Loyalty in Time of Trial

The African American Experience During World War I

By (author) Nina Mjagkij Series edited by Jacqueline M. Moore, Nina Mjagkij

Not available to order

Publication date:

16 April 2011

Length of book:

224 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9780742570436

Nearly 370,000 black soldiers served in the military during World War I, and some 400,000 black civilians migrated from the rural South to the urban North for defense jobs. Following the war, emboldened by their military service and their support of the war on the home front, African Americans were determined to fight for equality. These two factors forced America to confront the impact of segregation and racism. In one of the few book-length treatments of the subject, Nina Mjagkij conveys the full range of the African American experience during the "Great War."

Loyalty in Time of Trial is an excellent overview of the African American experience, 'over there' and on the home front, during World War I. It is a well-written, thoughtful, and balanced account, making good use of the proliferating scholarship on the U.S. role in the war and on the efforts of African Americans to redeem the conflict's democratic promise. Nina Mjagkij has produced a book that is both accessible to students and general readers and a contribution to the scholarly literature.