Still segregated in World War I, the U.S. Army was reluctant to use its 93d division of black soldiers in combat and instead assigned the division's three National Guard and one draftee regiments to the French Army. The battlefield successes of these African Americans under the French at the height of the German offensives in 1918 turned white expectations of failure upside down. Their bravery and heroism gained the respect of French and German alike and called into question the U.S....
