Mark R. Stoneman

YouTube’s algorithm churned up an interesting 1944 War Department movie titled “The Negro Soldier” (40 min). It seems to have been aimed at the African American community, appealing to their patriotism. The first part recounts African American military contributions from the Revolutionary War through World War I, while ignoring contemporary divisions in U.S. society and the history that produced them.

Remaining silent on the ongoing violence against people of color in the United States, the film instead has white supremacy speak through the translated words of Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf, read by an African American minister to his large, all-Black congregation. If Nazis offered a convenient target toward which to steer the struggle for racial equality, the church setting of the film played to Black respectability, family, community, faith, and dignity.

The military training segments of the film focus primarily on combat roles. The menial labor and service positions to which most were relegated only make a brief appearance in the last five minutes, before images of combat quickly obscure them. The film shows many images of all-Black troop formations without openly discussing segregation. On the other hand, it places individual African American men among their white counterparts in a few shots of the initial processing of new enlistees and of officer training.

The film ends with the hymns “Onward Christian Soldiers” and “Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho,” followed by the final notes of “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.” If it is silent on racial inequality and unrealized civil rights in America, the implications of its message were more subversive. How could Black soldiers be expected to fight for freedom overseas but submit to tyranny at home?¹