World War I

http://dl.lib.brown.edu/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=1292421644617250&view=pageturner&pageno=43

There is a short snippet under the "Miscellaneous" category of The Horizon segment in The Crisis, Vol. 13 No. 6, which briefly comments on the lack of discontented colored citizens in France.  "France's dusky subjects are regarded and treated as free and worthy men," the writer claims.  As such, they als "fought for France in the great war as heroically as they could have fought for any ancestral chieftan."  It is said that this is so because "they have beeen fighting for their friend rather than for their master and despot..."

I thought that this was an interesting point which provided some insight into the minds of African-American soldiers in the war at the time.  They were fighting for a country that treated them as second-class citizens.  A country who had a history of enslaving their race and treating them terribly.  Their country was not their friend, yet they went to war for her anyway.

http://dl.lib.brown.edu/jpegs/1288962488165750.jpg (p. 1)

http://dl.lib.brown.edu/jpegs/1288962496681375.jpg (p. 2)

I found my article in Vol. 11, No. 5 of The Crisis, which was published in March 1916.  The author of "Preparedness" is by no means shy about his opinion on President Wilson's foreign policy during the war.  The Crisis repeatedly surprises me with the extreme positions it managed to take on every issue, apparently without too much consequence judging by its continued existence.  The argument, however, is a sound one that is relevant even today: how can we be so caught up in foreign policy and foreign wars when we can't even solve problems on the home front?  The article complains about Wilson's apparent lack of concern about the problem of lynching in the States with a stinging implication that he is not living up to his responsibility as an educated man, let alone as a president. By quoting a letter sent to college men, appealing to their "sufficient legal intelligence and machinery" which ought to be enough to end unrest at home, he suggests that the president, who ought to be one of the very best minds, is failing at his duties.

Not only this, but Wilson is even portrayed in what could arguably seen as a childish light—he is depicted as a warmongering youth demanding more ships, rather than as a competent politician with his peoples' best interests at heart.  There is something distinctly puerile about the image, and the freedom of the magazine to portray the country's leader in such a light contrasts starkly with other works I have been reading in the London 1713 class, which deals with a society in which defaming a monarch was tantamount to treason.  Considering that wartimes traditionally tend to produce hair triggers on implications of treason, it's really quite remarkable that the editors of The Crisis, lacking even the social protection of whiteness in a topic pertaining to race, would have felt safe enough to raise such a controversial image of the president in the middle of World War I. 

This article comes from The Crisis (Vol. 17 No. 2) and was published in December 1918.

http://dl.lib.brown.edu/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=129295166...

 The article itself is styled as a letter from an African American woman to her soldier son. I'm not exactly sure what the background for this article is, because the adopted boy is one whom the woman "has never seen". I think the "soldier boy" she's addressing might just be a stand-in for all of the young black soldiers of the war. Not sure.

Rather than addressing the toll or senselessness of the war itself, as many of the things I've read up to this point have done, she discusses the place of the young, African-American soldier within it. Black soldiers had a very complex relationship with the war. They loved their country, though their country treated them as lesser citizens. Even as they were dying to defend America, lynchings and other racial violence still ran rampant back home, often making them question their patriotism and the lives they were sacrificing. Soldiers themselves were still treated atrociously by their white counterparts.

Bentley is writing to a soldier boy feeling angry at this sort of injustice, and she responds by stating the nobleness inherent in the African American soldier. To the soldier boy, she says

you do not "go over seas to risk your life in the defense of a country which crucifies your brothers and denies you the ordinary rights of citizenship." You go to help to protect from disaster the Idea for which this country stands-- that Idea which, though maltreated and defaced by imperfect men, must be made manifest in all its glorious reality as Universal Freedom.

Throughout the war, the ostensible reason for the fighting was to help small, defenseless countries defend  and liberate themselves from the overbearing nations who would deny them their sovereignty. Though most people seemed to become were highly skeptical of this reasoning, Bentley uses it to make the sacrifices by African American soldiers seem worthwhile.

http://dl.lib.brown.edu/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=130270347...

In issue number 11 of the 1914 run of The Crisis (vol. 9, no. 1), there is a lengthy discussion of the war, and which side America should support. The default attitude of many opinion pieces seems to be pro-Allies; however, German supporters are quick to point out the widespread atrocities committed by American lynch mobs. The Crisis quotes an editorial in the Boston Traveler and Evening Herald which highlights the history of lynch mob brutality endemic to America at this time, saying:

"Here is a record of atrocities for which we venture to say no parallel can be found in any of the 'barbarous' nations now at war, and compared with which the atrocities charged against the German soldiers would appear for the most part as  trifling indiscretions incident to the heat of war. Before we throw any more stones at the Germans, let us be sure we are not living in a glass house." (16)

