Illinois' Negro World War I Regiment; The Forgotten Story.

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In historical writing and analysis, PRESENTISM introduces present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past. Presentism is a form of cultural bias that creates a distorted understanding of the subject matter. Reading modern notions of morality into the past is committing the error of presentism. Historical accounts are written by people and can be slanted, so I try my hardest to present fact-based and well-researched articles.

Facts don't require one's approval or acceptance.

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FOR HISTORICAL CLARITY

When I write about the INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, I follow this historical terminology:

• The use of old commonly used terms, disrespectful today, i.e., REDMAN or REDMEN, SAVAGES, and HALF-BREED are explained in this article.

Writing about AFRICAN-AMERICAN history, I follow these race terms:

• "NEGRO" was the term used until the mid-1960s.
• "BLACK" started being used in the mid-1960s.
• "AFRICAN-AMERICAN" [Afro-American] began usage in the late 1980s.

— PLEASE PRACTICE HISTORICISM —

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PAST IN ITS OWN CONTEXT.

 

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It’s a history that has been largely forgotten, even though some monumental physical traces remain. The 8th Illinois National Guard Regiment, which during the great war (WWI 1914-1918) came to be known as the 370th U.S. Infantry, was the only regiment in the entire United States Army that was called into service with almost a complete complement of Negro officers from the highest rank of Colonel to the lowest rank of Corporal. Yet few people know about this unit of young Negro men from Illinois who fought for a country that beat, lynched, and discriminated against them and people who looked like them.

The regiment reported at the various Illinois rendezvous on July 25, 1917, as follows:

1. At Chicago, Illinois-Headquarters, Headquarters Company, Machine Gun Company, Supply Company, Detachment Medical Department, and Companies A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H.
2. At Springfield, Illinois---Company I.
3. At Peoria, Illinois---Company K.
4. At Danville, Illinois---Company L.
5. At Metropolis, Illinois---Company M.

The United States Army so disrespected the men of the 370th and other Negro regiments such as the 369th New York National Guard Regiment, which was popularly known as “The Harlem Hellfighters,” that it would not allow them into combat alongside their white American comrades. Instead, the Negro regiments joined French forces, using French weapons and rations. The only equipment that distinguished them as part of the American force was their uniform.

“The American army didn’t want to have anything to do with them,” says Mario Tharpe, the director, writer, and producer of Fighting on Both Fronts: The Story of the 370th. Many Negro soldiers never saw combat, instead of being assigned positions as laborers. “Anthony Powell, a historian from San Jose, puts it well,” says Tharpe. “He says that for the Negro soldiers that came from down South, to join the army was leaving one hell to go to another form of hell, but one in which they wouldn’t be beaten or lynched.”

The French Croix de Guerre Medal

In the face of such discrimination, both at home and at war, some of the soldiers in the 370th and other regiments that did fight in combat decided to stay in the more tolerant France after the war ended. During the war, Tharpe says, “The 369th and 370th brought jazz to Europe – they were known for having amazing jazz bands.” Some of the soldiers that made their home in France continued to share that American art form with Europeans, working as jazz musicians in the postwar period. France was not only more accepting but also more thankful than America: it awarded 71 Croix de Guerre medals to Negro soldiers before the United States offered any recognition of the honor.

Negro soldiers that returned to America found a country just as racist as before. In fact, the situation was in many ways worse. Many soldiers in the 370th were from the cultural hotbed Bronzeville neighborhood in the Douglas community of Chicago, which had swelled in population from the Great Migration. More people meant less economic opportunities for the returning soldiers, and also helped bring simmering racial tension in the city to a boil.

Soon after the 370th came home, the 1919 Chicago Race Riots broke out, resulting in the deaths of 38 people and the injury of hundreds more. Having fought to defend their country in Europe, Chicago Negro soldiers now fought to defend their community from hatred in their country. “These soldiers went off to war, where they knew they wouldn’t be respected, and represented Bronzeville,” Tharpe says. “They fought for rights and democracy by going to war, and then didn’t get justice or their due when they came home.”

Tharpe says that they therefore became the first wave of the Civil Rights movement, albeit a forgotten one. They advocated for recognition of their service in the war and eventually achieved it with the construction of the Victory Monument at 35th Street and King Drive. 

