Brown Bodies But — Red Blood

One of the most intelligent suggestions motivated by this war is a proposal by the Council Against Intolerance to the War department that a mixed combat division be formed from men of any race or creed.
This may appear to be a vague, idealistic, maybe even socialistic, idea, but it does have significance.
Segregation as practiced in the last war is undemocratic, and it adds wood to the Nazi and Japanese propaganda fires. Axis agents utilize the fact that there are many different racial and language groups in this nation. They emphasize that United States will fall into chaotic and disorganized racial groups when a strong power attacks them. That Negroes fight in separate units only adds credence to their statements.
A mixed division would completely squelch such use of our American “foible.”
This would be a concrete example of the democratic principles for which we are supposedly fighting. The plan was suggested by Dr. Alonzo Meyers, chairman of New York university school of higher education, and infantry captain in World War I.
In presenting the proposal, Meyers said: “I believe that a man who is good enough to fight for my country is good enough to fight alongside me.”
Running through American martial history is the thread of Negro bravery. They have fought in the Revolutionary, Civil, Spanish-American and First World War. The first Americans to be decorated with the Croix de Guerre in 1918 were two Negro privates of the three hundred and sixty ninth division.
Democracy is just a mockery as long as one man is not considered the equal of another. This of all wars, in this county of all the world, we should not be taken in by the racial hatered (sic) which swept across Europe.
The council’s idea is wrong, there should not just be one division. But every unit of the army should have a representative of each racial, language or religious group in the nation.
We in America are more than willing to allow the Negro to fight for us, why shouldn’t we be willing to fight beside him.