WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: Harlem Hellfighters 0:00:02.240 --> 0:00:05.720 I'm Happy Saturday, everyone. Today's classic episode looks at the 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:09.280 Harlem Hellfighters. This is a segregated army unit in World 0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:13.000 War One, and it also specifically focuses on Henry Johnson, 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:15.440 who was a member of that unit who was posthumously 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:19.279 awarded the Medal of Honor on June two. One of 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:21.960 the things that this episode talks about is the connection 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:24.880 between returning World War Two veterans and the Civil rights 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:27.760 movement in the United States, and why there wasn't a 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:31.040 similar movement when black veterans returned from World War One. 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:34.040 A piece of that discussion is Red Summer, which we 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:36.919 talked about in more detail in our episode from June three. 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:45.839 This episode originally came out on November two. Welcome to 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:48.640 Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:58.080 Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:02.120 Wilson and I'm Holly Frown. Pretty recently, we talked about 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:05.760 Maccario Garcia, and we talked in that episode about how 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:08.560 World War Two often comes up as one of the 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:11.640 factors of many that led to the United States Civil 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:15.480 Rights movement. So told very simply soldiers who had put 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.160 their lives on the line to serve their country and 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:21.679 to fight against oppression abroad, came back home to fight 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.080 against depression where they actually lived. And this story is 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.680 usually told as it related to African American soldiers in 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:31.840 World War Two, and in this particular case of the 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.039 episode we already did. Maccario Garcia was a Mexican national, 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.199 so after he returned from World War Two, his experience 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.360 being denied service at a Texas restaurant contributed to a 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.039 social movement for equal rights for Mexican Americans and other 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:47.560 Hispanics and Latinos who were living in that part of 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:50.680 the United States. So when we did that episode on 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.200 Macario Garcia, we hinted that World War Two was not 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:56.800 the only time that happened, that the subject of that 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:58.880 was going to be in an upcoming episode, and that 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:01.840 is two days episod sawed. We are going to tell 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:06.480 this story about World War One's effect on civil rights 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:09.480 in the United States by talking about the Harlem Health Fighters. 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:12.640 This was a segregated regiment that served in combat in 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:15.400 World War One, So we're going to start by talking 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:18.639 about the regiment itself. Then we are going to talk 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:22.200 about one of its most decorated members, as an example 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:25.280 of the just really exceptional valor and courage that the 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.000 health fighters exhibited while they were serving in World War One. 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:32.639 And lastly, we're going to talk about why World War 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:34.959 One does not come up very often when we're talking 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:39.000 about things that inspired civil rights activity in the United States. 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.920 It's much more overshadowed by World War Two. And whenever 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:45.600 we talk about segregation on the podcast, we make it 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:47.920 a point to note that the practice was not something 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.160 that was confined to the South. That sort of rumor 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:54.200 sort of persists. Yeah, somebody emailed us about it the 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:56.960 other day. Even though I feel like we keep saying it, 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:00.400 We're gonna say it again today very directly. Not just South. 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:05.600 Although formalized, legally enforced segregation persisted in the South longer 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.000 than it did than it did in many other parts 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:10.320 of the United States, And in a lot of ways 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.600 it was most obvious there, which is also here where 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:17.280 we are. Uh, segregation really existed all over the nation. 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.440 For example, President Woodrow Wilson, who had promised in his 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:24.080 campaign to treat African Americans fairly if he was elected, 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:28.280 instead started taking steps to allow segregation of federal government 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:34.360 positions almost immediately after his inauguration in nine many many 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:37.760 black federal workers all over the country were segregated or 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:41.240 flat out dismissed. As a result, the United States armed 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:44.680 forces were segregated as well, and the years leading up 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.480 to World War One, the Marines did not accept black 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:51.320 soldiers at all. The Navy did accept a few, although 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:54.920 most of them were restricted to support and manual labor roles, 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:57.840 