ere happy to have them share in
the defense. Many invited them into their homes. In the meantime, rumors
spread in America that Negro troops were taking unwise liberties with
French women. It was also said that the crime of rape was widespread.
Americans worried about what would happen when these men returned home.
The rumors were so insistent that, finally, the government sent Dr.
Moton, the president of Tuskegee Institute, to Europe to investigate the
situation. He found that the rumors were totally unwarranted.

When the victors met at Versailles to write the treaty which ended the
war, black people around the world, including Afro-Americans, hoped that
they would take up the problem of the African peoples as well. The only
consideration which was given to Africa, however, was the disposal of the
German colonies. These were distributed among the victors. This did
nothing to give Africa back to the Africans; it only changed the identity
of the European masters. W. E. B. DuBois, who was looking for a way to
spotlight the problem of the African peoples, called a Pan-African
Congress to meet in Paris simultaneously with the meeting in Versailles.
Fifty-seven delegates came, of which most were from Africa and America.
While they had no authority and could do little of significance, the
Congress did dramatize to the world the plight of the subject peoples of
Africa.

Urban Riots

In spite of the fact that Negroes were fighting overseas to defend their
country, racial tensions continued at home. In the years immediately
preceding the war, racially motivated lynchings and riots, which had been
largely confined to the South, began to spread into the North and Midwest.

In Statesboro, Georgia, two blacks, who had been accused and convicted of
murder, were seized from the courtroom by an angry mob. After beating and
burning them, the mob went on to loot and burn Negro-owned homes in the
community. In 1906, a white mob raged out of control for several days in
Atlanta, Georgia. In the same year, the 25th Infantry in Brownsville,
Texas, became involved in a riot with the white citizens of that town,
and Roosevelt dismissed the whole battalion without honor. In 1904, a
riot occurred in Springfield, Ohio, much farther north than anyone would
have expected. A Negro, who had been charged with killing a white police
officer, was seized from jail by an angry mob. After hanging him from a
telephone pole, the mob riddled his body wi