Presents
Howard University
During World War I
The Rankin Chapel, one of the few buildings at Howard University, that dates back to the period of WWI. During WWI, Howard University faculty and students helped spearhead the effort by the Central Committee of Negro College to lobby the United States Army to train a significant number of black officers. This proved to be an arduous struggle. At the beginning of the war, there were fewer than a half dozen blacks with commissions in the entire regular army. And there was absolutely no enthusiasmin the ary high command for African Americans, regardless of education or training, above the rank of captian.
Charles Young, the only black West Point graduate on active duty, was suddenly retired for medical reasons. At the time, just 80 years ago, the army high command firmly rejected the notion that blacks were fit to command white men. When Howard University developed and circulated a petition for officer training signed by 1,500 black college men and then offered its facilities for officer training, the army not only rejected Howard's offer, but it raised the qualifying age to between 25 and 40, thereby eliminating the entire group of black college men, all of whom were under 25.
Howard University's patriotism and persistence finally paid off. The army later relented and allowed a couple of black schools allowing Howard to conduct occupational specialty training for a small number of black soldiers. And a separate training camp for black officers was established at Camp Des Moines, Iowa. Eventually some 1,400 black officers would serve in W.W I. Also during this time, Howard hosted a large and active chapter of the NAACP. The three hundred (300) or so students were intensely proud to attend "The Capstone of Negro Education."
This has been another Sketch in Color, I'm C.R. Gibbs
Copyright 1997
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