so most black soldiers who served in the military wound 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:01.400 up serving in the Army, which was ggregated. There were 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:05.480 also almost no black Army officers, and the black Army 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.960 officers who did exist were not ever placed in command 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.760 of white soldiers. They were only placed in command of 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:16.560 black soldiers. In addition to being restricted to segregated units, 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:20.080 black soldiers serving in World War One faced violence while 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:23.680 still in the United States before being sent overseas. These 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:26.839 men were sent into the South, sometimes the Deep South, 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:30.159 to be trained, and large numbers of armed black men 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.719 were often explicitly not wanted in the Southern States, and 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:36.919 the sudden influx of so many black soldiers led to 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:39.720 some very real hostilities and on more than one occasion, 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:44.080 riots and murders. The army has also been fairly candid 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:48.520 and acknowledging that it discriminated specifically against black soldiers during 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:53.000 this time, apart from just placing them in segregated units, which, 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:57.360 as we have talked and many other podcasts before, segregation 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:02.560 based on races inherently discriminatory. So command at this point 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:05.360 did not think that black men were suited for combat. 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.880 They were viewed as untrustworthy and lazy and complacent, so 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:13.520 overwhelmingly black soldiers were assigned to work as manual labors. 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:16.280 So most of the two hundred thousand black soldiers who 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:19.440 went overseas in World War One wound up working as stevedor's. 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:22.720 They dug ditches, they dug latrines, and to be clear, 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.839 this was absolutely essential work. It needed to be done, 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:30.040 but it was also often backbreaking and degrading, and overwhelmingly 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:33.320 being assigned to only the black soldiers. Black soldiers were 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:36.040 also the ones who were frequently tasked with burying the dead. 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.479 Only about forty two thousand Black soldiers saw combat in 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.520 World War One. These men served in the ninety second 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:47.760 and ninety three combat divisions. The ninety two mostly comprised 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:50.440 men who had been drafted along with their officers and 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.360 was part of the muse Agne Offensive in nineteen eighteen. 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:56.200 This offensive did not go as well as hoped, and 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:59.120 the ninety two wound up being a scapegoat for everything 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:02.240 that had gone wrong. Their time in combat was brief. 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:06.320 On the other hand, was made up primarily of National 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:10.480 Guard units, including the fifteenth New York Colored Regiment. About 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:13.159 seventy percent of the men in this regiment were from 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:15.520 Harlem in New York, and these were the men who 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.159 would go on to be nicknamed the Harlem Health Fighters. 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:22.080 The ninety three Combat Division, under the command of Colonel 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:25.880 William Hayward, wound up essentially being loaned to France to 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:28.840 fill a labor shortage in their own army. And this 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:30.680 was in spite of the fact that when the United 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:33.680 States entered the war, the President had assured the population 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:36.600 that US soldiers would not be on loan to other armies. 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.320 They would be fighting as American units under American command. 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.880 So when it went overseas, the fifteenth New York Colored 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:47.839 Regiment was renamed the three hundred sixty ninth Infantry, and 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.640 the three hundred sixty nine served a hundred and ninety 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:53.679 one days in combat. This was longer than any other 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:57.600 American unit in World War One. Contrary to the American 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:01.600 military's assumption that black soldiers were outfit for combat and 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.680 for their expectations for how black soldiers would perform, the 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:09.320 three sixty nine Inventory became one of the most decorated 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:12.920 units to serve in the war. Much like German forces 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:15.920 named Russia's all female night bombers the night Witches in 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:20.480 World War Two, they nicknamed the three nine the bloeterstick 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:25.520 Shvartza Mana or the Bloodthirsty black Men in World War One, 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:29.680 and this nickname was eventually translated into the hell Fighters. 