Well Said! You are right!
Posted on 05/29/2019 2:03:08 PM PDT by robowombat
In other words, I'm more than "passingly familiar" with that bit of "Silent Cinema".
That is why I recognized the "clip" you posted immediately.
A great American with a wonderful and yet tragic story.
Arlington is a special place....and appropriate for a special hero.
Well Said! You are right!
If Trump hears of this i’ll Be surprised if he doesn’t get MOH. But I wish for even more, although I doubt there’s enough paper trail left at this late date to provide true justice. His exploits were once well known, but someone backstabbed his records big time to cut him from all VA recognition and support. Costing him his family and eventually his life. The bastard(s) responsible deserve to be outed and have their actions and motivations revealed and pilloried to the extent possible. It may be co-incidence, but it took place on Wilson’s watch. Then some time later, on the watch of a very good man, albeit not a very effective President, he ends up planted in Arlington with full deserved military honors, yet his family never was notified. How did that happen? We may never know the full story, but I want Trump to try to find and tell it if at all possible.
One of Woodrow Wilson's chief objectives in entering WWI was to put the US at the head of the family of nations. So to reduce the dilution of the significance of America's role in the fighting, he directed Gen. Pershing to keep American units integral, that none should be seconded to any foreign commanders. And to keep the focus on the fact that these were "American" soldiers, news from the front generally only mentioned the units involved, rarely the names of any individual soldiers or Marines.
Then Pershing found himself facing mutiny because white soldiers were refusing to fight along side blacks. So his on-the-fly solution was to loan the black units to the French. The French numbers were so depleted they didn't care what color their reinforcements were, and were grateful to get them.
Which is how Henry Johnson came to find himself on sentry duty in the French lines, where the French press had the freedom to print names of individual soldiers.
By 1918 the Parisians were starving for good news from the front, and up comes this story about the extraordinary bravery of Henry Johnson, a black American, fighting off a dozen or more Huns with nothing but a bolo knife. Which was reprinted in every newspaper across the continent, complete with his photo. And from this the Parisians in particular developed a fondness for black people and their exotic culture, especially jazz music.
So after the war, Paris became a magnet for black entertainers; musicians, dancers, writers and painters. And Paris' "Luminous Years," which had been on the simmer since about 1905, exploded. And Paris continued to luminescence until the Great Depression jumped the Atlantic and put out its flame.
Nicely written.
He has it. Also the Croix de Guerre and the Distinguished Service Cross.
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