These points of view are summarized in an editorial piece on p. 28, titled "World War and the Colored Line". The author, after a brief summation of the war as "civilized nations ... fighting like mad dogs over the right to own and exploit these people", throws his support, and by extension the support of the Crisis , behind the Allied cause. His conclusion is not drawn from the inherent worthiness of the Allied nations, or any sense of patriotic duty. Rather, the author pragmatically positions the Allies as the lesser of two evils. He cites the colonial histories and ambitions of the warring nations, positioning England and France as nations slowly advancing towards freedom and equal rights, while Germany openly indulges in racist oppression and degredation. "To-day no white nation is fairer in its treatment of darker peoples than England. Not that England is yet fair ... but as compared with Germany, England is an angel of light" (29). The author argues that an Allied victory would "leave the plight of the colored races no worse than now," while a German victory would undo centuries of progress towards equal rights (29).

This type of argument, founded not in patriotism or idealism but in a Catch-22 type of pragmatism, is a clear demonstration of how different demographics viewed the war. For its primary participants -- young white European males -- the war was founded in nationalism, and motivated by a highly ideological discourse of national supremecy. As the war moves further and further away from this ideological center, the causes for supporting the war become increasingly practical. Black Americans, at almost the furthest remove from the central causes of the war, had to be won over with increasingly fraying pragmatic arguments, such as the one advanced by this editorial. As causes go, "Preserve the abusive status quo!" makes for a poor rallying cry, but its about all the motivation the Allies could muster for black Americans to involve themselves in a distant and largely unproductive war.

http://dl.lib.brown.edu/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=130270396...

This article comes from the editorial section of The Crisis volume 9, number 4 from 1915. This article is about a newspaper, in Boston, changing its stance on how the word, “Negro,” should be used in the paper itself. The article states that “Negro” should now be capitalized, as was the case with all nationalities by ordering “…the word Negro be capitalized in his paper...” The article then goes on to say that in this Boston newspaper, the word, “Negro,” should also now only be explicitly used in an article if the story would be lacking or confusing without it. In all other cases, it would not be necessary to point out the race of people in articles. This article in The Crisis seeks to be an inspiration for the audience of African-Americans reading the magazine, and since it is a magazine specifically for African-Americans, noting the progressive and changing view of a Boston newspaper would inspire hope.

This magazine’s main purpose was to inspire African-Americans to fight for equal rights. The magazine does this by showing their accomplishments and their defeats to inspire the reader to action. In this case, the magazine inspires readers by showing that their actions have moved their race forward, closer to equal rights. The article shows that now, at least in the case of this one Boston newspaper, their race was finally being recognized as a race at least equal to those of Jewish, Irish, or Swedish decent or origin as stated by the editor “Ask yourself how the story would read if the word Jew, Irishman, or Swede were substituted for the word Negro.”

On a side note, as I was researching for this blog assignment, I noticed how difficult I found it to locate articles about race using search terms I am comfortable with. First, I typed in “racism” and found nothing. Then, I typed in “black,” a term I am still not comfortable using, and found nothing related to race. I then sadly realized I was going to have to use older terminology to find anything of use. I found my article after typing in “negro,” a term I have never used in my modern-day life.

This article included in the September 1918 issue of The Crisis describes how the town of Newport, N.H. made up of only white citizens escorted the only Negro man in town to his train to carry him to his cantonment. The townspeople were 500 in number and met at the early hour of 7 am along with a band to boot. The author asks whether this town's action should be looked upon pessimistically as a compensation for lynchings or cynically that the Negro popularity is only in inverse proportion to their density of population. Of course, he states, the Yankee's response would be to say that this response of the citizens of Newport simply vindicates again their record of justice for the Negro.  Lastly, that the optimist would think that at last the two races have reconciled under the war's influence.

The author dismisses all of these pat answers and suggests that it is simply an example of man's love for man.  That this is something that will become more common place in the future and shows human nature at its best.  This is a hopeful and somewhat naive article that illustrates how the Negro community was pinning their hope on change for the better in exchange for their services rendered during the war.

http://dl.lib.brown.edu/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=129294798...

I found this article to be contradictory in its attitude towards civil rights and the war.  On the one hand, the very title of the war, when placed in context, is describing the unequal opportunities between blacks and whites as the "first great tragedy of the war".  The article laments the forced ignorance of black soldiers called to the front, many of whom allegedly have no understanding of the war's basis, participants, or gravity.  As J.B. Watson claims, "they had just known for a few weeks that a great war was raging, and had not the slightest idea what it was all about", leaving their families likewise in a daze of confusion and helplessness as wives and children sent their husbands off to die for seemingly no reason at all.  Watson calls African-Americans a people "long neglected, repressed and exploited", indicating an eagerness to right these wrongs.  However, the very next paragraph reveals a drastic shift in approach.  Suddenly, Watson's activist voice morphs into an echo of the Secretary of War's empty praises.  While Watson's accolades may not ring as falsely as Newton D. Baker's, His choice to conclude his letter with such mild compromise as to be proud of the men "making a fine showing" necessarily brings into question his stance as a true and loyal defender of the plea for racial equality.