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:35.360 In addition to their consistent valor and high performance in combat, 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:38.960 the three sixty nine Inventories marching band was also a 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:41.440 skilled and talented one and was one of the ways 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.080 that jazz music made its way from the United States 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.600 to France during the war. The Harlem hell Fighters time 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:50.200 in combat was so prolonged and it touched so many 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:53.040 actions on the Western Front that it's actually difficult to 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:55.960 get a sense of their remarkable heroism in valor. So 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:58.840 to get a glimpse of it, uh, we are going 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:01.880 to talk about one of their most incredible members who 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:04.920 really exemplifies what we're talking about. But first we are 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:07.840 going to have a word from one of our great sponsors. 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:19.960 So we're going to tell the story of how the 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:24.680 ninth Infantry was pretty incredible in their service by talking 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:28.680 about specifically the story of Henry Johnson. Henry Johnson was 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:32.440 born William Henry Johnson in Winston Salem, North Carolina, and 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:34.400 he moved to New York when he was a teenager. 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:37.240 Once he got there, he worked at a variety of jobs, 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.800 most of them involving manual labor, until he eventually became 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:44.760 a red cat porter at the Albany, New York train station. Later, 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:47.240 he joined the National Guard unit that would become part 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:51.040 of the Harlem hell Fighters. In May of nineteen eighteen, 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:54.599 Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts, both of them then privates, 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:57.280 were acting as centuries at a lookout post in the 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:00.640 Argon Forest on the Western Front. John Hnson heard the 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:04.640 sound of someone snipping through barbed wire. Concluding that this 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:07.680 was a German advance, he sent Roberts to go for help, 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:11.320 called for help himself, and then lobbed grenades at the 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.360 source of the sound. It was indeed a German advance, 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:17.760 and the Germans returned fire with both grenades and bullets. 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:21.640 Roberts turned back to try to help Johnson, and both 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:24.640 men were hit. Roberts was actually hurt so badly that 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:28.280 he was not able to continue fighting, so he passed 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:31.560 grenades to Johnson, and Johnson threw them at the approaching 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:35.000 Germans until he ran out, and then Johnson got his 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:38.240 rifle and he fired upon the advancing German soldiers until 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.520 his weapon jammed after he accidentally tried to use an 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:45.080 American clip with a French rifle. At this point, the 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:47.880 German soldiers closed into hand to hand range, and so 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.840 Johnson tried to fight them off basically by swinging his 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.880 rifle like a club until the butt of it literally splintered. 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:56.920 And Johnson, we should point out, was not a large man. 0:09:57.040 --> 0:09:59.480 He was only about five ft four you wait, about 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:02.400 a hundred dirty pounds, and once his rifle was destroyed, 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:05.560 he was struck in the head and knocked down. But 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:07.880 then he saw that the German soldiers were trying to 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.200 take the injured Private Roberts prisoner, so Johnson managed to 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:14.000 get to his feet. He pulled out the only weapon 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:16.360 he had left, which was his bolo knife, and he 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:20.760 fought back with that while trying to drag Roberts to safety. Fortunately, 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:23.360 at this point, the sounds of gunfire and grenades and 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.760 their calls for help had brought other soldiers to their aid, 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.640 so Johnson continued trying to drag Roberts away from the 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:35.040 fighting until he lost consciousness. Fortunately that was when reinforcements 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:37.880 arrived and the German soldiers who were still upright fled. 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.720 In the morning, it was revealed that then Private Johnson 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:45.880 had single handedly killed four enemy soldiers and wounded somewhere 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.960 between ten and twenty more, all while he was injured 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:52.720 himself with twenty one wounds, sustained in his combat and 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:56.760 refusing to allow his compatriot to be taken captive. So 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:01.040 both men were awarded the lot of Gear, which is 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:05.120 the French military decoration for valor and heroism. This made 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:08.559 Johnson and Roberts the first American privates of any race 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:12.360 to earn this recognition, and Johnson and Roberts were not 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:15.000 the only members of the Harlem Heal fighters to ultimately 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.080 be awarded the Quadi gear for their valor. All in all, 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:21.079 a hundred and seventy one individual members of the Harlem 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:24.000 Heal Fighters received the Quadi gear, and the unit as 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.640 a whole was awarded one as well for capturing say 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:30.360 Show while advancing ahead of French and other American lines. 