Black History Month: Reflecting on Black American Military Service

>> H.R. McMaster: America and other free and open societies face crucial challenges and opportunities abroad that affect security and prosperity at home. This is a series of conversations with guests who bring deep understanding of today's battlegrounds and creative ideas about how to compete, overcome challenges, capitalize on opportunities, and secure a a better future.

I am HR McMaster, this is Battlegrounds.

>> Jenn Henry: On today's episode of Battlegrounds, our focus is on the history of Black American military service. Our guest is Dr. Krewasky Salter, a retired army colonel, museum curator, military historian, and President of the Pritzker Military Museum and Library. Dr. Salter served 25 years in the US army.

He is the author of Combat Multipliers, African American Soldiers in Four Wars, and The Story of Black Military Officers, 1861 through 1948. Dr. Salter has curated multiple exhibitions, including permanent exhibitions at the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture and the Pentagon. African American military members have played a key role in every American war.

Approximately 5,000 black people, free and enslaved, fought for independence in the Revolutionary War. They fought for independence and the principles of freedom in the Declaration of Independence, especially the truth that all men are created equal and are endowed with the same unalienable rights. Their hopes for a government that would protect the natural rights of black Americans went unrealized as the articles of Confederation sidestepped the issue of slavery altogether.

And the compromises necessary to ratify the Constitution in 1787 allowed that criminal institution to continue. It took the most destructive war in American history to resolve the greatest contradiction in the Constitution, and free 6 million enslaved black people. During the Civil War, black soldiers made up about 10% of the Union army.

They were instrumental in securing the Union victory, ending slavery and granting full citizenship rights to black Americans. They fought valiantly, despite pervasive mistreatment and discrimination from within the army and despite the risk that if captured by Confederate soldiers, they faced torture or death. One year after the Civil War ended, Congress established all-Black regiments, known as Buffalo Soldiers.

Buffalo Soldiers fought in the Indian wars, built roads across the American West, and helped deliver mail, allowing information to flow throughout the growing nation. There were devastating setbacks on the long road to equality for black Americans, including the failure of reconstruction, the rise of Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan, and the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy versus Ferguson.

Which ruled that separate but equal, which really meant separate and unequal, was legally acceptable. Opportunities for black service members in the military diminished as prospects for equality dimmed. As WEB Du Bois observed of this period, the slave went free, stood a brief moment in the sun, then moved back towards slavery.

It would take a world war to revive the demand for black Americans to serve. In World War I, about 350,000 black Americans volunteered to fight for their nation, mainly serving in segregated regiments. One of the most celebrated of these regiments was the Harlem Hellfighters. The Hellfighters, like many other black regiments, were assigned to fight as part of the French army, because many white soldiers did not want to fight alongside them.

Black soldiers in World War I were slurred, treated as subordinates, and segregated from their white countrymen. Veterans did not receive appropriate honor or recognition until decades after the war. While black soldiers fought and served abroad, at home, the war drove the first wave of the Great Migration. From 1914 until the Great Depression, hundreds of thousands of black people moved from the rural south to urban areas of the north.

But post World War I, racism and social tensions increased in competitive labor and housing markets. Across much of the country, overcrowding, a shambling economy, white ethnic gangs unrestrained by police. An increased African American resistance against racism, including veterans of the World War, led to racial strife and violence across much of the country.

About 1.2 million African Americans served valiantly in the Second World War, fighting enemies whose empires were built on jingoistic theories of racial supremacy. But those American servicemen and women fought in segregated units, while their families endured racism and segregation at home. On June 26th, 1948, President Harry S Truman issued Executive Order 9981, abolishing discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin in the United States Armed Forces.

The last segregated units were disbanded in 1954. During and after the Korean and Vietnam wars, an integrated military helped shape the Civil Rights Movement. The atrocious nature of segregation became unarguable as soldiers stationed in the south who had fought for their nation abroad were denied access to Whites-only establishments in towns outside military bases.

The history of Black military service in America's armed forces shows that progress toward equality of opportunity in our military was hard fought. But that progress demonstrated that equality, fairness, and opportunity make the military and our nation stronger. The US military reflects inequalities in American society, while also playing a vital role in dispelling the myths and eroding the racism that underpinned those inequalities.

Americans should honor the memory of black servicemen and women who fought for double victory, that is, military victory abroad and race equality victory at home. Through our determination to realize the vision of a nation in which all enjoy equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Black soldiers continue to serve with distinction in America's all-volunteer armed forces today. Because combat effectiveness depends on cohesion and teamwork, the military culture is and must remain fundamentally intolerant of racism or any form of prejudice or bigotry. We welcome Dr. Salter to discuss his scholarship on black American military history and the implications of that history for the military and society today.

 

>> H.R. McMaster: Colonel Dr. Krewasky Salter, welcome to Battlegrounds. Hey, it's great to see you, my friend, after many, many years, when we taught together at West Point, and we were neighbors just a couple blocks away from each other. And you've done so much great work for our country in the army, but also as a historian, and it's great to have you on Battlegrounds.

 

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Okay, well, Lieutenant General, retired HR McMaster, PhD, just to give you all your accolades up front, before we go into the informality with the first names, yes, I remember those days, and the other day, I was thinking almost three decades, so we have to be careful about dating ourselves.

But that was a great time in the course, we crossed each other several times on active duty. And like you mentioned, when I finally got around to making my dissertation into a book, I thought of you. I reached out to you, and immediately you responded and said, absolutely, I will write the fore to your book, so I appreciate it.

 

>> H.R. McMaster: Well, it was a, it was a great honor to do that and also remember just how great you were to me over the years by visiting my commands. You came to black history Month at Fort Benning, Georgia which is in many ways the heart and soul of the army, soon to be renamed, which maybe we could talk about as well.

And I think rightfully so, and gave a great talk to our whole community there. And you've given a great gift to Americans, in the intro, and we've covered this, our listeners, our viewers have just seen an overview of black military service based on your tremendous scholarship. And, of course, they will have learned from that, the black service members were in battles for our freedom from the very beginning, very beginning of our country.

