a Black officer entered a full dining-room, the following incendent occured:
The smiling landlady hastened to seat the Black officer at a table with White American officers. The White officers, immediately, began to show their displeasure. A French officer at a neighboring table with French officers quietly glanced at the astonished landlady. Not a word was said, no one in the dining-room took any apparent notice of the glance. The Black officer was soon seated with the courteous Frenchmen.

The Negro soldiers experienced the deliberate and devilish persecution from their countrymen and the taste of real democracy and world culture from the French. The experience was revolutionizing. The Black soldiers began to hate prejudice and discrimination as they had never hated it before. They began to realize its' eternal meaning and complications. The desire to escape from their race and country was absent, however.

Black Americans were filled with bitter, dogged determination never to give up the fight for Negro equality in America. If American color prejudice counted on this war experience to break the spirit of the young Negro, it counted without its' host.

A new, radical Negro spirit was born in France. The older radicals where left far behind. Thousands of young Black men had offered their lives for the "Lilies" of France. These same men were willing to return to America and, ready, offer their lives again for the children of America.
















J.Linzy-18


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jmlinzy@hotmail.com March 6,1998

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