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:33.160 The Harlem Heal Fighters were the first to reach the 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.480 Rhine after the armistice, and they were commended again and 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:42.480 again for their valor. So basically they performed above and 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:46.640 beyond the call for any combat unit, and especially in 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:48.440 a way that flew in the face of what the 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.400 American command was expecting of them. Yeah, I don't think 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:53.959 you could get a much more um, kind of poignant 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:59.079 portrait of heroism. Right. So, roughly eight hundred Harlem Hell 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.800 Fighters lost our lives in Europe. About three thousand others 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:06.120 returned home from the war. In February of nineteen nineteen, 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:08.840 they had a welcome home parade in which they marched 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:11.200 up Fifth Avenue in New York and into their home 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.760 neighborhood of Harlem. And this parade was in part to 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:16.640 make up for the fact that on their departure from 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.600 New York in December of nineteen seventeen, they had not 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:21.880 been permitted to take part in the New York National 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:25.280 Guards farewell Parade through New York City. The New York 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:27.680 National Guard was known as the Rainbow Division because it 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:31.240 included members from twenty seven states, and the reason for 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.960 the fifteenth New York Regiment's exclusion was black is not 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:38.880 a color of the Rainbow. On their return, however, the 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:43.440 Harlem health Fighters received a legitimate heroes welcome. Accounts very 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:46.560 wildly about how many people were there for the parade. 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:48.880 You will find news sources that site anywhere from two 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:53.160 hundred thousand people to more than two million. Johnson was 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:55.880 riding in a car for injured veterans, and in spite 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:57.800 of the fact that he had a shattered foot that 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:00.240 was held together with the metal plate, he stood up 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.480 to wave at them, and people called him Black Death. 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.320 The response from both white and black onlookers at the 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:10.400 parade was so a brilliantly positive that too many it 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.559 was a symbol of hope for improved race relations to come. 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:16.240 And this was bolstered by the fact that President Theodore 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:20.080 Roosevelt called Johnson one of the five bravest Americans to 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.440 serve in the war. That's high praise, and the army 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:26.600 used his image on recruitment posters and to sell victory 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:30.559 War stamps. I couldn't find a picture of this actual advertisement, 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.280 but reportedly what it says signed is Johnson licked a 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:37.560 dozen Germans. How many stamps have you LICKD I looked 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:42.400 for I because yeah, that's some copy right. So all 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.840 of this Johnson's fame is a war hero. The overwhelming 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:49.240 tide of support for the returning black veterans, this overall 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:52.640 theme that the war had been fought in a quote 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:56.160 to make the world safe for democracy, gave a lot 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.160 of people hope that this signaled a major change in 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:01.959 the social and legal status of African Americans and the 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.480 United States. Sadly, this was not to be true, and 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.440 we're going to talk about why and how after another 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:20.040 brief word from a sponsor. So, when he was committing 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:23.680 American troops to World War One, Woodrow Wilson very famously 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.720 said that quote the world must be made safe for democracy. 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:29.480 We alluded to that just before the break, But when 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.320 African American soldiers returned home to find that they were 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.360 still the targets of segregation, discrimination, and oppression, it really 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:38.880 seemed like there was an unspoken for white people at 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:41.560 the end of that sentence, hoping to tie the fight 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.400 for civil rights to the ideals that had underpinned the 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:47.680 United states very involvement in the war, and the fact 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:51.240 that so many black soldiers had returned as highly decorated heroes, 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:56.200 black civil rights leaders called for action. The idea of 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:59.080 making the world safe for democracy came up again and 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:03.360 again in art, call, speeches, pamphlets, and other materials about 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:06.960 equal rights for black citizens. In May of nineteen nineteen, 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:11.119 for example, W. E. B. D. Boys wrote quote, returning soldiers, 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:16.200 we return, we return from fighting. We return fighting make 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:19.320 way for democracy. We saved it in France, and by 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:21.800 the Great Jehovah, we will save it in the United 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:26.000 States of America. Or know the reason why. But this 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:28.400 is not the war that winds up being referenced in 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.240 terms of how it affected civil rights. That distinction always, 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:34.480 as we've said, goes to World War Two. The biggest 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:37.080 reason for this is that it's much easier to frame 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.960 World War Two as a more positive story. Following World 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.160 War Two, returning black veterans added their voices to a 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:47.920 growing grass grassroots movement all over the nation, which coalesced 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:50.680 into what we know is the civil rights movement today. 