Duty Beyond the Battlefield
World War Wednesday, the Bullets and Torches of the loyal Black American Soldier
So as I come to the end of Black History month, I thought that for the last World War Wednesday of February—and as I edit my podcasts to post for you—I’d focus on a book by a historian who has influenced a lot of my work.
Duty beyond the Battlefield: African American Soldiers Fight for Racial Uplift, Citizenship, and Manhood, 1870–1920 by Dr. Le'Trice D. Donaldson
Donaldson, weaves together a story of how from Reconstruction to the Great War the Black soldiers of the American Army understood that they were representatives to and from their ethnic community. They felt the weight of duty, and embraced the burden of having to show White America what the African American soldier was capable doing on the battlefield. But they also had to show the same thing to the Black population, the majority of whom were ex-slaves, and needed inspiration.
This was a time hope that turned to disappointment after the incompletion of Reconstruction. Furthermore, the image of a proud Black soldier in the blue United States uniform became the model of manhood and counterpoint to the growing influence of eugenics and social Darwinism over elite White intellectual opinion. The language of science was used denigrate non-Whites as weak and often effeminate, and Black soldiers challenged this narrative. Donaldson’s work reveals how the Black men serving America performed the function of being a good “race man.”
The concept of the race man is not as well known today, and it is a pity because the idea answers questions that many Americans have about Black uplift after slavery. The “race men” like the hero soldier Colonel Charles Young—who was kind of celebrity among Black Americans in the early 20th century—actively used their position to promote social progress and improvements for African Americans. In doing so they helped to energize the civil rights movement over the long term and contributed to the New Negro movement: the assertive Black American identity during the Harlem Renaissance. Duty beyond the Battlefield is a story of the chosen struggle of the vanguard of Black American manhood, and of those who shrugged the burdens the community. The story of how the first permanent regular army Black soldiers made their way in America after the Civil War.
Verdict: Strong Recommendation