Born into bondage on a "miserable tobacco farm," Cathy Williams was never allowed to consider herself a slave. According to her mother, she was a captive, destined by her noble warrior blood to escape the enemy. Her chance at freedom arrives with Union General Phillip Sheridan, who takes her into service. At war's end, desperate to remain free, Cathy disguises herself as a man and joins the legendary Buffalo Soldiers. Alone in a man's world, Cathy...

Having patrolled Yosemite for more than two decades, author and park ranger Shelton Johnson delivers this fictionalized tribute to its healing grandeur. Born in 1863 to a sharecropping family of black and Indian blood, Elijah Yancy becomes a Buffalo Soldier in the U.S. cavalry. Ultimately finding his way to the newly created Yosemite National Park in 1903, he basks in the freedom of its pristine splendor-with little beyond mountain light, campfires,...

"Red Tails, George Lucas's celebration of America's first Black flying squadron, the Tuskegee Airmen, should have been a moment of victory for Doug Melville. He expected to see his great-uncle Benjamin O. Davis Jr. -- the squadron's commander -- immortalized on-screen for his selfless contributions to America. But as the film rolled, Doug was shocked when he realized that Ben Jr.'s name had been omitted and replaced by the fictional Colonel A. J....

"William Boston has just joined the all-black 24th infantry of the United States Army. A natural leader, Boston quickly rises within his troop and is looked up to by the others. When the men are sent to the South, where racism runs rampant in a merciless community, the troop is pushed to their limit. After endless brutal acts of violence, Boston and the men turn their fear and rage against the city, inciting one of the deadliest riots in history"--back...

Realizing that his future lies in owning land, not just being free, a young man raised as a slave becomes a buffalo soldier--a member of an all-black cavalry regiment formed to protect white settlers from Indians, bandits, and outlaws, and that later fought in the Spanish American War. Includes historical note.

The Civil War changed the United States in many ways-economic, political, and social. Of these changes, none was more important than Emancipation. Besides freeing nearly four million slaves, it brought agricultural wage labor to a reluctant South and gave a vote to black adult males in the former slave states. It also offered former slaves new opportunities in education, property ownership-and military service. From late 1862 to the spring of 1865,...

Describes the heroic efforts of the African American soldiers known as the Harlem Hellfighters who served in the 369th Infantry during World War I.

This title examines the black troops of World War I and the way their contributions shaped their perceptions back home in the United States.

"In addition to tracking the evolution of the black Confederate myth, Levin explores the roles that African Americans performed in the army with a particular focus on the relationship between officers and their personal body servants or camp slaves. In contrast to claims that these men served as soldiers in racially integrated regiments, Levin demonstrates that regardless of the dangers faced in camp, on the march and on the battlefield their legal...

Uses archival photographs to introduce African American men who fought in the Civil War, whose roles ranged from servants and laborers to junior officers, and includes details on each man's life through military records and personal files.