A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib

Author:Hanif Abdurraqib [Abdurraqib, Hanif]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

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Yes, Josephine Baker left America, but it came on the back of several other leavings.

The chorus of telling people to go back to wherever they came from isn’t new, and Black people wanting to prove themselves to a country that is at best annoyed by their presence isn’t new either. At the intersection of these things, in the early 1900s, was war. In April 1917, the United States declared war against Germany, sparking its entry into World War I. In the States, segregation was rampant. Deemed not smart or skilled enough to keep up with the unpredictability and rigors of battle, Black people had, before that point, been routinely turned away from military service. But with the massive conflict of the world war looming, Congress passed the Selective Service Act in May 1917, requiring all male citizens between the ages of twenty-one and thirty to register for the draft, regardless of race. Young Black men signed up in droves, assuming that if they showed a willingness to fight and die for their country, their country might just love them back.

America drank in the enthusiasm of Black men to serve, and then took in even more beyond the enthusiastic. If some were willing to fight, it seemed, then they all had to be. Black men were drafted at rates far higher than their white counterparts. Draft boards that once turned away Black men were now pulling them in by the dozens, attempting to get as many as possible. In Georgia, one county exemption board discharged 44 percent of white registrants on physical grounds and exempted only 3 percent of Black registrants based on the same requirements. Black men who owned land and had families were drafted earlier than single white laborers. The army was particularly progressive at the time, allowing Black soldiers to serve in multiple capacities. Of the many questions sprouting from the body of war, one of them is the question of respect. And when soldiers are willing to fight for the idea of respect—both abroad and at home—it allows for exploitation by a country eager to remain powerful.

Over three hundred thousand Black soldiers served in some capacity in World War I—but the branches of the military didn’t often know what to do with the bodies once they got them. Black soldiers became a problem for the military to figure out. Could they fight alongside white soldiers? Could they lead? Could they be trusted? Black soldiers were often kept separate from their white counterparts in the name of what some would call “racial tranquility,” which led to a few all-Black combat divisions. But for a majority of other Black soldiers, they were simply relegated to menial and often isolating roles: as gravediggers, cooks, mechanics. Pushed to places where they could play a part in keeping the machinery of war going but still be out of the way, barely visible beyond the loud and trembling landscapes of war.

The all-Black combat divisions were the 92nd, 93rd, and the 369th infantries—the last of which nicknamed themselves the Harlem Hellfighters.

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