y defeat; slowly working his way
through many hindrances toward the achievement of success that would
enable both him and the world to justify the new life of freedom that
had come to him; faced at every hand by the prejudice born of
tradition; enduring wrongs that "would stir a fever in the blood of
age"; still the slave to a large extent of superstition fed by
ignorance, is it to be wondered at that some doubt was felt and
expressed by the best friends of the Negro, when the call came for a
draft upon the man power of the nation; whether, in the face of the
great wrongs heaped upon him; the persecutions he had passed through and
was still enduring, he would be able to forgive and forget; could and
would so rise above his sorrows as to reach to the height and the full
duty of citizenship; would give to the Stars and Stripes the response
that was due? On the part of many leaders among the Negroes, there was
apprehension that the sense of fair play and fair dealing, which is so
essentially an American characteristic, when white men are involved,
would not be meted out to the members of their race.

How groundless such fears, may be seen from the statistical record of
the draft with relation to the Negro. His race furnished its quota
uncomplainingly and cheerfully. History, indeed, will be unable to
record the fullness and grandeur of his spirit in the war, for the
reason that opportunities, especially for enlistment, as heretofore
mentioned, were not opened to him to the same extent as to the whites.
But enough can be gathered from the records to show that he was filled
not only with patriotism, but of a brand, all things considered, than
which there was no other like it.

That the men of the Negro race were as ready to serve as the white is
amply proved by the reports of local boards. A Pennsylvania board,
remarking upon the eagerness of its Negro registrants to be inducted,
illustrated it by the action of one registrant, who, upon learning that
his employer had had him placed upon the Emergency Fleet list, quit his
job. Another registrant who was believed by the board to be above draft
age insisted that he was not, and in stating that he was not married,
explained that he "wanted only one war at a time."

The following descriptions from Oklahoma and Arkansas boards are
typical, the first serving to perpetuate one of the best epigrams of
the war:

"We tried to treat the Negroes with exactly the same considerati