The History

Since the Revolutionary time period, the War Department prohibited Negro soldiers and sailors from fighting in a unified military. Even in times of war, negro troops fought on the battlefields with less ammunition, less communication, less military support, and less food rations. Fearing the Order would not pass-through Congress, President Harry S Truman sign Executive Order 9981 in July 1948 that ended the segregation of Negro servicemembers. Daniel James was born in 1920 in Pensacola Florida. James was the first Negro to command a integrated Air Force Squadron. And the first Negro to reach Four Star General. During the Korean War, James ranked first in rocketry, second in bombing accuracy, and top gunner in his squadron. James flew in one hundred Korean combat missions. In 1950 James was shot down behind enemy lines but was rescued by an all-white marine tank battalion before he was captured. James was sent to the Philippines to become a flight instructor.

Harriet Tubman

Born in 1820 in Maryland, as a slave girl Harriet’s skull was split open with a weight scale by a overseer for refusing to tie up a boy to be beaten then lynched. Harriet became known as the Mother of the underground railroad. Harriet lead hundreds of slaves through the underground. Including both her parents, and her ten other siblings.

William Still

Born into slavery in the south, William became known as the Father of the underground railroad. William became a station manager in Snowhill New Jersey. Then the owner of his own locomotive, he helped over eight hundred slaves become in free in Canada. William kept a diary of each slave. He later chronicle it in his book “The Second Promise Land” in 1872.

The Kansas Volunteers

These were the first negro segregated soldiers to see live combat in the Battles of Butler, Missouri during the Civil War. They scored victories against confederates and Native American soldiers who fought for the confederates, in Island Mound. The Leavenworth Conservative paper wrote, “The men fought like tigers, each and every one of them”.

Robert Small

Robert was a slave who fought onboard the heavily armed dispatched ship “The Planter” in the confederate navy. Confederate States authorized authorities to arrest, shoot, or hang negro sailors if they step foot off the ship in ports. On a drunken weekend, Robert stole the vessel and sail it to union territory waters. The union Naval Commander commission Robert a Captain of the Planter after they refitted it into a gunboat.

Henry Turner

A chaplain for the First Regiment of Colored Troops recorded the battle that was achieved in the American Heritage in 1980. Henry wrote “union soldiers took control of Fort Fisher in Wilmington, NC., then the fall of Charleston, SC. Then came Richmond, when union soldiers told the confederates that black troops were in the rear, and if they failed, then the color troops would take the Fort, and claim the honors. The confederates surrender in Richmond, VA. Eventually, General Robert E Lee surrendered in Appomattox ending the civil war.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution - 1865

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the United States…

It was the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment that outlawed chattel slavery in America.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution - 1865

All persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Negros slaves were considered property, and not citizens until this amendment was ratified by Congress.

The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution - 1865

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged based on race, color, or previous conditions of servitude.

The first voting rights act to be ratified. The valor of the negro troops on the battlefield, going back to the American Revolutionary was monumental in Congress decision to enact these amendments. These three amendments are used today by aliens, both legal and illegal to win court cases for their legitimacy to be in our nation. Even though their argument was not foreseen at that time.

The Buffalo Soldiers

After the civil war ended, America’s push to the western frontier in 1867-1896 was in full peek. Conflicts known as the “Indian Wars” pitted tribes such as Chief Geronimo, Lone Wolfe, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse against negro infantrymen who fought so ferociously, that they nickname them “Buffalo Soldiers”. The animal they deified. During the war’s, negro soldier-built thousands of miles of roads, and telephone lines. Escorted the pony express, and stagecoaches. They maintain land for themselves in Fort Duchene in Utah, Fort Robinson in Nebraska, Fort Washakie in Wyoming, Fort Tulerau in New Mexico, and areas around the Rio Grande. After the wars, colonizers began settling in their land and eventually over-took them.

The Ninth & Tenth Calvary - 1898

The Spanish American Wars booted out Spain’s influence in the region once and for all. While in the harbor in Havana Cuba, the warship “Maine” exploded. Killing 260 sailors with 22 being Negros. It was the Nineth and Tenth Calvary who was called upon. They eventually rescued the infamous “Rough Riders” after being pinned and surrounded. Colonial Theodore Roosevelt wrote in 1898, “I don’t think any Rough Rider will ever forget the tie that finds us to the 9th and 10th Calvary”.

The 761st Tank Battalion - 1944

With his Third Army struggling in Saar Basin in France, General George S Patton called for the segregated all black tank battalion in Texas to fight in Europe. They were not the only all black battalion, but the General requested them. When they arrived in Omaha Beach, in France, the General welcome them saying ” I don’t give a damn what color you are. You wonder why you’re here? I sent for you. Your people are watching you, and by golly, don’t let them down”. The 761st fought their way across Belgium, Luxenburg, and Germany. While in Austria, they came across a satellite camp they thought was for German soldiers in Gunskirchen. Instead, it was a concentration camp. The 761st came upon another concentration camp in Mauthausen where they assisted again. Sonia Weitz, a Holocaust survivor wrote about her rescue in one of her poems called “A Black Messiah Came For Me”.

The Red Tails -1941

In 1941 the Army Department created the Negro Air Corps. Giving rise to the Tuskegee Airmen Training Base in Tuskegee Alabama. The pilots selected were all college graduates. And the enlisted men were all mechanically trained with some college background. They flew P-51 Mustangs, with red tail pieces. Mostly recognize as fighter escorts for the B-24 Bombers squadron.

Milton S. J. Wright - 1972

Milton was born in 1903 in Savannah Georgia. Milton was studying for his doctorates at the prestigious University of Heidelberg in Germany. He spoke fluent German. While out with some classmate’s, Milton was taken out of his hotel by German SS guards, who did not knock. They took him to the Europaischer hof Hotel to sit and be interviewed by the Fuhrer. Coincidently, the Fuhrer was staying in the same hotel as Milton, while he was in town giving one of his propagandas hate speeches. Milton is the only Negro living, to engage in a “q and a” with the mass genocides.

Dories "Dorie" Miller 1919

Midwives knew the baby was a girl, they name him Doris prematurely. Born in 1919 in Waco Texas enlisted in the Navy in 1938. Dorie was assigned to the USS Virginia in Pearl Harbor Hawaii. When the Samari Flag of Japan attacked our fleet in Pearl Harbor, it was Dorie, a cook, that rushed to the top deck and fired precisely the ships 50 caliber anti-aircraft gun with accuracy. Shooting down four of the prestigious Japanese built Nika Jima Kate Bombers. And crippled many more. Seaman Miller then ran to the bridge to assist in rescuing as many injured before the Virginia sank. Dorie received the Navy Cross. But he died at sea, still a cook when the USS Liscombe Bay was sunk by a Japanese torpedo. The Navy Department commissioned the fast-frigate USS Miller in his honor in 1973.