The photo at the top of the page was taken on Feb. 12, 1919, as soldiers from the 369th Infantry Regiment were waiting to disembark in New York on their way home from the Great War in Europe. This photo is one of several iconic photos of the 369th Infantry. Few of them, however, were accompanied by captions giving the soldiers’ names or anything about them. The 369th Infantry, whose members called themselves Harlem’s Rattlers, was the most famous all-Black regiment to fight during World War I. By the end of the war, France awarded the regiment the Croix de Guerre. One hundred-seventy-one of the regiment’s men received individual Croix de Guerre medals for their valor. Several soldiers were also awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. In 2015, Henry Johnson was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery during the war.
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
