James Edward Spencer attended Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute (now Virginia State University) before enlisting in October 1917. He served with the 870th Regiment of the 8th Illinois National Guard and was wounded by machine gun fire in September 1918. He later earned degrees from Virginia Union University and the University of Michigan and had a long career in education. (Photo courtesy Library of Virginia)
Richmond is lately preoccupied by a conflict from a century and a half ago that molded and cemented, for some, their views of how the city is perceived and understood. The Library of Virginia, however, wants to draw your attention to another, but little-thought of, war. Though the cataclysm happened closer to us in time, it seems farther away and less familiar than the dour bearded faces in daguerreotypes. And it is true that, geographically, the fight wasn’t on our shores. The exhibition, “True Sons of Freedom,” runs Jan. 16 through Nov. 9, 2018, and presents 24 African-American men who served in the United States military during World War I.
Thanks to questionnaires sent to veterans by the Virginia War History Commission, which were often returned with photographs, there is a record of who they were, and something of what they did in the war and after, but usually little else.
Barbara Batson, exhibitions coordinator at the Library of Virginia, hopes that, by showing the images below along with the names of the soldiers prior to and online during the exhibition, more biographical details will emerge.
“The basic questionnaire contained a bunch of mundane but useful stuff,” Batson says. “The last page has the most interesting questions: 'What was your experience? Did the war change your religious views?' ”
Batson explains how the library’s visual studies collection coordinator and exhibition curator, Dale Neighbors, and other staffers considered the best way to commemorate Virginian’s participation in the war a century ago. The commission records include some 7,500 questionnaires, not all of which have photographs, but among them are images of 140 African-Americans from throughout the state. They are shown in both civilian dress and military uniforms. The postcard-sized portraits, made outdoors or in makeshift studios, became keepsakes for families and sweethearts.
For this exhibition, the photographs are enlarged and reveal details of character and style. Batson observes the confidence that some of the men exude, especially those in uniform. Some heft rifles.
“People don’t think of African-Americans serving in World War I,” Batson says, “and they might not have been in the front lines, but they were often close, because they were shunted off to dig trenches and labored in construction details.”
For many of the men, the remainder of their lives grew around the core of their war experience. One of the respondents was Chesterfield educator James Preston Spencer, a school principal. He recalled that camp life made him “mentally more alert to the political and social problems of the day; made me physically stronger to perform the great task of meeting the enemy face to face.” Of his overseas learning he wrote, “Broke down some bodily strong qualities by hardships.” Going through what the front line offered gave Spencer “the idea that blood seems to be the only atonement for man’s sin; this power of all true sacrifices.”
In the lobby cases outside the main exhibition, visitors will see other images, like that of Victoria Ruth Good, who served as a military nurse, only to die of the Great Influenza of 1918 while working at a Brooklyn hospital. Another section will detail how biographies were determined by comparing three veterans and their questionnaires.
An online component (the exhibition website, virginiamemory.com/truesons will go live when the exhibition opens on Jan. 16) will allow viewers to see all the photographs submitted to the Virginia War History Commission, to add comments and information they might have about the soldiers, and to transcribe text from the questionnaires to help the Library make these records more easily searchable for researchers.
The curatorial material explains how the photographs are a marked difference from the crude and demoralizing cultural products of an era that often reduced African-Americans to stereotypes and denied them full participation as citizens of the United States. They pose in uniform, some in casual stances, others with a rifle to show their combat readiness. Here were African-Americans presented as they wanted themselves seen.
If readers have any information about the soldiers from the area (see images below), the Library of Virginia would like to hear from them directly. Members of the public can contact Barbara Batson, exhibitions coordinator, at 804-692-3518 or barbara.batson@lva.virginia.gov or Dale Neighbors, Visual Studies Collection coordinator and exhibition curator, at 804-692-3711 or dale.neighbors@lva.virginia.gov.
Do you know these men?
Jasper Rudolph Jackson (June 22, 1889-June 24, 1962), Petersburg. Jackson worked as a laborer at the British-American Tobacco Company in Petersburg before entering the service in June 1918.
Willie Ralph Davis (born April 10, 1891), Albemarle County. Davis worked as a butler in Charlottesville before his induction into the army in June 1918. After the war, he worked as a farmer.
Louis Giles (March 10, 1894-Jan. 1, 1970), Powhatan County. Before joining the army, Giles worked as a wagon driver for a grocer and butcher. Assigned to the 413th Service Battalion, Ordnance Maintenance Company, he remained in the United States and was promoted to corporal.
Collie Woodson (March 10, 1888-Oct. 10, 1975), Cumberland County. Woodson was a farmer when he entered the service in September 1918. Discharged in July 1919, he worked as a farmer and laborer.
