President Woodrow Wilson also supported segregation of the military, even when the need for troops during the First World War was so great that a national draft was reinstituted. African Americans were drafted on the same basis as white people and made up 13% of draftees. By the end of the war, more than 350,000 African Americans served in AEF units on the Western Front, earning pay equal to that of white soldiers, although they were assigned to segregated units commanded by white officers, under a policy approved by Wilson. This kept the great majority of black people out of combat.
When a delegation of black soldiers protested the government’s discriminatory actions, Wilson told them "segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen." W.E.B. Du Bois had supported Wilson in the 1916 presidential campaign and in 1918 was offered an Army commission in charge of dealing with race relations—Du Bois accepted, but he failed his Army physical and did not serve.
Segregated Military
Members of the U.S. Army 369th Infantry Regiment, which won the Croix de Guerre for gallantry in action in World War I, pictured in 1919. Nicknamed the "Harlem Hellfighters," it was the first all-black regiment.
A mutiny by soldiers at Camp Logan near Houston in 1917 was precipitated directly by segregation. The all-black Twenty-Fourth U.S. Infantry Regiment was transferred from Columbus, New Mexico, where segregation had not been enforced. In Houston, however, they were met with segregated street cars and white workers at their camp who demanded separate water fountains. This led to clashes with local authorities, including an incident in which police beat a black soldier and set off a nighttime riot by 156 African-American troops resulting in the shooting deaths of two soldiers, four police officers, and nine civilians. A police officer and a soldier died later from wounds sustained in the riot, while another soldier died from injuries he received during his capture the next day. Nineteen of the mutineers were executed, and 41 received life sentences.