of London nine matriculated—Corporal James D. Sheppard,
Peoria, Ill., Engineering; 1st Sergt. Leonard Barnett, Fleming, Ohio,
Psychology, English, and Methods in Education; Ulysses S. Donaldson,
Terre Haute, Ind., English Literature; 1st Sergt. W. A. Powers, Xenia,
Ohio, Music and Philosophy; 1st Sergt. E. H. Brewington, Salisbury,
Md., History and Literature; Sergt. U. S. Young, Madison, N. J.,
Philosophy and Psychology; Sergt. Milton F. Fields, Des Moines, Iowa;
James L. Moran, Lancaster, Mass., Astronomy, and Henry O. Mariott, of
Boley, Okla.
Four entered the University at Bordeaux, one the University of
Toulouse, one the University of Marseilles, and seven the different
universities in Paris—Charles S. Wilkerson, Phar.D., Pittsburgh, Pa.;
Charles A. Johnson, Phar.D., Columbia, S. C.; Oscar S. Johnson, B.
S., Louisville, Ky.; Thomas Williams, Phar.D., Patterson, La.; George
Washington Mitchell, A.B., Marshall, Tex.; Clarence Glead, Phar.D.,
Lawrence, Kan., and Mr. McKenzie, a lawyer from Richmond, Va.
Mention should be made also of the Army Candidate School at Langres,
France. The school was located at Fort Dela Bonnelle, and 62
non-commissioned officers representing all the colored combat regiments
in France were enrolled there. Of this number, one sergeant died, two
became ill at examination time, and 56 received commissions. This
was the best record for the proportion receiving commissions of all
the 17 platoons represented there. Of this number all whose initials
ranged from A to D were sent to the 370th Infantry; the others were
distributed throughout the 92nd Division. The 325th Signal Corps
Battalion attended school at Gondrecourt, and made one of the best
records of any battalion from the standpoint of hardworking students
and improved efficiency, while the five colored company officers of the
167th F. A. attended school at La Cortrine, and the colonel in charge
of the school reported that they made the best record for studiousness
and work accomplished in a period of two weeks of any American units in
a given length of time.
There were other schools where some colored soldiers secured training
in wireless telegraphy and other technical subjects, and 33 2nd
lieutenants received instruction at the French Artillery School at
Vannes. While visiting that city during their period of training there,
the writers were told by a French general with whom they conversed
while waiting for a train, that these men all showed superior mental
capacity, and were much loved by all the French citizens because of
their splendid behavior and gentility of manners.
Another phase of educational work among the troops was the developing
of libraries. In this work the American Library Association was the
moving spirit. Thousands of volumes of books were contributed to this
Association by the American people, and the Y. M. C. A. acted as a
medium by which they were placed within reach of the soldiers. This
offered a special opportunity for colored welfare workers to give
another kind of training to soldiers that thousands were unable to get
in their home cities. In very few cities in the South are any library
facilities provided for the colored people. They are not permitted
to go into the public libraries, and only a few cities have colored
Branch Carnegie Libraries, such as Louisville or Houston, or a colored
library established through other channels such as the one in Guthrie,
Oklahoma. As a result, thousands of men coming from the South had no
training in the use of libraries, and special attention had to be given
everywhere to instituting and teaching booklending systems; otherwise
all books would have disappeared in a day or two, not to be read
always, but to be utilized in various and sundry ways such as a hiding
place for letters, or a pad upon which to write. In time they all
learned, however, to borrow and return books in a given time, and the
library soon became the most popular place about the hut. It was always
kept warm and attractive and it was the only place about the hut where
one could make himself comfortable in an arm or steamer chair. Through
the generosity of the American public, magazines and periodicals became
plentiful after the Armistice was signed, and the soldiers would tarry
late, often until taps, before they would tear themselves away from the
news item which brought such interesting information from home.
[Illustration: 1. Library at Camp Lusitania, St. Nazaire, France. 2.
Colored College Students at University of Beaune. 3. Colored Students
in Farm School, University of Beaune.]
Large and valuable libraries were established for the colored soldiers
at Camp Lusitania, and the Embarkation Camps at St. Nazaire, in the
Leave Area at Challes-les-Eaux, at Camp Romagne, at Camp President
Lincoln, Brest, and at the two colored huts at Camp Pontanezen, and
were of invaluable service in educational and cultural work among the
soldiers. Through these channels and the opportunities offered through
the different Y. M. C. A. and Army Schools, the colored men received
a new impetus and a new vision, and with the assistance of the training
that comes from travel and contact, have returned to their homes better
equipped for citizenship and future service to their race than they
possibly could have been otherwise through all the years of a lifetime.
[Illustration: Group of soldiers, the majority of whom assisted in
the work of education at Camp Lusitania, St. Nazaire, France]
——————————————————
“They said they were too slow, too dull, too this and that to do it,
They couldn’t match the method of the Hun,
And then to arm a million—why, the land would surely rue it
If a million blacks were taught to use a gun.
But right won out, and they went in at all detractors smiling;
They learned as quick as any how to shoot,
They took the prize at loading ships, and riveting and piling,
And trained a thousand officers to boot.
And when they went they took a boon no others had been bringing,
For whether with a pick or with a gun,
They lightened every labor with a wondrous sort of singing,
And turned the pall of battle into fun.
O, the Frenchman was a marvel, and the Yankee was a wonder,
And the British line was like a granite wall,
But for singing as they leaped away to draw the Kaiser’s thunder,
The swarthy sons of Dixie beat them all.”