b'BODY OF CHRIST NEWS MAGAZINECover Page Continued from page 4weredisproportionatelyassaulted,drivenfromtheir homes, and in the most extreme cases, lynched in public.Targeting Black Veterans traces this trend in coolly objectiveprose,occasionallydetailingshocking examples. At Bardstown in Nelson County, Kentucky, a mob brutally lynched a United States Colored Troops veteran, we learned. The mob stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and then cut off his sexual organ. Hewasthenforcedtorunhalfamiletoabridge outsideoftown,wherehewasshotandkilled.When the First World War broke out, black thinkers and writers debated the merits of signing up to fight for a country that functionally denied them full citizenship. Three hundred and eighty thousand black men heeded W.E.B. DuBoiss call to enlist in the segregated Army, many of them hoping that doing so would increase the standing of blacks on the home front. But for much of whiteAmerica,front-linemilitaryservicebyblacks Advertise with Us undercut the claims of racial superiority around which their lives and economies were structured. In a speech on the Senate floor in 1917, Mississippi Senator James K. Vardaman warned that the return of black veterans to BOCNEWS.COM the South would inevitably lead to disaster. Once you impress the negro with the fact that he is defending the flag and inflate his untutored soul with military airs, Vardaman cautioned, it was a short step to the conclusion that his political rights must be respected.AftertheArmistice,blackveteransreturninghome were greeted not with recognition of their civil rights but, instead, with an intense wave of discrimination and hostility. Whites speculated that, while stationed inEurope,blacksoldiershadenjoyedwartime liaisonswithwhiteFrenchwomen,increasingtheir lustwhich,inthewhiteimagination,wasalready dangerously high for sex with white American women.Manyblackveteransweredeniedthebenefitsand disabilitypaytheywerepromised.Manymoresoon realized that the G.I. Bill was constructed in such a way that most of its benefits including mortgage support, college 1.ANTHONY BROWN - AFFIRMATIONS 6.GOTTA HAVE GOSPEL - CLASSIC-VARIOUS tuition, and business loans could be denied to them. 2.KIRK FRANKLIN - FATHERS DAY 7.TASHA COBB LEONARD - HYMNS3.ERICA CAMPBELL - I LOVE YOU 8.CECE WINANS - BELIEVE FOR IT4.JEKALYN CARR - JEKALYN 9.BRENT JONES - NOTHING ELSE MATTERS In the first summer after the war, known as the Red 5.VASHAWN MITCHELL - CHAPTER X 10. ONATHAN MCREYNOLDS Summer,anti-blackriotseruptedinmorethan twenty American cities. In the years after the war, at least thirteen black veterans were lynched. Countless moresurvivedbeatings,shootings,andwhippings. 5 BOCNEWS.COM'