And, of course, they were not free from enslavement until the civil war. So I wondered if you could just begin with a professorial overview of black military service across all of our nations wars and what Americans should know about that experience.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Absolutely, well, as a historian yourself, when you give a historian the mic and you ask that type of question, we could go on and on.

But first of all, just like you, I was one of the fortunate individuals who had the opportunity to teach at West Point and to teach military history. So we go to school for at least two years to learn military history, and then we go to West Point, and we have that full summer of indoctrination before we go into the class our first year.

And so we're all military historians, but each one of us will branch out into something else that we want to try to make our area of expertise. And so, obviously as an African American, in addition to military history, when I went on to do my PhD, my area was to focus on African American history.

So over the years, I decided to combine my two loves, I love military history, and I love African American history. And my major professor, when he introduced me to that acronym, ABD, that you know, Halbert dissertation, he said, pick something that you understand that you will live with for the rest of your life.

Pick a subject that you will live with and a subject you might be passionate about. And he planted a seed, and so I started studying the African American military experience. And what I learned is that not only from the American revolution, some of us have heard of Crispus Attucks.

Can Americans or people of African descent have participated in those wars, but in the American Revolution. And I'll try to give a brief overview and bring it from the American Revolution to the present to your question. But we always hear about Christmas attics in 1770, which is a full five years before the American Revolution starts.

And that is really the first conflagration, the first act of violence, if you will, because a lot of everything was pretty much on paper, the stamp act and things of that nature. But among the first five to give their lives in an act five years was a person of African descent.

And then we fast forward to the American Revolution, 1775 to 1783, upwards to 6000 African Americans. And when I started this, the number was 5000, but scholarship and starting to dig it out. When I started studying this in the early 1990s, I don't think there were any African Americans who were daughters or sons of the American Revolution.

Now there are hundreds, because that scholarship is starting to come out. And that was almost 20% of the American population, almost 20% HR. And then, of course we're gonna fast forward through the quasi war, the impressment, incidents of 18 or 618 or 7, and just go to the war of 1812.

And again, Americans of African descent served in the war of 1812. And I'm gonna tie this all together in three clumps when I get to the American Civil War. And they were there in the three Seminole wars, there were even African Americans who participated in the Mexican American war.

When I started this, that wasn't well known, but a quote that I have and a lot of things that I do is a quote that a young lieutenant wrote in 1845 to his sweetheart. And he said, I have a black boy that I will take with me, he has been there before, and I'm paraphrasing, and he speaks several languages.

Lieutenant Ulysses S Grant, he wrote that to his sweetheart, Julia Dent. And so I started digging, and so there were some participations in the Mexican American where we were trying to find that primary source. And then you get to the American Civil war and about 210,000, 180,000, roughly in the US CTS and another 30,000 in the navy.

Now, we can take some stories, but I wanna stop there and have us understand that in that period from the American Revolution to the American civil war, African Americans were legally enslaved by the doctrine of our country. So they were fighting for freedom, so if I hearken back to the American revolution, when you think about the Americans fighting for freedom against the crown, that's what we were fighting for as Americans, fighting for our independence.

Yet we were holding a people enslaved, and that's why when we go back to the American revolution and you wonder why there were these people of African descent living on this continent who served with the British. Because during all that time, people of African descent were fighting for the side that gave them the best chance of freedom, them, their family, and their society.

And that's why you have people of African descent who served on the Seminole side into three Seminole wars between the war of 1812 and before we get to the Mexican American war. And there is a quote that had always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me, written in 1774 to fight ourselves against a crown.

And I'm paraphrasing again for something that we are robbing of other people. And that was written by the wife of a future president and the mother of a future president. Abigail Adams wrote that in 1774, so there was a realization, even at that time, among people who weren't African, of African descent, that there was some level of hypocrisy.

And you've seen a lot of my writings, I always refer to and there are white supporters, because I always try to make sure that this is not a black and white. And it was always every African American is painted in this picture, and every white American is painted in this picture.

And so now we brought it up to the civil War. So now we have the three amendments, and one of them is the 13th Amendment, which freeze African American. So now let's break it down in the second box that I normally try to tell the history. And we're gonna go from 1865 to 1948, kind of with a crossover.

 

>> H.R. McMaster: And just for our viewers, I mean, Kroskey. I mean, of course, that was the greatest contradiction, right, in our constitution, the greatest disappointment in connection with the values and principles expressed in the declaration, right? Especially that are created equal and have an equal right, equal opportunity to pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

So now we're up to the point where the war, in which, I think, well over 200,000 black soldiers served emancipated whites and blacks on the north side, emancipated 6 million of their fellow Americans. And so it took almost 100 years to expunge that contradiction. But, of course, as you're gonna tell us, the struggle is not over yet, and there were some setbacks along the way.

 

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Yeah, absolutely and so that's a good segue for my middle section. And so now African Americans are not only free people by the 13th Amendment, but three years later, in 1868, now you have the 14th Amendment, so they're citizens. So, you're free before you're really considered a citizen.

And then two years later, you have that other amendment, the 15th Amendment, which gave African American men, remember, women as Americans, don't get the right to vote until the 19th Amendment in 1920. So theoretically, African American men, by constitution, have the right before vote before women of all races.

But you're free, but you're in this period of reconstruction where we believe we're coming out of this period of slavery. Equality is going to be granted to us, America is going to move forward. And, of course, reconstruction is the country needed to reconstruct itself after such a war.

But then we have the compromise of 1877/1876, which put Rutherford B Hayes in office. It took occupied troops out of the south, and that left those newly freed African Americans to the perils of what began to happen. Jim Crowism, extreme segregation, and then separate but equal. When you get to the Plessy versus Ferguson, and it's a horrific period for African Americans and for some of their white supporters.

And we can go into some detail on another show.

>> H.R. McMaster: You've got the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. You have really the rise of a terrorist organization, right, that is pursuing a political objective by committing violence against innocent people. That's the definition of terrorism. And that's what they were doing, was to deny black Americans their citizenship that had been granted after the civil war.

