Black Carolinians During World War I with Janet G. Hudson

For 21,609 young African American men who called North Carolina home, the First World War meant leaving families and familiar Tar Heel communities. The military service and sacrifice of those tens of thousands of black North Carolinians, however, are not well known among historians or the public. Their contributions, individually and collectively, have been generally ignored, simplistically rendered, represented by only a few, hidden away in disparate and scattered sources, or carried to the grave without articulation or preservation. The war’s centennial offers an opportunity to examine that void and to highlight the collective service black North Carolinians rendered.

Janet G. Hudson is a historian, two-time winner of the Stephen L. Dalton Distinguished Teacher Award, and author of the prize-winning book, Entangled by White Supremacy: Reform in World War I-era South Carolina. Her project, Black Soldiers Mattered, is an online digital humanities project that explores African American soldiers from North Carolina who served in World War I. It can be found at http://blacksoldiersmattered.com.