History of the American Negro in the Great World War Part 1

History of the American Negro in the Great World War.

by W. Allison Sweeney.

FOREWORD

He was a red headed messenger boy and he handed me a letter in a NILE GREEN ENVELOPE, and this is what I read:

Dear Mr. Sweeney:

When on the 25th of March the last instalment of the MSS of the "History of the American Negro in the Great World War" was returned to us from your hands, bearing the stamp of your approval as to its historic accuracy; the wisdom and fairness of the reflections and recommendations of the corps of compilers placed at your service, giving you full authority to review the result of their labors, your obligation to the publishers ceased.

The transaction between us, a purely business one, had in every particular upon your part been complied with. From thenceforward, as far as you were obligated to the publishers, this History; what it is; what it stands for; how it will be rated by the reading ma.s.ses-should be, and concretely, by your own people you so worthily represent and are today their most fearless and eloquent champion, is, as far as any obligation you may have been under to us, not required of you to say.

Nevertheless, regardless of past business relations now at an end, have you not an opinion directly of the finished work? A word to say; the growth of which you have marked from its first instalment to its last?

-The Publishers-

HAVE I-

A word to say? And of this fine book?

THE BEST HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO IN THE GREAT WORLD WAR, THAT AS YET HAS BEEN WRITTEN OR WILL BE FOR YEARS TO COME?

DOES-

The rose in bud respond to the wooing breath of the mornings of June?

IS-

The whistle of robin red breast clearer and more exultant, as its watchful gaze, bearing in its inscrutable depths the mystery of all the centuries; the Omniscience of DIVINITY, discovers a cherry tree bending to-

"The green gra.s.s"

from the weight of its blood red fruit?

DOES-

The nightingale respond to its mate; caroling its amatory challenge from afar; across brake and dale and glen; beyond a

"Dim old forest" the earth bathed in the silver light of the harvest moon!

EVEN SO-

And for the same reason which the wisest of us cannot explain, that the rose, the robin and nightingale respond to the lure that invites, the zephyrs that caress, I find myself moved to say not only a word-a few, but many, of praise and commendation of this book; the finished work, so graciously and so quickly submitted for my inspection by the publishers.

THERE ARE-

Books and books; histories and histories, treatise after treatise; covering every realm of speculative investigation; every field of fact and fancy; of inspiration and deed, past and present, that in this 20th century of haste and bustle, of miraculous mechanical equipment, are born daily and die as quickly. But there are also books, that like some men marked before their birth for a place amongst the "Seats of the MIGHTY"; an a.s.sociation with the IMMORTALS, that

"Were not born to die."

This book seems of that glorious company.

IN THE-

Spiritualized humanity that broadened the vision and inspired the pens of the devoted corps of writers, responding to my suggestions and oversight in its preparation; the getting together of data and facts, is reflected the incoming of a NEW AND BROADER CHARITY-a stranger in our midst-of glimpse and measurement of the Negro. Beyond the written word of the text, the reader is gripped with a certain FELT but unprinted power of suggestion, a sense of the nation's crime against him; the Negro, stretching back through the centuries; the shame and humiliation that is at last overtaking it, that has not been born of the "Print Shops" since the sainted LINCOLN went his way, leaving behind him a trail of glory, s.h.i.+ning like the sun; in the path of which, freed through the mandate of his great soul, MARCHED FOUR MILLION NEGROES, now swollen to twelve, their story, the saddest epic of the ages, of whom and in behalf of whom their children; the generation now and those to come, this History was collated and arranged. It is an EVANGEL proclaiming to the world, their unsullied patriotism; their rapid fire loyalty, that through all the years of the nation's life, has never flickered-

"Has burned and burned Forever the same", from Lexington to the cactus groves of Mexico; in the slaughter h.e.l.ls of Europe; over fields and upon spots where, in the centuries gone, the legions of Caesar, of Hannibal and Attila, of Charlemagne and Napoleon had fought and bled, and perished! Striding "Breast forward" beneath the Stars and Stripes as this History crowds them on your gaze, through the dust of empires and kingdoms that; before the CHRIST walked the earth; before Christianity had its birth, wielded the sceptres of power when civilization was young, but which are now but vanis.h.i.+ng traditions.

You are thrilled! History nor story affords no picture more inspiring.

MAKING DUE ALLOWANCE-

For its nearness to the living and dead, whose heroic and transcendant achievements on the battle spots of the great war secured for them a distinction and fame that will endure until-

"The records of valor decay", it is a most notable publication, quite worthy to be draped in the robes that distinguishes History from narrative; from "a tale that is told"; a story for the entertainment of the moment.

AS INTERPOLATED-

By the writers of its text; read between the lines of their written words; it is a History; not alone of the American Negro on the "tented field"; the b.l.o.o.d.y trenches of France and Belgium, it is also a History and an arraignment, a warning and a prophecy, looking backwards and forward, the Negro being the objective focus, of many things.

IT PRESENTS-

For the readers retrospection, as vividly as painted on a canvas, a phantasmagoric procession of past events, and of those to come in the travail of the Negro; commencing with the sailing of the first "Slaver's s.h.i.+p" for the sh.o.r.es of the "New World", jammed fore and aft, from deck to hold, with its cargo of human beings, to the conclusion of the great war in which, individually and in units he wrote his name in imperishable characters, and high on the scroll on which are inscribed the story of those, who, in their lives wrought for RIGHT and, pa.s.sing, died for MEN! For a flag; beneath and within its folds his welcome has been measured and parsimonious;-a country; the construing and application of its laws and remedies as applied to him, has inflicted intolerable INJUSTICE: Has persecuted more often than blessed. And so and thus, its perusal finished, its pages closed and laid aside, you are shaken and swayed in your feelings, even as a tree, bent and riven before the march and sweep of a mighty hurricane.

LOOKING BACKWARDS-

The spell of the book strong upon you, you see in your mind's eye, thousands of plantations covering a fourth of a continent of a new and virgin land. The toilers "Black Folk"; men, women and children-SLAVES!

YOU HEAR-

The crack of the "driver's" lash; the sullen bay of pursuing hounds.

JUST OVER YONDER-