 

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Yes, I have a book on my shelf here that I read in graduate school, and you probably have it. And I went back to it, it's called White Terror. And it was about that period. It was about that period from 1866, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and other terror groups which were going around terrorizing African Americans, to deny them the right to vote, to deny them citizenship, to deny them those three amendments.

But to add some insult to injury, now it gets codified. We have the civil rights case of 1883, I believe it was, which now codified in law that African Americans could be segregated and not use hotels, that white Americans could use transportation and restaurants. And then fast forward to 1886, now you have Plessy versus Ferguson.

And that's the first a light skinned African American in Louisiana who petitioned because he should be able to ride anywhere on the train that he chooses to ride. But he was denied that privilege, that case was lost. And that's the first bookend of separate but equal, which lasts until 1954 with the Brown versus the board of education.

 

>> H.R. McMaster: And which we all know is really separate but unequal, right?

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Separate but unequal, exactly. But getting back to military history, African Americans were still serving. So in addition to those three amendments, we have the Army Reorganization Act of 1866, which now African Americans can be a permanent part of the military.

And so in the Reorganization Act, there were six units named. They ended up becoming four, the 24th and the 25th Infantry Regiment and the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiment. And they served on the western frontier. And one of the things we can tell a lot of stories, but one of the things I try to get across to people is, there were 25.

It's easy for us to remember how many infantry regiments there were 25, because the last two were named for the African American units, the 24th and the 25th. And it's easy to remember how many cavalry regiments there were. There were ten, because the last two, the 9th and 10th, were named for the African American units.

But when you think about it, for those mathematicians, 20% of the cavalry soldiers in the army were African American in nature.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah, right.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: And so all this is going on, they're still serving heroically on the western frontier.

>> H.R. McMaster: And Kroskey, they served with great distinction on the western frontier, but also they taught the equestrian courses at West Point as well.

 

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: West Point, Fort Myers, Fort Leavenworth, and a few others. I mean, eventually and then they were also a part of the first park rangers. Before the park ranger system started in 1916, there was a rotation, and the third African American to graduate from West Point, Charles Young, served out in the parks in the 1890s.

And they're also.

>> H.R. McMaster: I hope we talk more about him, too, right? Because, I mean, he became a colonel and was desperately trying to serve in World War I, was denied the opportunity. So I think you're about to tell us, about how World War I shapes experience. I just got to say this is the best seminar I've ever heard on it, because what you're doing is you're interweaving what's happening in American society with what's happening in the American military in connection with the black American experience and really US history.

So keep going.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Okay, so we'll jump forward because I know we only have so much time. So let's jump to World War I, and we can talk the SOS troops and the two infantry regiments but But let's talk about Charles Young. And also put it in the context of West Point.

We said he was the third African American. So that means there were two others before him. There was John Hanks Alexander, where Charles Young graduates in 1889, Alexander graduates in 1887. And Harry O Flipper graduates in 1877. But Charles Young is the only one that had a full career.

Flipper was drummed out of service. Alexander died on active duty while he was the professor of military science and tactics at Wilberforce. But Charles Young, who graduates in 1889, dies on active duty in 1922. But so he's a lieutenant colonel when the war started, had a full career, but he had been placed on the 06 list.

He had passed the test, he had passed a physical.

>> H.R. McMaster: And 06 is colonel for our viewers.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: That's right, an 06 lieutenant colonel 06 is a colonel, the rank right below general, which comes key to our story. And so when there were some letter writing campaigns by a few young lieutenants who ended up being under Charles Young.

Which in that day, there was an unwritten rule that African Americans would not be over white officers. But Charles Young ended up being over white officers, young officers a few times for short periods. He was eventually forced to not retire, but he was taken off the active duty roles.

He was sent back to letterman hospital for another physical. And, he did have high blood pressure and Bright's disease, but the physician deemed him duly able to serve.

>> H.R. McMaster: Well, you tell the story, too, in your first book about how he rode on horseback. I mean, for almost 500 miles from Ohio to Washington, DC, for his physical, just to say, hey, listen, I'm ready to go.

 

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: After he took the physical, so he wanted to prove that. And so he wrote, and I've done that route. Now, HR, when you get out of the army and you start do some research and, you know, a mall here, a grocery store there. And I did his route also in California.

And so he wanted to prove his physical prowess, but nonetheless he was left into the medical roles. And he actually wrote a letter to John J Pershing. And actually Pershing had been one of the instructors while Charles Young was at West Point. And there had been a relationship.

But the interesting thing is, of course, he never got to serve. He petitioned, he wanted to go overseas. He wanted to hopefully be a commander, one of those two divisions, the 92nd or the 93rd. Or maybe just one of the brigades and get that start. And that is probably the crux of the matter.

If he would have been put in one of those positions. He was already gonna be a colonel. He would have been promoted to one star. And, of course, we're still researching. There's gonna be a book coming out, I know the book. I know the gentleman writing it, and I know he's doing some research on this.

And we'll get more, so there's still both sides of the story. But the interesting thing, HR, is he was brought back on active duty on November 5th, 1918, just six days before the war ended. And then he was sent back overseas. I think he went to Liberia, back as a attache, and that's where he died on active duty.

And so a lot of people look at this. Well, if he was not healthy enough to serve and go to France in 1917. Why is he now, all of a sudden, healthy enough to go back to one of those what we call assignments for black officers? Because, unfortunately, some of the African countries is where the black officers were being rotated back through.

Or going back to be professor of military sciences at the HBCUs, historically by black colleges. So, that's one of the stories that I. Many stories, just like you live in these men's shoes, their boots, their uniform when you're studying them to write it. And I've always tried to be as objective as possible to get the story across.

But I do believe that Charles Young was wrong. That's just my personal opinion, I do.

>> H.R. McMaster: That's what I love about your book, is for each of these eras, for both your books. And then also the essay that you wrote on World War I, which we're coming up on here in terms of the chronology.

And the black military experience and how that interrelates with what's happening in society. Is you introduce the broad themes and what readers should understand. But then you give these really compelling personal anecdotes. That I think help you connect with the black military experience in a way that you wouldn't otherwise.

