Status Updates From Standing at the Scratch Line

The conditions that black soldiers in the American Military suffered because of virulent racism made their combat assignments terrifically difficult. The ingenuity they demonstrated in getting the job done, including using captured enemy weaponry that worked and was reliable was simply remarkable.

The legendary all-black 369th Regiment was assigned to the 161st Division of the French Army and at the edge of the Argonne Forest in the Champagne region of France where the French welcomed them as fighting men with rifles and helmets. It was there that Sgt Henry Johnson ("the Black Death") became the first American soldier, in WWI who was awarded the Croix de Guerre, France's highest military honor.

Incredible! The all-black, 369th Regiment in WW1, that the legendary Medal of Honor winner Henry Johnson (aka Black Death) and the Harlem Hell-fighters belong to all wrapped in a historical fictional tale of an iconic man of violence and war named King Tremain, who returned to the States to build a criminal empire with surviving members of his corps in the Deep South of Louisiana and the streets of NY.