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.720 And although there was definitely a violent backlash and lots 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:58.080 of resistance. That was a hallmark tow part of this movement. 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:01.600 It did eventually lead to civil rights legislation that was 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.800 meant to help put Black Americans on more equal footing. 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.240 That's an oversimplified way to look at World War two, 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.960 but no amount of oversimplification can put the years following 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.520 World War One into such a positive light. World War 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:19.440 One ended on November eleventh of nineteen eighteen. The following summer, 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:22.920 violence broke out all over the United States, driven by 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:26.560 a number of social and economic factors. One was a 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:31.560 backlash against advocacy for equal treatment of African Americans, especially 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:35.200 as others began to view this movement as militant. But 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:38.040 also in play was the return of soldiers who had 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.560 fought in the war, colliding with what's known as the 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:44.720 Great Migration. So in the Great Migration, which peaked between 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:49.080 nineteen fourteen and nineteen twenty, huge numbers of African Americans 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:51.880 living in the South moved north. Many of them were 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:55.880 fleeing poverty and social and political oppression. People who had 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:58.640 been living as sharecroppers in the South moved north to 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:01.240 get industrial jobs, many of which were tied to the 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:04.439 war effort in the hope of getting better incomes and 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:08.800 more freedom. So this dramatically shifted the racial landscape and 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:13.160 many northern cities. This also meant that many white veterans 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.720 in the North returned home to find that their industrial 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.320 jobs had been filled by black workers who had moved 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:21.959 up from the South. Returning soldiers of all races and 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:25.920 ethnicities wound up in competition for a shrinking supply of jobs. 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:28.919 As a result of these and many other factors, the 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:32.240 summer of nineteen nineteen was so violent and so deadly 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.359 that it came to be known as Red Summer. Eighty 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.800 three people are known to have been lynched in nineteen nineteen, 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:42.760 up from sixty four in nineteen eighteen who Klex Klan 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:47.640 activity also spread, especially in the South, and then there 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:50.400 were what is often described as race riots, which broke 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:55.400 out in Washington, d c. Chicago, Omaha, Knoxville, and many 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:58.960 other cities. However, as we discussed in our episode on 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:02.160 the Tulsa race it and Black Wall Street, the term 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:05.560 race riot is often a misnomer because it suggests racial 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:09.320 violence in which the races involved are equal aggressors. It 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:11.600 was a misnomer during the destruction of Black Wall Street 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:14.560 in Tulsa, and it was a misnomer. During Red Summer, 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:19.119 overwhelmingly the instigators in Red Summer were white citizens, and 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:24.320 overwhelmingly Black people, along with their homes, businesses, and entire neighborhoods, 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:27.520 were the victims. One of the most dramatic moments in 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:30.440 Red Summer took place that July when a riot broke 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:34.200 out in Chicago after a black teenager drowned. He had 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:37.720 been using a customarily whites only beach and people did 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:40.400 not like that and they stoned him, so he drowned 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:44.399 after being stoned. As a result of this particular riot, 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:48.080 almost forty people were killed, five hundred were injured, and 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:52.359 about a thousand Black families were left homeless after a 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:56.440 white mob burned their homes down. The last major event 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:59.720 in Red Summer actually took place in October and he 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:03.720 lay in Arkansas, black sharecroppers, attempting to organize themselves to 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:07.480 advocate for better treatment were massacred by a white mob. 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.520 Somewhere between one hundred and two hundred Black sharecroppers were killed. 