 

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Yeah, and I've been criticized by some by not making conclusions. But I did make one conclusion here that I do feel Charles Young was wrong. But I do try to put what I have found as the facts in front of people. And also as a military historian, anytime I write about an African American history piece, I always put it in the entire context.

So, anytime I'm writing about the American Civil War, I try to set up the different, theaters of war. And what's going on in that theater of war. And how this battle that the African American soldiers may be participating in contributes to that strategic victory.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Or, even if it was a loss.

 

>> H.R. McMaster: And this is what you do is. And this is what you're doing for us now, is you place black military experience. And the African American experience more broadly in context of the overall American experience. And I think there are those today who wanna kind of wall it off, you know?

And I think you lose the richness of the history and prevent us from really fully understanding the travails and difficulties. But also celebrating the great triumphs and the great contributions to our nation overall.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Yeah, and so to that point, I guess I would say one thing, because, I used to teach African American history, too.

And the first thing I would do, people come into your classroom, and you have African American 101 302. The first thing I would do is erase African.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: And I would say, this is an American history class. We are just going to do it through the African American experience.

And that was cool, because when I got to work at the Smithsonian.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: The mission at the National Museum of African American History and Culture is not African American history. We are telling an American story through the African American lens. So that's number one. And also, I point out in my book, there are leadership lessons.

When you say, well, the African American soldier can't fight, he can't lead, he can't do X, Y and Z,

>> H.R. McMaster: Mm-hm.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Just like you, there are about five or six books I wanna write. One of the books That's in my mind is, like, leadership. And so I always try to always say they're white supporters and show that it's not necessarily a black and white.

So give one vignette, when you talk about World War I is William Hayward, who was the commander to 369th. And there are other white commanders of some African American units throughout history. When those commanders treat their soldiers as men, they respect their soldiers, they go forth and they fight well.

And if we get to the day and we talk about that trust and that cohesion breaking down.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: When there's a commander leading you and you know he or she doesn't really value you and don't trust you, and I write about a few of them in my book, then those units don't do well.

It is a proven fact that leadership matters.

>> H.R. McMaster: Absolutely, whatever military unit, if you ever see or hear a commander complain about his or her soldiers, it should be a big sign that, hey, the problem's actually with that leader.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Yeah, and I always say, my success in the military was not because if someone thought I was a great leader, it's because I had great soldiers, but I had great NCO's, the backbone.

For me I was raised by an NCO and that's why as coming up through the ranks, I knew when I was a second lieutenant that my EA seven first sergeant outranked me, although he said sir.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: I knew that when I was a captain battery commander, my EA first sergeant, he outranked me although he said sir.

And that's the way I approached things as I was going through the military.

>> H.R. McMaster: My dad was the first sergeant in infantry in the reserves and then he got a direct commission later. So I know I can totally connect with that as well. And I often say the most beautiful word in the English language is sergeant.

And I think, and when you see kind of the strength of our military relative to others, I think the strength of our non commissioned officer corps. And I would say junior leader leaders in general, including our lieutenants and captains, is what differentiates us.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Yes, exactly. And of course, when you have a good soldier and a bad soldier and you depend on your NCO's, to help you out, how are we gonna deal with this soldier.

Can we train this soldier or is he or she not good for the cohesion of the unit? Because we might have to go forth and do something. So I may have lost a train of thought on what,

>> H.R. McMaster: So we're going to World War I. So we've talked about the Buffalo soldiers, the 24th and 25th regiments on the frontier, and now the effect that World War has in the midst of the Jim Crowism and all the problems here in our society, we're confronting a world war.

And again, African Americans, black Americans are mobilized for war.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Yeah, mobilize and not only mobilize, I mean, they mobilized themselves. They were Americans.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: So most African Americans supported the war. And I say most because we have to also understand that African Americans were never monolithic.

So a lot of us know W E B Du Bois, who said, close ranks, something to the effect of close ranks, put our separate grievances aside and let's fight this war while the war lasts. But then you have folks like a Philip Randolph, who is also key and important for the progress of African American history.

He was this young 28 year old male in 1917 who took on the sitting president when President Woodrow Wilson on April 2, I believe it was in 1917, in the declaration, said something to the effect in the long speech of make the world safe for democracy. A Philip Randolph, in his periodical, they wrote, we would rather make Georgia safe for the negro.

And Georgia was a metaphor for America, and safe for the negro was a metaphor for all of the lynchings that was still happening. I don't know if you looked at, some of the stuff that we were able to do in the World War I exhibition with the flag, a man was lynched yesterday.

 

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: That was made after the war, because lynchings were still going on, even post World War II. So there were some folks who followed the A Philip Randolph, and rightfully so. But most African Americans did close rank, and they went forth and fought, and to the tune of 400,000 African American men, which is exactly 10%.

This is an easy number to remember for world War II as well, because you always know that 4 million Americans were mobilized, 400,000 African Americans, and 200,000 of those American soldiers. 2 million of those American soldiers went overseas, and almost 200,000 African Americans went overseas. So think about it, 10%.

And I'm not really gonna talk about the combat armed soldiers unless we have time. I wanna talk about the SOS services of supply, because almost 40% of the soldiers that made the fighting force load and unload and go forth and fight the Americans were African Americans. If you look at the maps and you look at the history, and it's just like when we get to World War II, you as an armor officer, me as an air defender, we can't go forth and do our combat arms job without that tell.

When one pilot goes into the air in the Air Force. I don't know the number, but there's about ten to 15 airmen on the ground that makes sure that that one pilot gets in the air for his aircraft. I'm just guessing on the number. I do know it's a lot, so I don't want my air force Friends to say, you screwed that one up.

But you know what I'm getting at? And that is what happened in World War I. And so we'll talk about that when we kind of get to present day, when we talk about national security, because I do think there's a national security tie, as we spoke about before.

But you do have those African Americans who go into the trenches, such as the 369th. But I'm not gonna talk about them in the context that we all know and the great things that they did do. But what I wanna say is, they were one of eight infantry regiments.

They weren't the only infantry regiment. They're just the most famous. There was the 92nd Division, that had the 365, 6,7 and 8 regiments.

