As U.S. Army regulations allowed soldiers to continue to wear their military uniforms after completing their service, many black veterans did exactly that, perhaps to remind their communities that they, too, had defended their country. They had also been dispatched to foreign nations, particularly in Europe, where minorities experienced more tolerance and openness than they ever had in America, especially in the South. So, like many black veterans returning home to states in the South and the one south of the South, Sam Shepherd and Walter Irvin were not prepared to return to the fields or
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