The Corrosive Racial Divide

Abstract

On August 7, 1918, the headquarters of the Commanding General of the American Expeditionary Force, John “Black Jack” Pershing, issued the following confidential order on the proper handling of black American troops in France:

We must prevent the rise of any pronounced degree of intimacy between French officers and black officers. We may be courteous and amiable with the last but we cannot deal with them on the same plane as white American officers without deeply wounding the latter. We must not eat with them, must not shake hands with them, seem to talk to them or to meet with them outside the requirements of military service. We must not commend too highly these troops particularly in front of white Americans. Make a point of keeping the native cantonment from spoiling the Negro. White Americans become very incensed at any particular expression of intimacy between white women and black men.¹