>> H.R. McMaster: Which fought with the French.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: No, the 96 Americans, 365, 366, 367th and 368th. Then there was the 93rd Division.

>> H.R. McMaster: Right.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Which was the 369, 370, 371st and 372nd, and they fought under the French.

That's another one of the stories on leadership. Those four regiments that fought under the French, because the French were so happy to get American soldiers. They treated them as equal to the point where there was actually a letter that was sent to the French to be careful of how you treat-

 

>> H.R. McMaster: And don't praise them too much, right? Because the American officers on the other side, Pershing's headquarters and stuff, that might not be something they wanna hear.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Yeah, and so in the 92nd division, that did not happen. And so in the leadership thing, so that I'm thinking about.

So let's do talk about that when we think about the 369th. The other thing is their officers were white American officers, but as I said, William Hayward, and then there was a young captain named Hamilton. Fish, I can't remember the second or the third or the fourth, because there is still a Hamilton fish, that's the fifth or sixth.

But the Hamilton fish, that was a captain in the 369th, they treated their soldiers fairly, they praised their soldiers. And if it were not for Colonel Hayward, the 369th and some of the other African American units would have been SOS because that's what they were doing for the first two months.

Hayward went to Pershing's headquarters himself, and he said, these men have trained as infantrymen. I didn't come over here, and he said a few things. The big ditches and the X, Y, and Z. We came over here to fight, and they did well. And so it was not only the French that treated them well that happened, but in those units, by and large, because they were national Guard units.

And that's the difference HR as well. The 92nd, those soldiers were mostly made up of draftees and most of the officers, because there was a belief that southerners knew how to handle African Americans. Those were mostly officers in those units. Now, the 92nd Division, most of those officers and soldiers were National Guard units.

So I'm sitting here in Chicago now, and when I say it's because the 369th was the most famous, the 370th, the Black Devils. I mean, they went the furthest of any African American unit. And a lot of American units at the end of the war, because of the unit they were attached to.

And then because of the unit the 369th was attached to, they were among the first Americans to get to the Rhine, not cross the Rhine. They reached the Rhine with their Rhine river with their unit. So leadership matters, and I won't belabor the point, but if you look at the numbers and look at what these soldiers did, were they combat multipliers?

That's why I named my book combat multipliers. You make the determination, but when you think about 40%. And the last point I wanna make, if I have time, is one of the reasons, in the context of history, we know that the Germans kinda made two mistakes that kinda pissed off the Americans, the Zimmerman letter.

And going back now to unrestricted submarine warfare. We may talk about that later, if you wanna interject on that. And the reason they thought they could do that, because they did not think that the Americans could power project many things, they didn't think. But one of the reasons, as I was doing some digging, is they did not think the Americans could power project themselves to Europe.

Remember World War I, we do power projection in our sleep now. It's going on right now as we talk. But in World War I, the only power projection that we actually had in our history, it was two. It was the Spanish-American War, but that was a little junk to Cuba, and then you could say the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848.

But that was power projection across a border from Texas to Mexico, we had to go across the ocean, and tie it back to African Americans. African Americans were 40% of that labor force HR that helped the US get there. And so you make your own conclusion, and we'll tie that to today, why you need every man and woman in your continental United States and American to be a part of your fighting force.

 

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah absolutely. So, Ski, we talk, I know it's hard to fast forward through all these periods of time. But, of course, the third graduate from West Point, who I think entered service in 1893, or maybe that was from the last graduate, was it?

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: That was Charles Young, are you talking about- Charles Young, 1893.

 

>> H.R. McMaster: No other graduate till 1936, right? Which puts us kinda on the eve of World War II. And, of course, what's happening in this period of time is, I think we have to talk about the return of World War I soldiers. And how Jim Crow was intensified in that period of time as a way almost to preempt those who had served overseas from demanding their civil rights and how there was an accommodation in this period of time between North and South.

 

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Yeah.

>> H.R. McMaster: But it was an accommodation between northern whites and southern whites. And this is when so many of the posts that people were probably wondering why we should be renaming them, those posts were named for Confederate leaders. Really, traitors from T-R-A-I-T-O-R-S from the Union for slavery.

And so I think it's fitting to rename them. That's just my personal opinion, based on that history of why they were named and when they were named or for what purpose. But, of course, there are disappointments now among black Americans who come back from World War I. You curated a tremendous display and explanation of this in the museum in the Smithsonian.

Could you explain kind of that really quickly, and then maybe we can get to the end of your book on black officers and talk about World War two a little bit.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Okay, so now, so there are four questions there. So one, the time frame between 1889 and 1936, why, with Benjamin O Davis, the treatment of African Americans coming back from World War I, and then the renaming of post and the epilogue, post World War II.

So let's look at that period. I'll make these as short as possible, and this confused me early on. Why did it take so long for another African American to graduate from West Point? That is how successful Jim Crow separate but equal and the failure of reconstruction was. Because in my book, I talk about all 27.

27 African Americans were appointed to West Point. 12 were admitted, and only three graduated, which was on part with the attrition rate. And that's the reason it took so long. No one was appointing and advocating for African American equality to go to the nation's military academy. That's a simple answer, and there's a lot to it.

And this is the period when were happening. So that's, and so in the middle of that period is the return from World War I. African Americans had closed ranks like WEB Du Bois asked them to do. And when they came back, there was this period of red summer.

And red summer was a period where over 40 race riots and massacres. Some that used to be called riots. We have already, we've done this study where some were actually, they were massacres. A riot is when People are kinda going at each other. A massacre is when you are just being pounced upon.

And there were 40 riots and massacres after World War I to do what? To put the African American back in her place. Because now they were filling their contributions to the victory of the war. Some of them have been treated fairly by the French. And among some of those folks who were lynched were soldiers.

And I'll tell this one story, this is, and I didn't come across this story until about ten or 15 years ago. Digging a little bit more and doing some research also for the Smithsonian is, and his name is escaping me. I wish I went back and looked at this.

But nonetheless.

>> H.R. McMaster: We are getting older, brother, we're getting older, man.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: But it was the Elaine Massacre, I am.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: It was the Elaine Massacre in 2nd September of 1919.. There was this young man out with three of his brothers hunting, and when they came back, they were attacked by a white mob.

