In April 1917, Congress approved President Woodrow Wilson’s request to declare war on the Central Powers propelling the United States into the European conflict with a self-proclaimed duty to ensure The world must be made safe for democracy. Two months later 1,250 African American men–college graduates, businessmen, doctors, lawyers, reverends, and non-commissioned officers–left their homes and volunteered to become the first class of black men to receive officer training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. Despite the great irony that these men were going off to fight to preserve democracy abroad when they did not receive the benefits from that premise at home, they hoped their valiant service would be rewarded with equal citizenship at the war’s end.

Now, for the first time, the story is told of these men’s lives in training, in war, and after their return home. Exploring debates on topics such as military duty as an obligation of citizenship, the Army’s use of African American troops, the creation of a segregated officer training camp, and the war’s implications for civil rights in America, Adam Wilson addresses complex national and international issues in regards to racism and equality. By examining the individual stories of these officers, Wilson presents warriors fighting two wars–one that ended in 1919 and another that had begun long before and continued long after their return home from the trenches.