http://dl.lib.brown.edu/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=129294986193000&view=pageturner&pageno=16

The section, entitled In France, of the October 1918 issue of The Crisis (pgs. 16-17 of the images and 276-277 of the magazine) contains a report on the actions of a colored regiment in battle fighting along the Marne front. The regiment fought so bravely that "the French commander of the sector has cited the whole regiment as worthy of receiving the war cross". It's clear that the purpose of publishing this article in The Crisis is to stir up support for the soldiers as they return home from the front, but the report has an interesting way of doing so. First of all, it focuses on the men as a unit, and as a group. This is not a report about the actions of a soldier, but on the actions of a unit. Solidarity and communion is therefore a primary emphasis; for example, when any of the soldiers are given an order, they respond invariably with a "Let's go!". A colonel in one of the colored regiments says, "Tell a hundred of them to do a thing and they'll say the same thing. I hear it a thousand times a day."

The report is illustrating that the unit behaves as a group, with all the members identical to one another in bravery and eagerness. This is a commendation, in a certain way, but it also pigeonholes the soldiers into their race, and identifies them all as "colored". They can't escape this tag even though they are being praised for their actions in relation to it. To me, this seems like a manifestation of the latent racism that is the base on which the article (and the magazine) is being published. It is sort of an unavoidable way to commend the unit; the commendation comes with an inevitable reference to race. It is hard to tell whether the soldiers' race or bravery is most important here, since the writer is trying so hard to equate the two. To do so, the writer has to make a generalization about the African-American race (that their regiments are all exceedingly brave), but this type of thinking (though positive here) is exactly the form that racism takes, in the negative sense. This illustrates the difficult road that the writers of The Crisis have to walk.

I was doing some research for the WWI Poster essay and found images of these posters online. It may just be me, but I didn't see anything like these in Special Collections. A lot of the posters we looked at were glossing over the true nature of the war, either presenting young soldiers as fit, healthy and happy or dramatizing their noble sacrifices. The women in the posters were all doing their part and the goal it seemed, was to mobilize different nations towards action.

In these images there appears to be definite elements of desperation and fear. The soldier in the first poster is literally in the middle of a battle and supposedly, if passersby do not buy a bond, that soldier will get shot because he is out of ammunition. The second poster I found to be far more disturbing, just because of the fear that I think it was supposed to generate. The women in the posters are alleged patriots who appear to be doing something for the war efforts, minus the fact that they are being silenced. Espionage! Now Punishable!

Again, it may just be me, but seeing images like these as opposed to a lot of the picturesque images we saw in Special Collections was fairly jarring. I don't think I truly realized how abrasive WWI propaganda posters were until now.

http://dl.lib.brown.edu/jpegs/1292429213820375.jpg 

In the Christmas Edition of Crisis, published December 1917, I cam across a brief piece titled “The Negro and the War Department” by Emmett Jay Scott (page 76). After today’s discussion of African American soldiers, and how the few soldiers that did get placed in a combat position generally fought under French leadership, I expected this article to be a message of dissatisfaction with the War Department’s treatment of blacks. In actuality, this piece is non-confrontational and supporting of the actions of Secretary of War, Newton Baker. Its author, Emmett Jay Scott, opens the piece by telling his fellows that Baker recognizes African Americans as  “an asset of appreciable value in the prosecution of the present war.” Scott also claims that his boss desires “that we, as American citizens, have the full and free opportunity to participate as officers, as soldiers, and as loyal self-sacrificing citizens,” and that “now and hereafter, we shall receive the rewards which justly follow upon services well rendered.” From this description, the War Department sounds quite encouraging of racial equality. The last part of the quote even implies that the rewards of serving in the War will be greater civil rights for African Americans. Of course, we know now that these were empty words.

Knowing the way many African Americans felt about the government’s refusal to grant them full participation in the War, I find it difficult to believe that an African American man actually wrote this. It’s true that Scott couldn’t exactly speak out against his employer and still hope to keep his job. However, he even goes so far as to ask his fellow African Americans to support the War Department, saying “it is highly essential and earnestly desired that I have behind me the loyal support of the thoughtful men and women of our race, and I shall value and appreciate at all times their counsel and suggestions.” Scott appears to fully back the War Department and hopes that the rest of his race will as well. Perhaps he believed that the government would follow through on their promise of rewards when the War ended if the African Americans cooperated throughout the war. Maybe he didn’t mind that African Americans were not getting to fully participate in the military, so long as they got to participate partially. Regardless, Emmett Scott presents a picture of the relations between US War Department and African Americans that are quite different from what we’ve seen in the journals so far.