| been rounded up into one regiment to be sent to basic training. There, it was renamed the 369th Infantry Regiment of the 93rd Division of the U.S. Army and, after a short period of training, its black soldiers went to Eu- rope and fought longer than any other American unit. How different this picture was roughly one and a half years later, when the 369th Regiment returned from overseas. On February 17, 1919, the soldiers marched in a victory parade up the same Fifth Avenue from which they had formerly been banned. Led by the unit's commanding officer Colonel William Hayward, the men were the first troops to return to New York from the victorious World War and be welcomed with a parade. The servicemen offered New Yorkers a chance to get a glimpse of American soldiers coming directly from the trenches in Europe. Newspaper reports excitedly described how spectators cheered on the men clad in their khaki uniforms and carrying their original war equipment, consisting of helmets, backpacks and rifles. They marched in concert from 23rd Street in Midtown Manhattan all the way up to 145th Street in Harlem, spearheaded by the unit's flag and the Star-Spangled Banner. Everything had a 'touch of real- ism,' as the New York Herald pointedly noted. The support for the troops seemed overwhelming. More than two million people welcomed the re- turning soldiers in mainly white Midtown Manhattan, as well as in the black neighborhood of Harlem, where the pageant ended after a seven- mile march. The parade of an African American regiment in Manhattan was considered such a great success that one newspaper even emphatically commented that, on that day, New York 'drew no color line.' The difference between these two parades is striking: the 3,000 members of the 'Old Fifteenth' turned from banned servicemen to celebrated citizen-soldi |
