Quite a Show, France, c1919
The top photo of black soldiers dressed as minstrels is disturbing to me today. I hope that they were honestly just having fun.
These photos are among the World War One images from my grandmother's Aunt Lucy and Uncle Byron. Lucy is on the bottom right, on horseback with Byron Bird. They were probably engaged at this point, and married back in Seattle at the end of 1919. Surprisingly she traveled to France to be with him while he served as an officer in a labor battalion of all-black enlisted men.
It's more disturbing to realize that his officer training was at the newly-created Camp Lee, named after Confederate hero Robert E. Lee (and amazing that Fort Lee retains this name today!). He couldn't have known that the men who served under him were not randomly selected, but instead part of a rigged draft system in the south - I believe they were all from Florida. The Army was genuinely afraid of the idea of organized, trained black men with guns. Only a few groups were prepared for combat, and one was given to the French army as reinforcements.
Album B Page 63
View the entire album of Aunt Lucy from the 1910s.
Quite a Show, France, c1919
The top photo of black soldiers dressed as minstrels is disturbing to me today. I hope that they were honestly just having fun.
These photos are among the World War One images from my grandmother's Aunt Lucy and Uncle Byron. Lucy is on the bottom right, on horseback with Byron Bird. They were probably engaged at this point, and married back in Seattle at the end of 1919. Surprisingly she traveled to France to be with him while he served as an officer in a labor battalion of all-black enlisted men.
It's more disturbing to realize that his officer training was at the newly-created Camp Lee, named after Confederate hero Robert E. Lee (and amazing that Fort Lee retains this name today!). He couldn't have known that the men who served under him were not randomly selected, but instead part of a rigged draft system in the south - I believe they were all from Florida. The Army was genuinely afraid of the idea of organized, trained black men with guns. Only a few groups were prepared for combat, and one was given to the French army as reinforcements.
Album B Page 63
View the entire album of Aunt Lucy from the 1910s.