And there's the implication with equality for work and pay in x, y and z. But this young man was in the 369th. He had survived the trenches in Europe, H.R, and then he came back only to be killed in his own country. And so that's the return that African Americans return to.

And so them and their white supporters, I always like to point out this, too. People when they say, well, there was a question in a program to a gentleman we had, and someone asked, and I was controlling the chat as the moderator. Well, were there any white organizations that were supporting and speaking out?

Im just going to say the NAACP. And people say, well, that's an all black Organization. NAACP 90% of the founders of NAACP when it was established in 1919. And what they were doing in the early years were white Americans. So again and so during the red summer, not only were white African Americans fighting aback, they did have their supporters.

And so that's one question, I think the other question you were asking is about the naming of the forts. Most of these forts were named in that period, actually, I'm gonna throw this other term in there, the lost cause. We talked about equal, and we talked about rise of Jim.

 

>> H.R. McMaster: The myth of the lost cause, right? Yeah, absolutely.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: And so the lost cause is the side that really lost the war, the south ended up winning the social culture, and political norms of the time to where forts were named, and they still exist after soldiers who fought for the Confederacy to what you said.

And so now there has been a push of renaming some of those forts. And I'm like you, I think some of those forts certainly should be renamed. I also, I'm here at the Pritzker Military Museum and Library, had to put that plug in, hopefully that's okay, and check us out.

But I started my museum leadership career after being with the Smithsonian at the first division museum. And so when you study the first division museum, you learn, I had to be the expert in the first division story. The first Mexican american four star general was Richard Cavazos from Texas.

So he's one of the names put in for Fort Hood.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: So to your point, it's not just naming the force after African Americans, it's naming the force after other people who have been in our now integrated force. So I say that to say this, I agree with you, and I'm a part of that push.

If they rename Fort Hood for General Cavazos, I think that's perfect. He's a son of Texas, first Mexican American to achieve four star. And he did great things for our war.

>> H.R. McMaster: He gave the most inspirational speech I heard when I was a cadet at West Point, too.

It's like you forget most of those, but I remember his. I mean, there wasn't a dry eye in the audit in the auditorium when he was finished.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Yeah, it's amazing, you guys who are general officers, when you get up, I'm always inspired. I mean, you're right, I've heard great speeches and I've heard a few.

I missed the military, but I don't wanna go back, when I decided to retire, I was ready. But I've been places and I was like, man, I wanna join again, so. And I think your last question, the epilogue to my book, and that'll bring us to maybe some present day, and so, and my book on black officers.

So just a distinction, three national level exhibitions, two books and a host of articles and vignettes. So we're gonna talk about the black officer in the epilogue. And so that book was solely about the rise and the struggle of black officers from 1861 to 1948. And that's the bookend of the start of the American Civil War, and Executive Order 9981, that's the bookend.

 

>> H.R. McMaster: That's Truman's integration of the military.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Of the military. And so what I just say in the epilogue, because that was my dissertation, finished in 1996. But unlike you, who desert yours off, and it became a book, dereliction of duty A few years after I put my on the shelf and I didn't dust it off until I retired.

So it was published in 2013. So I was able to bring it forward, and I been studying every year now as I do the army demographic reports. And so what I say in the epilogue is the military of all the ills that African Americans experience up to World War II, and they were still experiencing some of those.

Because President Truman had the courage to stand up and do what President Wilson didn't do in 1919. Talk about leadership, President Wilson was completely silent on the red summer. When it got to President Truman in 1946 that African Americans were being beaten and some killed in 1946. He's a veteran himself, he was an artilleryman in World War I, I've been on the exact ground where he served.

 

>> H.R. McMaster: He was an artillery battery commander, I believe.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Yes, he was artillery battery commander. And like I said, been there, he was outraged, commissioned a study to secure these rights. And one of the things that came out of it was executive order 9981 that you defined. And so the military was ahead of the curve.

That didn't mean that African Americans who served, and especially office in 1950 and in the 1960s had complete equality in society. But I could give several examples, I don't know if you want me to give Juan, either Powell or Becton.

>> H.R. McMaster: Sure, yeah, hey, absolutely. And for our viewers, tune into a previous episode on General Roscoe Robinson as well, who began his military career around this time and became the first four star black american general.

But please give us a, give us an example.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: But I will say the first four star army.

>> H.R. McMaster: Army, yeah, that's right.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Because General Chappie James, who was an air force, the air force gets the credit for having the first four star general, it was Chappie James.

But just a couple examples. All of these officers will tell you that now when they were stationed in the south and when they were on post, it was utopia for them cuz it was equality. But when they went outside the gate, it was like an enclave. A post was the enclave of equality in the 50s and the 60s for these black officers and soldiers.

But when they went out into the community, they couldn't go to certain restaurants, they couldn't go to certain hotels. And so this was still happening. And then we get to the all volunteer force in 1993. And I'm fast forwarding, I hope I'm not skipping.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah, 1973, right?

 

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: 73 and so, now the door begins to open for a little bit more equality. But the playing field is not really even for a lot of folks. And there was an African American who was selected as the first African American secretary of the army, Clifford Alexander. He got a report of the general officer list, as we know, and I'm sure you sat on several boards.

I had the opportunity to sit on two boards in my career in the military. When the general officer list came to him, I think it was in 1978 or 79, there was zero, zero African American officers on the list. And he couldn't believe it, he sent the list back and he said, I cannot believe.

And so we're in high school at this time. This is our lifetime. I can't believe that there are no African Americans qualified to be general officer. And this goes to some of the biases that still exist today in some arenas and institution biases. And of course, two of the beneficiaries of that was Hazel Johnson, the first African American woman to be promoted to general officer.

And Colin Powell was on that list, and then from there, we begin to have some barriers breaking down. And so I talk about that in my epilogue, and then I also talk about the fact that, this duality, kind of what W.E.B Du Bois said, double consciousness and the twoness of African Americans.