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The 370th also fought in World War II (1939-1945).

But even that symbol has lost much of its significance. “Even though I lived in Bronzeville and drove past the Victory Monument nearly every day, I was absolutely not familiar with the 370th,” Tharpe says.

Victory Monument at 35th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Chicago.

He did know that the nearby Eighth Regiment Armory, at 3533 S. Giles Avenue, had housed a Negro regiment, but that was about it. Before the war, the 370th had been the 8th Infantry Regiment of the Illinois National Guard, and the Armory was built for them in 1914. It now houses the Chicago Military Academy, a high school, and is listed both as a Chicago Landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places. 

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The General  Richard L. Jones Armory at 52nd Street and Cottage Grove Avenue is named for an officer of the 370th, General Jones, who managed both the Chicago Defender and the Chicago Bee Newspapers, and later was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Liberia.

The General Richard L. Jones Armory at 52nd Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, Chicago

The Victory Monument and the Armory are the main physical remnants of the 370th. Few oral histories or photos survive. “People didn’t hold on to the memories of it because they didn’t realize the value,” says Tharpe. “Many people knew only that their father fought in the war, and that was it.” But the 370th’s significance and legacy live on.

VIDEO

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

National Trailways Bus Depot, 20 East Randolph Street, Chicago, Illinois.

Downtown National Trailways Bus Depot, 20 East Randolph Street, Chicago. ca.1950s

Downtown National Trailways Bus Depot, 20 East Randolph Street, Chicago. ca.1950s

From 1936 until 1987, the various Trailways companies used this downtown terminal, across the street from the Marshall Field store. Trailways never had the major presence in Chicago that Greyhound did, and its terminal was accessed via regular downtown streets.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Market Days in Niles Centre (Skokie), Illinois. (1880-1920)

The small settlement of Niles Centre (Incorporated 1888), Americanized to Niles Center 1910 and renamed Skokie 1940, comprised just 57 households in 1880, although the township had a population of just over 2,500. It was, however, fast becoming a vital area marketplace around that time, the keystone of which was the area's first farmer's market.

Market Days in Niles Centre (Skokie). circa 1880s. West side of Lincoln Avenue north of Oakton Street; Blameuser Building on the far left.

For four decades beginning in 1880, the first Tuesday and third Thursday of each month were established as market days, and merchants from as far away as Chicago, as well as McHenry and Kane counties, came to meet with area farmers and purchase their produce. Pigs, poultry, horses and a variety of vegetables were offered for sale in large numbers on market days.

The idea for the market seems to have originated with Peter Blameuser, Jr., who had billboards printed advertising the earliest events. A description of the colorful Market Days:

“The market reached from the intersection of Lincoln and Oakton [north] to the fork at St. Peter’s Catholic Church. A major attraction for the children of the community, market day also attracted beggars, gypsy fortune tellers and thieves, who proved to be a challenge for the local law enforcers. Horse trading was a vigorous activity. A dispute regarding the merits of a pair of horses would most likely be settled by a horse race through town. The usual stakes were a round of drinks paid for by the loser. Wives often accompanied their husbands into town on market days to make sure the ‘pig money got home safely. After selling their stock, the farmers often decided to have a little fun in town before returning home. They had little trouble getting home; their horses knew the way!”

The soft farmlands of the area were ideal for Chicago workhorses made lame by the Chicago Street Paver Bricks. In the country fields, they would remain functional for years. They were a part of village life in the late 1800s, not only in labor and commerce but also in recreation. In addition to the races, the horses were sometimes pitted against one another in pulling contests, in which pairs of horses were harnessed to wagons loaded with gravel, their rear wheels locked by a board placed between the spokes.

Gypsies usually arrived at the edge of the settlement in caravans of wagons, where they camped for an evening or two. The outdoor market brought hundreds of other strangers to the area, too, including many merchants from Chicago, establishing Niles Centre as a true center of commerce.

Skokie runs a "Farmers Market," beginning around 1990, every Sunday, from June through October. The market is in the Skokie Public Library's parking lot on Oakton, just west of Lincoln Avenue.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.