Friends of Padre Steve’s World. We are coming up on Martin Luther King Day and January is African American History Month. As such I will be writing and probably re-posting some articles that have a direct correlation to both events. Today is a re-post of an article that I published in 2012 about the men of the 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions, both African American units who General John “Black Jack” Pershing allowed to serve under French command because of political pressure because many American politicians could not allow Blacks to serve in combat under American command. The men of both divisions whose regiments were assigned to French divisions distinguished themselves in combat against the Germans and many of the “Buffalo Soldiers” won high decorations for valor. Their story is remarkable. Peace, Padre Steve+
They were volunteers and many of their veteran soldiers had served full careers on the Great Plains. They were the Buffalo Soldiers. In the First World War they were left on the frontier and a new generation of draftees and volunteers became the nucleus of two infantry Divisions, the 92nd and 93rd. However in the beginning they were regulated to labor service units until the protests of organizations such as the NAACP and men like W.E.B.DuBois and Phillip Randolph forced the War Department to reconsider the second class status of these men and form them into combat units.
Despite this the leadership of the AEF, or the American Expeditionary Force refused to allow these divisions to serve under American command. Instead they were broken up and the regiments of the 93rd Division were attached to French divisions. The 369th “Harlem Hellfighters” were assigned to the French 16th Division and then…
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