We are in our black skin, but we are Americans, and we just wanna move forward just like everyone else have that equal playing field. And there's still a perception on both sides. There's a perception and a reality, among some folks that they are not being promoted because someone in their rating chain may have had a bias to them.

And that rating affected them along the way. And that's why I did go back and read my epilogue the other day, and that's why I have all italicized all OERs. Because the higher you get up and the weeding out begins, all of your OERs become important.

>> H.R. McMaster: The OER is an officer evaluation report.

 

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: I'm sorry, OER, officer evaluation reports, your report cards, the minimum could be three months, but you get one at least every 12 months, if I remember correctly. And so, there have been officers who found out later on, when you talk to your branch assignment officer in my cohort, my peers, and they were told, well, this is going to stand out.

When we were second lieutenants or captains, and told, well, you're the young officer and I can only give so many slots and I don't know the answer to that. And then on the other side, and Powell says he heard this. There are some officers who are not African American who will say that, well, you only got promoted or selected because you were African American.

And we gotta figure that out HR, and I've been retired for 12 years, I think you've only been retired for four years, so you may know better, but I think they took out the image is there.

>> H.R. McMaster: That's right. And now there's a move to maybe bring it back and maybe we should talk about this now.

The story that we're telling is a story not of linear progress, right? Toward equality of opportunity for black, servicemen and women officers all in the military, but it's not one without progress, right? And it's progress, I think, where many people should get credit for it. Especially, those black servicemen and women and officers and others who persevered through difficulties to build an institution that I believe, Krauski, I love to hear your thoughts on this.

That adheres to a culture that is a fundamentally intolerant now of racism, bigotry, sexism, other forms of prejudice or maltreatment of other team members. Now, that doesn't mean the military is perfect. But what I'm concerned about today is there are some people who think, hey, well, to get to that utopian level, right, of complete equality of opportunity.

What we need is, and this is some of the various critical theories, post modernist theories say, well, what you need is you need more racism to correct previous ills. Or this idea that you should evaluate people not on what they bring to the team. And we as soldiers, what do we evaluate people by?

Hey, your toughness, your courage, your sense of honor, your empathy, and your willingness to sacrifice for one another regardless of what the heck your skin color is. So, I do get concerned about how some of these philosophies that have really gotten a lot of traction, especially in academia.

I just think they would be so destructive if they were foisted on our military by maybe, well, meaning civilian political leaders. But who don't understand the real sources of combat effectiveness and the cohesion in units that underpins it. So, I'd love to hear your views on this, and if you're concerned at all.

 

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Yeah, there are about five or six questions in there a great point, but I'm gonna take the first one, and just raise my hand. Me, I am a retired colonel with a PhD because I served in the military. I think I could have done something in civilian life and been successful.

But probably, like you, I was that young lieutenant, first lieutenant still stationed in Germany when I got the letter that said. Because of your academic background and your success in the military thus far, you are a candidate, go teach at West Point. But then it had all these requirements, as a lieutenant, your battery commander is God.

So one of them, you have to have a successful battery command, pass a GRE, get into an accredited school, and x, y, and z. But that's how I went to school, to be a military historian. And then I had a major professor who didn't look like me. My major professor was a white man, and he introduced me to ABD.

He said, I think while you're here, you should take as many classes as you can while you're a resident. And so, I say that to say this, what concerns me is some of this is actually turning off perhaps some young African American men and women. Who would go into the military, and the military will have the opportunity to make your life better.

So that's the other side of the story. There is biases that exist, but also the military gives you an opportunity if you are a person that goes forward and does your job to the same standard of your peers. So I will say this, and, I told you at the beginning, I'm a reticent person of telling my personal story, HR, so I'm gonna tell.

 

>> H.R. McMaster: I want you to tell our viewers how you got your first name, because, it's relevant to this, right? It's relevant.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: I'm gonna tell the story. I'm gonna tell just a piece of it. I'm a retired colonel with 25 years. Do you ever question why I didn't go to 30?

I'm not asking you, that's a rhetorical question. So for our viewers, most people who make 06, your retirement is 30 years you can stay to 30 years. Well, when it came time for, you put your box for brigade command. I'm an air defender, so we only have three combat brigades, and there are different brigades.

You can become a support commander, a garrison commander. I only checked the box for brigade combat, and then I got the call from the branch. Well, there are about 25 of you guys. You're shooting yourself in the foot if you wanna stay in the military. Words to that effect, I'm doing a little bit of paraphrasing.

And I said, well, hey, I.

>> H.R. McMaster: You knew what you wanted to do? You knew what you wanted to do?

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: I said, because I was gonna retire at 20, but I had a great mentor who, again, I have great black mentors and great white mentors. And I hate to say white and black, but it was my boss who was a white guy, when I put my papers in and I told him I was gonna retire at 20.

And he brought me into his office several times and talked to me, talked to me And I stayed in. He said, look at your record, you're gonna do x, y and z. You're gonna come out on this list and that list. And that's not what I was serving for.

But he just said, we need your talent. And not to say that, greatest thing since life spread. So I stayed in, and I did get picked up for the war college and get promoted. But then when I was told that, I said, well, hey, I do want to do something else with my life.

So that's why I got out. When I hit my three year mark and it was okay. It was okay. But the army has allowed me to have an afterlife and a part of your question there was a lot. Is, I do fear that some of the biases that people know do exist among some people are keeping some people from joining our force.

Who, if they join the military, could go on to do bigger and better things in life. And we're not asking everyone to stay in 20, 25 years and 30 years, just stay in three years. I know a lot of young folks, who have stayed in for three years or six years, and they're using that military background, the GI bill, to go on to do greater things, but there is some inequalities.

And I found out, and it was too late for me to realize that I didn't know as a second lieutenant or as a captain. I didn't know in my first OER, I should have advocated. I didn't have one to kind of tell me that. And, that's why I'm not a 30 year colonel.

 

>> H.R. McMaster: 25 is pretty good

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Yeah, if I was gonna command a brigade, I wanted to have one of those combat arms brigades. I didn't check the garrison, I didn't check any of those other boxes. And I kind of knew it because my peers were great men and women by that point.

