Ray Elliot - 1917-1939: Ray's early life and his father's participation in the Great War

Ray Elliott was born to Marie Davis Elliott and William S. Elliott on February 18, 1924. His family was one of only two or three black families living in his Cambridge, Massachusetts, neighborhood. As he grew, Ray remembers feeling as though he fit into neither a white world nor a black one...

Learn more about Ray Elliot: View a timeline of his life and listen to his full interview.

Stories by this speaker

• Ray's early life and his father's participation in the Great War
• Ray's military service during the Second World War
• "Two Wars to Win"
• Life in Cold War America

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Good Bye Alexander, Good Bye Honey Boy is a World War I era tune which starts, "Alexander Cooper was a colored trooper with his regiment he marched away." The cover illustration of the sheet music depicts France as a woman waving a French flag and leading a procession of black American troops. Like much of America at the time, the United States Army was segregated, meaning that black soldiers and white soldiers were made to serve in separate units. In fact, only a fraction of the 380,000 black men who served in the Army during World War I were involved in combat. More typically, black soldiers performed manual labor for the Army, building the bridges, roads, and trenches that were essential to the war effort. Ray Elliott's father was one of about 42,000 black soldiers who served as infantrymen, often with distinction, under the leadership of French officers and beside French soldiers.

Sheet music for Good–bye Alexander, Good Bye Honey Boy composed by Creamer and Layton, c. 1918. Cover illustration by E.E. Walton, collection of Reba–Jean Shaw Pichette.

This is a portrait of Ray Elliott's father, William S. Elliott, who was a member of the 92nd Division during World War I. He wears the "Buffalo Soldier" insignia of the 92nd Division.

A silhouette of a Buffalo dominates the shoulder sleeve insignia of the 92nd Infantry Division. A similar patch can be seen on William Elliott's uniform.

The 92nd Division, as Ray explains, "inherited the legacy of the Buffalo Soldier." This legacy reached back to the Army's 10th Cavalry Regiment of black soldiers who fought in the American Indian Wars during the nineteenth century. Ray tells us that, "the Indians named them the Buffalo Soldiers because their hair was curly and kink...similar to the coat of the buffalo. And the skin of the buffalo was brownish, similar to that, and they were furious warriors, tremendously well–respected by the Native Americans as being tremendous warriors" The motto of the 92nd Infantry Divisions' Buffalo Soldiers was "Deeds, Not Words." The regiment as activated in October of 1917. The 92nd Infantry was reactivated during the Second World War.

Photograph of Ray Elliott's father, collection of Ray Elliott.

US Army 92nd Infantry Division Shoulder Sleeve Insignia, Public Domain.

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This is a photograph from Scott's Official History of The American Negro in the World War. According to its caption, "Here is a photograph right from the front, an unusual picture showing how the trenches really looked. These are American and French colonial colored soldiers in a French trench."

The Buffalo Soldiers fought in the Meuse–Argonne Offensive which occurred in France's Argonne Forest in the autumn of 1918. It was the final battle of World War I. Allied British, French and American forces won the Battle of the Argonne Forest early in November, but not before an estimated 26,000 American soldiers lost their lives. Ralph W. Tyler, the "Only Accredited Negro War Correspondent" of World War I wrote this report on the final day of the war:

Somewhere in France, November 20. They were in it at the finish, as they were at Verdun, Soissons, Chateau–Thierry, Argonne and Champagne. At the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month in the fifth year of the war, when the signal flashed from Eiffel Tower in Paris stopped hostilities, in conformity with the terms of the armistice just signed by the Germans, the 92nd Division, composed of Colored American Soldiers, occupied the point closest to the German city of Metz, the objective of the last drive of this war. At the stroke of eleven the cannon stopped, the rifles dropped from the shoulders of our Colored soldiers, and their machine guns became silent. Then followed a strange, unbelievable silence as though the world had ceased to exist. It lasted but a moment—;lasted for the space of time the breath is held. Then, among these dark–skinned troopers came a sigh of relief—;came jubilance, as every colored soldier, in true Parisian vernacular, exclaimed: 'La Guerre est fini'—;the war is over, and immediately thoughts turned to dear ones back across the sea, while tears flowed down their war–grimmed black faces for the hundreds of comrades bivouacing forever in sepulchers over here in France...¹

Courtesy of the World War I Document Archive Web site.

Footnote 1. Emmett J. Scott, Scott's Official History of The American Negro in the World War (1919), 285–6. Courtesy of the World War I Document Archive Web site, (http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/comment/Scott/SCh20.htm) retrieved April 23, 2009.

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This poster, created in 1918 by illustrator Charles Gustrine for the Committee on Public Information, suggests the nation's appreciation for the courage and patriotism of African American soldiers during World War I.

In contrast to this public acknowledgement of the important role that African Americans played during the war, in actuality, the Army took a more complicated stance toward black soldiers. The same year that this poster was created, General John Pershing, head of the American Expeditionary Forces wrote a document outlining the Army's expectations for how African American soldiers should be treated by the French Military. This document, titled Secret Information, points to the tenuous place that blacks held in American society. "We must," explained General Pershing:

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, seek to talk to them or to meet with them outside the requirements of military service. We must not commend too highly these troops, especially 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.

General Pershing's directive did not remain secret, and in May of 1919, its contents were published in the African American magazine The Crisis. "Returning Soldiers," written by black leader W.E.B. Du Bois appeared in the same issue. "We stand again," exhorted Dubois:

to look America squarely in the face and call a spade a spade. We sing: This country of ours, despite all its better souls have done and dreamed, is yet a shameful land...We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting. Make way for Democracy! We saved it in France, and by the Great Jehovah, we will save it in the United States of America, or know the reason why.

Charles Gustrine, "True Sons of Freedom" Color–offset poster, Chicago, 1918. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, WWI Posters, LC–USZC4–2426.

Story Clip #1:

"One foot in one culture, one in another": Growing up in Cambridge, Massachusetts

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Story Clip #2:

"No...white commander wanted to be in charge of black troops": Ray's father serves in World War I

 

Story Clip #3:

"The legacy of the Buffalo Soldier"

 

Story Clip #4:

Ray's father co–founds the Isaac Wilson Taylor Post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Cambridge, Massachusetts

 

Story Clip #5:

The most important thing anyone can learn...to have compassion and love for another human being": his mother's influence