Act in Relation to the Organization of a Colored Regiment in the City of New York

In 1913 the New York State Legislature passed An Act to Amend the Military Law, in Relation to the Organization and Equipment of a Colored Regiment of Infantry in the City of New York, creating an African American National Guard unit, later known as the “Harlem Hell Fighters.” The regiment played a crucial role in World War I. During the German spring offensive of 1918, the Harlem Hell Fighters were often the only regiment between the Germans and Paris, France. The New York law was a key legislative milestone in the struggle for African Americans to have equal opportunities to serve in the armed forces.

Article XI of New York’s fourth constitution, passed in 1894, required that the state maintain a military force of “not less than ten thousand enlisted men, fully uniformed, armed, equipped, disciplined and ready for active service.” In response to an incursion into New Mexico by the renegade Mexican revolutionary general Pancho Villa in March 1916, almost all of New York’s military forces were mustered into federal service and started leaving the state in June. Governor Charles Whitman realized that New York would thus be left with fewer soldiers than the constitutional requirement. Whitman; his military secretary, Lorillard Spencer; and the public service commissioner, William Hayward, a long-time Whitman associate, discussed the options for increasing the state’s troop strength. Spencer had recently discovered the 1913 law authorizing an African American regiment for New York’s National Guard. Whitman decided to create the regiment after the federal War Department requested that the state provide more troops. Whitman appointed Hayward as colonel and commander of the regiment and directed him to organize it immediately.