In the editorial section of The Crisis I read a letter that was written by a man named J.B. Watson titled Our First Great Tragedy of the War. Almost immediately I began to assume that the letter would chronicle the deaths of some poor, brave souls who died during a notable battle in WWI. I was incredibly surprised however when I read the first few sentences which began by saying, "I have seen thousands of Negro men received into the provisional army of the United States who cannot read or write". The author then went on to discuss how most Negro men in the army, besides their inability to read or write, were woefully ignorant in a wide variety of subjects. Watson tells of how "some of them thought the enemy to be fought was just a few miles beyond Atlanta and that a battle was imminent at almost any hour" and goes on to assert that none of the men knew what the war was about and had "never heard of Germany or Serbia or France or the Kaiser or Europe or New York".
This was particularly troubling to me when compared with Jennifer Keene's statement that African-Americans "had additional goals besides winning the war". She asserted that the Negro men who fought in the war hoped that their contributions would help further the Civil Rights movement and help bring an end to disenfranchisement. However, if Our First Great Tragedy of the War has any truth in it, the ideals that Keene speaks of would have a hard time coming to fruition during this era, if only because of the lack of education in young Negro men of the time. Numerous Civil Rights activists throughout the centuries have cited education as a primary tool used to gain civil freedom and it is incredibly troubling to think that despite the personal sacrifice of the Negro soldiers during WWI, they would still be unable to gain that tool. In the end, despite W.E.B. Du Bois's call for young Negro soldiers to "return fighting", their fight would not gain much momentum until more African-Americans became educated.
Comments
Katie Boul
Tue, 02/19/2013 - 16:21
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Perhaps one of the
Perhaps one of the "additional goals" of the African Americans was better, more accessible public education. At this point, schools were far from being integrated, and black schools were of much poorer quality than white schools. I would not be surprised if higher-quality education was near the top of the list in terms of things African Americans hoped to gain by fighting in WWI.
Victoria McGouran
Wed, 02/20/2013 - 10:34
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That is what I eventually
That is what I eventually assumed, however, just fighting in the war didn't give them much of an advantage in that regard, which I suppose is why it depressed me.
Lauren Mitchell
Wed, 02/20/2013 - 16:45
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I just wrote my blog post on
I just wrote my blog post on the same piece. I think your connecting it with Du Bois is interesting, especially considering his approach to the victory of racial equality was specifically through the channels of education and higher scholarly pursuits. Also, if so many African-American soldiers were unable to read or write and were thus uninformed about the war, it stands to reason that they would be even more ignorant of Du Bois's philosophy. I find it interesting also that this article about the devastatingly widespread illiteracy of blacks is published in a black magazine, read by blacks.
This raises questions in my mind as to the actual extent of illiteracy in the armed forces. If Watson's claims are accurate, then those of Jennifer Keene seem questionable when she claims the general knowledge of African Americans on the subject of war heroes and army movements presented in posters of the era.