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

Context

African Americans have served in every American war. In wars against the Indians in the early eighteenth century, blacks fought along with white militiamen in defending colonial settlements. During the French and Indian War (1754–1763), African Americans again provided a significant number of soldiers and support troops. Many enslaved blacks in the northern states achieved their freedom through military service during those times. At the battles of Lexington and Concord, the first military engagements of the American Revolution (1775–1783), there were African Americans among the minutemen who fought the British. But early in the American Revolution there was also resistance among many slave owners, including George Washington, to arming blacks because they feared an armed slave revolt. Ironically, the British offered freedom and land to any slave who fought on the British side. Although the British lost the war, they honored their commitment and settled their black soldiers and families on land grants in Nova Scotia (today, a province in Canada). In the War of 1812 (lasting until 1815), African Americans fought in the Battle of New Orleans. In 1815, two battalions of blacks helped inflict the worst defeat ever experienced by the British Army.

The Civil War (1861–1865) brought thousands of African Americans into the Union army. In Massachusetts, Fredrick Douglass, an escaped slave who became a famous orator and writer, was involved in organizing and recruiting for a volunteer regiment of African Americans (led by white officers), the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment. Douglass’s two sons joined that regiment. Following the Civil War, an act of congress made four African American regiments—two cavalry and two infantry—a permanent part of the regular army. During the Spanish-American War (1898), many African Americans joined volunteer regiments and were accepted into the army. Despite forgotten promises, these former soldiers remembered their service with great pride. So it was that African Americans came to view military service as a right and an obligation of American citizens, allowing visible recognition of their participation as full members of society. Several states, including Massachusetts, Maryland, Tennessee, and Ohio, as well as the District of Columbia, had organized all-black militia and National Guard units; Illinois had an African American regiment based in Chicago. These units traced their beginnings to volunteer units that had fought in the Civil War. Despite the large number of African Americans from New York City who served in the Civil War and, later, the Spanish-American War, the city had no black militia or National Guard unit.

Early in 1911, a group of influential African American business and social leaders known as the Equity Congress decided to actively encourage the formation of an African American militia regiment in New York City. However, creating a new militia unit would require an act of the New York legislature. Pending such action, the Equity Congress supported organizing a provisional regiment. In April 1911, Louis Cuvillier, a white New York assemblyman whose district included a large African American population, introduced a bill in the New York Assembly to authorize “a colored regiment of infantry in the city of New York.” The state adjutant general strongly opposed the bill and was quoted in the New York Times of February 8, 1911, as saying “that it would take $50,000 to equip the regiment, $20,000 a year to support it, and that there would be prejudice in the guard against it.” The bill was very detailed and specified the organization of the regiment down to the level of providing a precise number of officers, but it was not well structured. It repeated entire sections of existing law verbatim. Nonetheless, the bill was approved by both houses of the legislature and, in late July, was sent to Governor John Dix to be signed into law. Dix, however, did not approve the bill. In July, the New York Times reported that the bill’s opponents in the legislature considered it to be “so loosely and badly drawn that the high hopes entertained by the colored men whose political influence won votes for it are sure to be disappointed.” Cuvillier was aware of the opposition within the governor’s staff and told the Equity Congress that the bill had failed because of the adjutant general’s opposition.

The assemblyman Dean Nelson introduced a less specific bill on January 18, 1912. According to the Assembly Introductory Number Record, it was amended with minor revisions but was then sent back to the Military Affairs Committee. The assembly record shows that the bill was not reported out of the committee. There was no further action taken to establish an African American regiment until 1913, after Dix was defeated in his bid for a second term as governor of New York in the 1912 election. William Sulzer, a Democratic congressman from New York City, became governor in January 1913. The state senator Henry Salant then introduced a bill on March 28, 1913, to authorize “the organization and equipment of a colored battalion of infantry in the city of New York.” On April 1, Thomas Kane, a Democrat who had defeated Nelson in the 1912 election, introduced another bill with wording similar to Salant’s, but rather than calling for a battalion, the bill specified organizing a full regiment. (At the time, a regiment in the New York National Guard comprised three battalions.) Salant’s bill also provided funding for an armory, while Kane’s bill did not. In committee, the two bills were resolved into one that authorized a regiment but provided no funding.

The amended bill was passed by the assembly on April 29, 1913, and by the senate on May 2. The bill went to Sulzer for signature on May 7, and he signed the bill into law on June 2. That law required the New York adjutant general to organize and equip the regiment no later than three months after the effective date of the act. Although the law specified that it was to take effect immediately, Sulzer was impeached and removed from office before the law could be implemented. Finally, in 1916, Governor Charles Whitman ordered the regiment to be formed and designated it the Fifteenth Infantry Regiment, New York National Guard. In 1918, while the unit was assigned to the French Army, the War Department changed its designation to the 369th Infantry Regiment.