And I will say, when I commanded the PAC-3 Patriot missile battalion, I had the largest contingent of women. My PAC-3 Patriot missile battalion was 22% women. So to shout out to our men and women are a part of our national security. So just to bring this forward to the end, the audacity we say of China to fly a balloon over our country.

So let me close this with the national security piece, because, and I think you write about some of this in your book about how they have infiltrated our social media and everything. China, and I hate to say this, China, Russia, North Korea, and some of those other adversaries, they're looking at us, HR.

 

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: And if we can implode ourselves and erode our own combat power, the more for them. And that's why we as Americans gotta figure it out, not only in the military. I can tell you stories as a civilian, but that's not important. What's important is we gotta figure out how to be Americans.

I can trace my American heritage back to about the civil war, but not much before that because there's a reason why African Americans can't do that. But I can trace it back that far. I'm like a fifth sixth, seventh, I don't know, generation American, and so are a lot of other African Americans.

You read H Minton Francis story probably in my black officer book. He is that fifth or sixth African American to graduate from West Point who was a fifth generation American. His grandfather was free before the civil war, had one of the most popular hotels in Washington, DC. And when he goes to West Point in 1941, it was, he's talking about all of the treatment that was being given to him by some of the white cadets.

And I say some because he also talked about the bright and great Americans who, when he was a senior, kind of secretly took him under his wings. But some of those freshmen, when he came in as a freshman who had been first generation Americans, and they were asking him, why does the N-word wants to come to America?

And I interviewed him. If you look in the back of my book, I interviewed 15 of these people. So I was a young captain, HR, and I was interviewing these men and women who were in their 70s and 80s. I donated all of that. It's on camera, too.

I donated all of those to the Smithsonian. So people, I feel bad. I didn't have control over them for three years. And someone asked, a friend of ours, I won't say the name here, asked me for that because my book came out and I didn't have control. I could never send it.

But now they have fully brought it in because we were trying to get the museum open. But we gotta figure it out, HR, because our national security breaks down when soldiers of all races, of all genders don't trust their leaders or their soldiers on their left and right.

And us as leaders, cohesion on the battlefield will break down. And that's why it's important to know that African Americans have always been there for two reasons. It's important for the African American young man and woman to know that his and her ancestors contributed to this great America.

And it's also important for white Americans to know that although there were ills, there were African American, white Americans that supported them along the way. Otherwise, African Americans couldn't pass the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendment. They didn't have the power. They didn't have the power, they were just,

 

>> H.R. McMaster: That's right.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: And so it's important for them to know, we gotta work together. We gotta work together.

>> H.R. McMaster: And you know what, I just wanna have a message for any young viewers and listeners. Joining the military has tremendous rewards associated with it, right? And it's friendships like ours, right?

We're bound together by a sense of common purpose and commitment to our nation and to one another, right? Regardless of identity category. And you're making me think about my first real mentor in the military as my first battalion commander, Billy J McGowan. And he happened to be a black officer, but it didn't matter, either one of us.

And he was kind enough to be at my retirement ceremony after 34 years in the military, and we've remained connected. And so I just think that there's this misperception that could discourage people of all different backgrounds to join our military. But our military, I would just say our military is not radical.

Our military is not woke, whatever the heck that means. Our military is,

>> H.R. McMaster: Committed to defending our nation, and they're committed to one another. And so I hope that what is largely infected academia does not affect our military, and hopefully our discussion will contribute to that. And I just want to say, professor, doctor, Colonel Salter, Hey, you are still serving because what you are doing for our country is immensely important.

And I think the work that you've done in museums and through your scholarship, through your teaching, is strengthening the fabric of our society, helping us bring us together. Respectful of our different backgrounds and experiences and identities and cultures, but recognizing what we do have in common as Americans and through our historical experience.

So, hey, on behalf of the Hoover Institution, I can't thank you enough. I want to give you the last word before we wrap up, but this has been just a tremendous discussion. I've enjoyed it so much, and I can't thank you enough.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Well, I think the last word, HR, is just thank you for having me on your show and for convincing me that, yeah, African American history is a part of battlegrounds.

Because I think most people know your show is mostly about international battlegrounds, international politics and national security as it relates with foreign policy. And I do think that as I was thinking about this program and when I got invitation, I was like, okay, let me think about this.

There is a national security implication, and I already knew that. And I will tell you that you drew a lot out of me, a lot I said a lot here that I have never said on a public forum on your show, because I am an American. I did serve our country, and I think we have to come together.

 

>> H.R. McMaster: Absolutely, and, hey, we'll save it for our next conversation about your first name. But you know what, I think let's just do a bonus round for our viewers who are still with us. Tell us that story, just because I think it's a little bit of a metaphor, right?

 

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Yeah.

>> H.R. McMaster: For what we've been talking about.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Yeah, so, as I said, and maybe you showed it in the intro, the picture of my father. My father is a retired command sergeant major, retired four star command sergeant major. He was the command sergeant major as Centcom.

So for people who are saying Sergeant Major Salter. Yeah, he has a son, that's his son. And so my father's name is Tony. He has several cousins named Tony. He had a few uncles named Tony. My mother sister's son was named Tony. And she had a few cousins named Tony.

And my father wanted another Tony.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: My mother said, no more Tony's. And so my father had a buddy in basic training and so I guess he figured out, okay, I need a different name then, I can't name my son Tony. And so he named me, and so here's an African American man who was drafted in the military and went to basic and AIT.

And so my name comes from my father's recollection of a soldier. He went to AIT and or basic with, I never got to meet the soldier. And it was really born out of my mother wanted no more Tony's.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: And it's been cool to be a military brat and then they go into the military and have that name.

And so it's a Russian Jewish name, and I tell people, I'm not Russian Jewish, I'm African American.

>> H.R. McMaster: I can't think of anybody better to have had this discussion with, thank you so much.

>> Dr. Krewasky Salter: Okay, thank you, sir, take care.

>> Jenn Henry: Battlegrounds is a production of the Hoover institution where we advance ideas that define a free society.

For more information about our work, to hear more of our podcasts or view our video content, please visit hoover.org.