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:15.879 In the aftermath, many more black share croppers were arrested 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.120 and jailed. Many were put on trial, and some were 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:22.320 sentenced to death by all white juries even though they 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.760 had actually been the victims and not the instigators. So 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:29.280 that's why, even though World War One inspired a ground 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:33.040 swell of organized advocacy for equal rights for black citizens, 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:37.120 it doesn't come to the forefront very often. And it's 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:40.080 also not a particularly good place to end this episode, 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:42.520 So we are going to turn back to the story 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:46.000 of Henry Johnson for a moment. So there's widespread belief 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:49.800 that Johnson received no disability compensation from the government because 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:52.320 of the clerical error in his discharged papers, and that 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:55.800 he died in obscure poverty. So while the last part 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:59.040 of that is actually sadly mostly true, the first part 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:01.680 does not hold up a the examination of the records. 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.560 News articles and military records from the time indicate that 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:09.040 Johnson was a patient at Walter Reed Hospital, that he 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:12.640 received a disability statement stipend of about ninety dollars a month, 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:15.359 which would not have been a lot of money, but 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:19.720 was there. Most of this misinformation stems from the fact 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:23.919 that Herman Johnson, who served with a Tuskeye Airmen, seems 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:28.399 to have mistakenly genuinely believed that Henry Johnson was his father. 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:31.600 He gave interviews about his father's life that were based 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:35.720 on his own knowledge, which was actually incomplete, and Johnson 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:39.960 did die at a sadly young age of myocarditis, after 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:42.800 having had a series of complications with the many injuries 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:46.879 he sustained in combat, along with tuberculosis. He was buried 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:50.840 in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors on July five. 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:55.400 The sight of his grave was actually lost until two 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.919 thousand two. In the intervening years, his family had believed 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:02.200 that he was actually buried in an anonymous grave in Albany, 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:04.320 in part because they had lost touch with him, and 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:06.840 in part because the Army made a clerical error in 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:09.840 the name of who was buried in the grave. Henry 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:12.960 Johnson was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart, which is for 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:16.280 soldiers who were wounded or killed in action in it 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:20.560 didn't actually exist yet when he was wounded. In two 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:23.359 thousand three, after the location of his grave was found, 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:27.080 he was also awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, and he 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:31.240 was posthumously promoted to sergeant after finding a memo from 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:35.560 General John J. Pershing describing Johnson's velorous deeds in a database. 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:39.439 Senator Charles Schumer of New York started a petition to 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:43.280 have imposthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Sergeant Henry Johnson 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:47.000 was awarded the Medal of Honor on June two. It 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:50.200 was accepted on his behalf by Command Sergeant Major Lewis 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:53.879 Wilson of the New York National Guarden. His official citation 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:58.359 ends quote Private Johnson's extraordinary heroism and selflessness above and 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:00.600 beyond the call of duty are in keeping with the 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:05.600 highest traditions of military service, and reflect great credit upon himself, 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:09.880 his unit, and the United States Army. And there's also 0:22:09.920 --> 0:22:12.760 a cool graphic novel about the whole thing. I think 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:15.679 it is probably cool. It's by Max Brooks, who has 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:17.720 done a lot of other graphic novels, some of them 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:20.320 not historically related at all. I did check it out 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:22.800 from the library. I have not yet had time to 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:28.080 read it before recording this episode, but it looks really good. Ah, 0:22:29.160 --> 0:22:32.320 so that is it is. Well, it's kind of a 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:36.480 meandering story through. I think I might have said this 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:40.040 in the show before. We have three categories of sad episodes, right, 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:42.240 we have the ones that we know we're going to 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:44.720 be sad, and then we get into it and we 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:47.119 realize it's a lot sadder than we thought. And then 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:48.399 we have the ones that we know we're gonna be 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:50.600 really sad, but we are doing them because we think 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:53.080 it's important or maybe a lot of people have asked 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:54.840 us to do it. And then we have the ones 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:57.480 that are like today, which is that I picked something 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:01.000 because it sounds cool, and then I get into it 0:23:01.160 --> 0:23:03.760 and I go, oh, this is this is hurting me. 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:06.560 So I had picked the Harlem hell Fighters based on 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:10.320