'Proud To Be Americans, Proud To Be Black' There really was the weight of the world on all their shoulders.' The officers had to prove their intelligence and their courage. 'Everybody had so much to prove on every level. ' were shocked at how willing the Americans were to charge into the face of death,' Brooks explains.

Still, Sanders adds that some French officers doubted whether the African-American soldiers had enough courage to go into battle. The French army absorbed the Hellfighters to help replenish their own ranks, finally giving them the opportunity to fight that the U.S. ' did not think that African-Americans had the intelligence to think clearly,' Brooks says. Instead, they, and other African-American soldiers, were put to work unloading ships. Army kept them from marching to the front lines in France. Their training prepared them for combat, but racial segregation in the U.S. Reginald Sanders, former commander of the 369th Sustainment Brigade, and The Harlem Hellfighters author Max Brooks tour the 369th Regiment Armory in New York City. 'I don't think any soldier, short of a samurai, has shown more restraint than the Hellfighters at Spartanburg.'Ĭol. 'What separates a soldier from a civilian is discipline - the notion of mental control and the notion of restraint,' Brooks adds. the first state to secede from the Union.'īut in the end, the Hellfighters left town without a major incident. 'The whole nation was keyed up for another race riot, and you're sending northern black troops to train in South Carolina. Tense standoffs arose between the Hellfighters and white residents in Spartanburg. Just weeks earlier, the arrival of another African-American regiment sparked a race riot in Houston. Their first battle was during training camp in Spartanburg, S.C., in October 1917. But Sanders hasn't forgotten the unit's early history of fighting on the front lines in France and in the U.S. Today's Hellfighters specialize in combat logistics in places like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Mali. 'Our enemies gave us our name, is an honor.' Reginald Sanders, a former commander of the 369th Sustainment Brigade, which descended from the original World War I unit. 'We did not give ourselves our name ,' says Col. As soldiers, the Harlem Hellfighters left their mark in the trenches of France. The syncopated stylings of their regimental band, led by James Reese Europe, introduced French listeners to American jazz. 'The French called them the 'Men of Bronze' out of respect, and the Germans called them the 'Harlem Hellfighters' out of fear,' explains Max Brooks, author of The Harlem Hellfighters, a new graphic novel about the first African-American infantry unit to fight in World War I. They returned home one of the most decorated American units of World War I. The 369th Infantry Regiment served 191 days under enemy fire in Europe.

The harlem hellfighters graphic novel