OTHER AGENCIES AND FACTS
The 92nd never had a fighting chance until the last day of the war. It was a center of intrigue from the beginning. It's weak and vacilating General spent most of the time placating the Negro haters on his staff and among his field officers. The staff wished that division would be a failure as a fighting unit.
A great deal of affirmantion for a greater performance was speculated, if Lt.Colonel Charles Young, Retired, had been allowed to lead his fellow Black men.
Of the assisting agencies, the only one that paid any attention to Negro troops was the Young Men's Christian Association. The few that came to Red Cross hospitals, with few exceptions, not only were "Jim Crowed" but officers put in the same units with their men. The White Young Men's Christian Association secretaries usually refused to serve Negroes in any way. Very few Black secretaries were sent to France. An attempt was made at first to get rid of the best of the secretaries on the grounds that their beliefs on the manhood rights and human equality of Negroes were seditious". Matters were greatly improved after a Black man was placed in general charge of the "Colored" work. He was never, however, furnished enough men and only three women for his vast field until after the Armistice.
The end product of all the harrassment towards the Black soldiers resulted in unnecessary bitterness among the Negroes and mystification among the French. The Negroes resented being publicly stigmatized by their own countrymen as unfit for association with decent (White) people. However, the French men, women, and children preferred the courtesy and conversation of the Negroes to the impudence and swagger of many of the Whites. In practically every French town where the Negro troops stayed, Negroes left close and sympathetic friends among the men, women, and children.
While the 92nd Division was in France, there were fourteen trials for attacks on women, six of which were acquitted. The remaining eight trials resulted in three men who were convicted of simple assault, leaving five possible cases of grave crime against women. Three of these eight trials
