“We return from fighting. We return fighting.” — African American Texans in World War I
Black History Month, celebrated annually in the United States in February, emphasizes the unique historical contributions and experiences of African Americans. Black history is marked by times of great difficulty and tragedy, as well as courage, perseverance, and progress. Due to the practices and prejudices common during the years of the Republic of Texas and early statehood, there are but few records at the General Land Office that reflect this story. Nevertheless, the extant records are worth revisiting, since they shed direct light upon the African American experience in early Texas and black Texans’ efforts to overcome prejudice. Maps in the GLO Archives help demonstrate the movement of soldiers throughout Texas during World War I, including African Americans who served in various capacities.
In April 1918 George Gillaspie left his hometown of Huntsville, Texas, at Uncle Sam’s request.[1] The previous year, on April 6, 1917, the United States had entered World War I (1914–1918) and propelled the twenty-seven-year-old and 4.7 million other Americans into the “Great War.” Gillaspie, however, faced additional challenges. He was one of nearly 400,000 African Americans — roughly 32,000 of whom were Texans — who served a nation that actively recruited and drafted black men into a segregated military while denying them basic democratic and human rights.[2]
His journey and that of over 100,000 other drafted Texans and Oklahomans, of all races and ethnicities, began at Camp Travis in San Antonio. By 1917 the city was already a well-established military town. It further benefitted from the U.S. government’s decision to build thirty-two additional cantonments, or military garrisons, across the nation, several of them in Texas. In addition to drafted raw recruits, other sites mobilized and provided training to enlisted Regular Army soldiers, National Guard units, newly commissioned officers, and specialist aviation crews, among others.
This mass movement of men in such a compressed amount of time was possible because of the extensive railway system that already existed throughout Texas and the nation, and by the U.S. government’s decision to nationalize all railroads for the duration of the war.[3] This large promotional map from the General Land Office’s collection shows the routes of the major railroad lines operated by the Southern Pacific Railway Company, and the routes that men like Gillaspie would have taken.
Camp Travis was located next to Fort Sam Houston and encompassed over 5,700 acres. As drafted men arrived, they were given vaccinations, physicals, and intelligence tests, introduced to military life, participated in physical fitness exercises, and were evaluated for permanent assignment. To deal with widespread illiteracy, YMCA classes were provided.[4]
As in the civilian world, a strict racial separation existed in terms of housing, medical care, and amenities. And unlike their white counterparts, African American draftees carried the extra burden of the low expectations of military leadership, who disproportionately assigned them to labor battalions and other non-combat roles. In addition to racial bias, assumptions about regional origins also influenced the decisions underpinning unit assignments. For example, African Americans from the piney woods of East Texas, men like Willie Durham from Sulphur Springs, were often assigned to the engineering battalions of the forestry regiment in France.
George Gillaspie, however, was one of the significant but small number of African Americans who was provided a rifle and put into combat. Just four months after being inducted into the U.S. Army he embarked for France to join the famous and already battle-hardened 369th Infantry Regiment, or “Harlem Hellfighters,” who were fighting under French command.[5]
Training facilities such as Camp Travis played a crucial role in U.S. efforts to mobilize soldiers for the war. Equally important to the U.S. Government, however, was the rapid development of a suitable officer corps to lead such men. In the fall of 1918, the short-lived Student Army Training Corps (SATC) was established to prepare select men enrolled at participating colleges for eventual leadership roles in the Army. Crucially, historical black colleges and universities (HBCUs) were involved.[6] In Texas, this included institutions such as Prairie View Normal and Industrial College and Wiley University, among others. In Private Wright Cuney Price’s native Anderson County alone, sixteen young men served in the SATC at HBCUs as diverse as Wiley, Prairie View, Bishop College, and Tuskegee Institute.
One of the little-known developments of World War I was the first-ever enlistment of African American women in the U.S. Navy. Fourteen women were assigned to perform vital clerical work in Washington D.C. as Navy Female Yeomen. Two of them hailed from Texas: Fannie A. Foote from Brenham, and thirty-year-old Maud Williams from Brazos County.[7]
The armistice of November 11, 1918, finally silenced the guns of the Great War, which officially ended six months later with the Treaty of Versailles. The impact on the United States and its citizens was vast. 204,002 Americans had been wounded and a further 116,516 (including over 5,000 Texans) were dead.[8] Twenty-six thousand had died in the final campaign of the war, the Meuse Argonne Offensive. Among them was Private George Gillaspie of Company M of the 369th Infantry Regiment. He was killed in action on the first day of battle, September 26, 1918, as his regiment retook the French town of Ripont from the Germans.
Female Yeoman Fannie Foote became a pharmacist after the war. Private Willie Durham survived and went on to become William J. Durham, a prominent civil rights attorney who survived the Sherman Riot of 1930 and played an instrumental role in Sweatt v. Painer, the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case that desegregated U.T. Law School.[9] In the words of W.E.B. Du Bois, the most prominent African American intellectual of the day, “We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting. Make way for Democracy! We saved it in France, and by the Great Jehovah, we will save it in the United States of America, or know the reason why.”[10]
To learn more about the impact of World War I check out the Texas General Land Office’s map, Texas and the Great War, a promotional poster created for the 2017 Save Texas History Symposium and the American WWI Centennial. The reverse features artwork reminiscent of a U.S. WWI recruitment poster. To view the presentations from the 2017 Symposium, check out the Save Texas History Youtube page.
[1] “Texas, World War I Records, 1917–1920,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89MN-8SLV?cc=2202707&wc=334P-N38%3A1561331302%2C1561333001 : 26 March 2015), Army enlisted, dead > Gann, Richard Lee-Moeller, Otto Fridrich, 1917–1920 > image 163 of 3256; Texas Military Forces Museum, Austin.
[2] Wooster, Ralph. Texas and Texans in the Great War. Buffalo Gap: State House Press, 2010; Lentz-Smith, Adriane. Freedom Struggles: African Americans and World War I. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009.
[3] Railways nationalization sourceHistory.com Editors, “U.S. government takes over control of nation’s railroads,” History, A&E Television Networks. Last updated July 28, 2019. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-government-takes-over-control-of-nations-railroads. Accessed February 13, 2020.
[4] Ball, Gregory W. Texas and World War I. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 2019.
[5] “Texas, World War I Records, 1917–1920,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89MN-8SLV?cc=2202707&wc=334P-N38%3A1561331302%2C1561333001 : 26 March 2015), Army enlisted, dead > Gann, Richard Lee-Moeller, Otto Fridrich, 1917–1920 > image 163 of 3256; Texas Military Forces Museum, Austin.
[6] Johnson, Charles. African Americans and ROTC: Military, Naval and Aeroscience Programs at Historically Black Colleges, 1916 to 1973. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2002.
[7] Miller, Kelly. Kelly Miller’s History of the Negro in the World War for Human Rights. Washington, D.C.: Austen Jenkins Company, 1919.
[8] American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics, CRS Report No. RL32492, Version 25, p. 2 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, Sept. 14, 2018), https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL32492.
[9] Handbook of Texas Online, Richard Allen Burns, “DURHAM, WILLIAM J.,” accessed February 13, 2020, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fdu46. Uploaded on June 12, 2010. Modified on February 21, 2020. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
[10] W.E.B Du Bois, “Returning Soldiers,” The Crisis, XVIII (May, 1919), p. 13. Yale University. https://glc.yale.edu/returning-soldiers . Accessed February 13, 2020.
