The Segregated Black Gold Star Women First World War Pilgrimage

On May 29, 1930, the U.S. Department of War — which had invited the families of veterans killed during World War I to visit their graves in Europe — denied a petition by Black mothers and spouses to travel on the same ship as white families and instead forced them to travel on segregated boats.

According to the Encyclopedia of New York State 367,864 New Yorkers served in the armed forces during the First World War. The National Archives notes that more than 350,000 African Americans served in the war.

During the war African American men mobilized in segregated units under the command of white officers. Among New York’s military regiments was the 369th US Infantry, also known as the Harlem Hellfighters, part of one of the two African American Divisions –  the 92nd and 93rd (there were other units of course, some integrated).

The 369th gathered black soldiers from across New York State. Henry Johnson of Albany earned America’s first Croix de Guerre for service in combat in France. The regiment’s band, under director James Reese Europe, was among the first to play live jazz in Europe.

About 14,000 New Yorkers were killed in the war, among them hundreds of African Americans. About 1,268 Black soldiers were buried in American cemeteries in Europe.

At home, the migration of African Americans to northern urban areas brought increasing numbers to New York State cities. More moved to Harlem than anywhere else, and by the end of the war Harlem had emerged as the unofficial capital of black America.

Gold Star Widows and Mothers

After years of planning, 25 mothers who lost their sons in combat during World War One met in Washington, DC on June 4, 1928, to establish American Gold Star Mothers. Membership was limited to white women.

Among their first projects was lobbing for a federally sponsored pilgrimage to Europe for mothers with sons buried overseas. Although many of the women who belonged to the organization had visited their sons’ graves, they realized that women often could not afford the trip to Europe.

In 1929 Congress enacted legislation that authorized the secretary of war to arrange for pilgrimages to the European cemeteries “by mothers and widows of members of military and naval forces of the United States who died in the service at any time between April 5, 1917, and July 1, 1921, and whose remains are now interred in such cemeteries.”

The Office of the Quartermaster General determined that 17,389 women were eligible.

It was arranged that African American women who made the pilgrimage would be segregated from the white women. White women would travel on luxury liners, while African American women traveled in commercial steamers.

The War Department and quartermaster general received letters of complaint, although the original letters have not survived.

With the support of the NAACP, which was founded in New York City in 1909, a group of 55 Black mothers and widows from 21 different states petitioned President Herbert Hoover, asking him to allow all of the grieving women to travel together with the white women.

“When the call to arms came from our government in 1917,” they wrote, “mothers, sisters and wives, regardless of race, color or creed, were asked to give their loved ones to the end that the world might be saved for democracy. This call we answered freely and willingly. In the years which have passed since death took our loved ones our anguish and sorrow have been assuaged by the realization that our loved ones who rest in the soil of France gave their lives to the end that the world might be a better place in which to live for all men, of all races and all colors.”

“Twelve years after the Armistice, the high principles of 1918 seem to have been forgotten. We who gave and who are colored are insulted by the implication that we are not fit persons to travel with other bereaved ones. Instead of making up parties of Gold Star Mothers on the basis of geographical location we are set aside in a separate group, Jim Crowed, separated and insulted.”

The petition was referred from President Hoover to the War Department, which ultimately declined the Black families’ request on May 29, 1930.

By July 7, 1930, at least seven African American women are known to have declined to take the pilgrimage because of the segregation.

To learn more about the culture of targeted physical violence and social humiliation that Black veterans and their families were subjected to, read the Equal Justice Initiative’s report Lynching in America: Targeting Black Veterans.

Photos, from above: Black Gold Star women on a pilgrimage to visit the graves of World War One Black soldiers in Europe; and woman visits a soldier’s grave at Suresnes American Cemetery, west of Paris.