African American Soldiers in the National Guard: Recruitment and Deployment During Peacetime and War (Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies: Contemporary Black Poets)

This detailed history of the many achievements of African-American guardsmen in U.S. history from the late 19th to the mid-20th centuries fills an important gap in our knowledge about the involvement of African American militias in wartime and peacetime service. Using extensive primary and secondary sources, this account describes the establishment of African American militia groups in 1877, their role in the Spanish American War and in quelling civil disturbances and disasters up to 1914, their service in World Wars I and II and in the years between the wars, and their reorganization and integration into the National Guard in 1949 and 1950.