Variously called negro, coloured, and black, the history of African-American soldiers is that of US race relations in general. Even after the abolition of formal discrimination by colour, advancement within the military has corresponded rather closely to skin shade.
During the American independence war both sides employed negroes mainly in a support capacity. In 1775, Lord Dunmore issued an emancipation decree similar to the one by Lincoln in 1862, declaring the freedom of only the rebels' slaves and indentured servants. In the War of 1812 a ‘Battalion of Free Men of Colour’ fought under Jackson at the battle of New Orleans and coloureds served under him in the first war against the Seminole, which was fought to recover escaped slaves. But in general the self-fulfilling argument that they made poor soldiers prevailed.
During the American civil war, African-Americans were mainly regarded as an economic asset to be denied to the South. Abolitionists struggled to get free northern coloureds into the war, the subject of the 1989 film Glory, but not in time to defuse the resentment that exploded in the bloody anti-negro 1863 draft riots. US Coloured Troops distinguished themselves in 1864-5, notably at Chapin's Farm where they won thirteen Congressional Medals of Honor. But attempts by African-Americans to become officers were cruelly discouraged in the armed forces until the mid-20th century, providing a further self-fulfilling rationale that they were unfit to lead.
During the latter Plains Indians wars and the Spanish-American war, two cavalry and two infantry regiments of ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ served with distinction in the regular army, but that was the limit set on African-American participation against a background of segregationist ‘Jim Crow’ laws, although some states still permitted them to join the National Guard. During WW I, 140, 000 were sent to France and 40, 000 served in combat, most under French command, winning over three hundred Croix de Guerre and seven Légions d'Honneur. During WW II, segregationists sought to keep over 500, 000 uniformed African-Americans in secondary roles, and denigrated those who did manage to engage in combat, notably the pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group, the subject of the 1995 film Tuskegee Airmen. In the 1990s, after an investigation documented contemporary discrimination, Congressional Medals of Honor were posthumously awarded to one African-American in WW I and seven in WW II.
The de jure abolition of American apartheid began in the armed forces in 1948 but continued de facto, the two Medals of Honor won by blacks in Korea being in the ‘Buffalo Soldier’ 24th Infantry. Vietnam was the first war fought with fully integrated units, as the middle class generally sought to exempt itself and leave the fighting to the underclass, black and white. There were repeated complaints that blacks, constituting a substantial part of this underclass and less able to avoid conscription than the well-to-do, were disproportionately represented in Vietnam and many were radicalized by their experiences there.
Yet there was another side to the story: with desegregation a growing number of blacks saw the armed forces as offering social mobility, and by the 1960s were about twice as likely to re-enlist as their comrades of other races. There is also evidence that military service improved race relations. A WW II white sergeant from South Carolina admitted that he had been reluctant to serve with black soldiers, but ‘after that first day when we saw how they fought, I changed my mind’. A black soldier in Korea commented: ‘if all white people were like the white boys in this company it wouldn't take long before everybody would get along swell.’ Gen Colin Powell's role in the Gulf war as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was the final milestone in a 200-year struggle for recognition. Although only 12 per cent of today's US population, African-Americans constitute 28 per cent of the army, 19 per cent of the Marines, and 15 per cent of the air force and navy.
— Hugh Bicheno/Richard Holmes
