History of the American Negro in the Great World War | Page 4

in our midst--of glimpse and measurement of the Negro.
Beyond the written word of the text, the reader is gripped with a certain

FELT but unprinted power of suggestion, a sense of the nation's crime
against him; the Negro, stretching back through the centuries; the
shame and humiliation that is at last overtaking it, that has not been
born of the "Print Shops" since the sainted LINCOLN went his way,
leaving behind him a trail of glory, shining like the sun; in the path of
which, freed through the mandate of his great soul, MARCHED FOUR
MILLION NEGROES, now swollen to twelve, their story, the saddest
epic of the ages, of whom and in behalf of whom their children; the
generation now and those to come, this History was collated and
arranged. It is an EVANGEL proclaiming to the world, their unsullied
patriotism; their rapid fire loyalty, that through all the years of the
nation's life, has never flickered--
"Has burned and burned Forever the same",
from Lexington to the cactus groves of Mexico; in the slaughter hells of
Europe; over fields and upon spots where, in the centuries gone, the
legions of Caesar, of Hannibal and Attila, of Charlemagne and
Napoleon had fought and bled, and perished! Striding "Breast forward"
beneath the Stars and Stripes as this History crowds them on your gaze,
through the dust of empires and kingdoms that; before the CHRIST
walked the earth; before Christianity had its birth, wielded the sceptres
of power when civilization was young, but which are now but
vanishing traditions.
You are thrilled! History nor story affords no picture more inspiring.
MAKING DUE ALLOWANCE--
For its nearness to the living and dead, whose heroic and transcendant
achievements on the battle spots of the great war secured for them a
distinction and fame that will endure until--
"The records of valor decay",
it is a most notable publication, quite worthy to be draped in the robes
that distinguishes History from narrative; from "a tale that is told"; a
story for the entertainment of the moment.

AS INTERPOLATED--
By the writers of its text; read between the lines of their written words;
it is a History; not alone of the American Negro on the "tented field";
the bloody trenches of France and Belgium, it is also a History and an
arraignment, a warning and a prophecy, looking backwards and
forward, the Negro being the objective focus, of many things.
IT PRESENTS--
For the readers retrospection, as vividly as painted on a canvas, a
phantasmagoric procession of past events, and of those to come in the
travail of the Negro; commencing with the sailing of the first "Slaver's
Ship" for the shores of the "New World", jammed fore and aft, from
deck to hold, with its cargo of human beings, to the conclusion of the
great war in which, individually and in units he wrote his name in
imperishable characters, and high on the scroll on which are inscribed
the story of those, who, in their lives wrought for RIGHT and, passing,
died for MEN! For a flag; beneath and within its folds his welcome has
been measured and parsimonious;--a country; the construing and
application of its laws and remedies as applied to him, has inflicted
intolerable INJUSTICE: Has persecuted more often than blessed. And
so and thus, its perusal finished, its pages closed and laid aside, you are
shaken and swayed in your feelings, even as a tree, bent and riven
before the march and sweep of a mighty hurricane.
* * * * *
LOOKING BACKWARDS--
The spell of the book strong upon you, you see in your mind's eye,
thousands of plantations covering a fourth of a continent of a new and
virgin land. The toilers "Black Folk"; men, women and
children--SLAVES!
* * * * *
YOU HEAR--

The crack of the "driver's" lash; the sullen bay of pursuing hounds.
* * * * *
JUST OVER YONDER--
Is the "Auction Block". You hear the moans and screams of mothers
torn from their offspring. You see them driven away, herded like cattle,
chained like convicts, sold to "master's" in the "low lands", to toil--
"Midst the cotton and the cane."
YOU LISTEN--
Sounding far off, faint at first, growing louder each second, you hear
the beat of drums; the bugle's blast, sounding to arms; You see great
armies, moving hitherward and thitherward. Over one flies the Stars
and Stripes, over the other the Stars and Bars; a nation in arms! Brother
against brother!
* * * * *
YOU LOOK--
And lo, swinging past are many Black men; garbed in "Blue", keeping
step to the music of the Union. You see them fall and die, at Fort
Pillow, Fort Wagner, Petersburg, the Wilderness, Honey
Hill--SLAUGHTERED! Above the din; the boom of cannon, the