African American Poetry: A Digital Anthology

Note to Chester J Westfield The Experiences of Company L 1919

As is well-known, the U.S. Army was segregated during World War I. In 1917 and 1918, thousands of African American soldiers volunteered to serve, many of them drawn in by the NAACP's campaign to encourage African American participation in the war effort. The NAACP leadership, however, was disappointed when it was revealed that most African American regiments would only serve in a service capacity, and very few Black regiments would see active combat. Moreover, such regiments were generally not commanded by American officers, again, due to the deep prejudice felt by white American soldiers for their Black peers. (African American regiments were, instead, assigned to French command!)

The poems in this collection were written by Sergeant Chester Julius Westfield, of the 368th Infantry, perhaps the only published African American poet to see active combat during World War I. His brief collection describe his deployment, transit by train and then on foot within France towards the front. He describes his regiment's brief encounter with enemy fire, followed by a period of rest, and then a planned return to combat. 

The poems by and large do not foreground race, though the identity of the 368th infantry as a "Black Buffalo division" is indicated on the title page of the book. The racial identity of the soldiers the author encounters at the front is also briefly mentioned a couple of instances in the book, as for instance: "On our right were white Americans, / And on our left the suave French." The poems do not strike a note of protest or anger, and Westfield's version of his war experience looks very different from the one described by W.E.B. Du Bois in the pages of The Crisis. 

The narrative of the war described in the poems in this collection can be affirmed via historical accounts of World War I. Historians confirm that the 368th was deployed to France in the summer of 1918, and according to Charles H. Williams, put under French command. They were sent to the front during the Meus-Argonne Offensive, and had a brief involvement in active combat through late September and October of 1918. On November 11, 1918, the Armistice was declared and fighting stopped.

Charles H. Williams, in a 1923 book on African American soldiers in the War, describes the deployment of the 368h Infantry as follows:

On September 23 the 368th Infantry was assigned to the 38th French Army Corps, commanded by General Durand. It was given a position on the right bank of the Aisne, north of Vienne-Le-Chateau and La Harozee and 500 meters west of Binarville. The Second Battalion of the regiment, which was in the front line, on September 26 " reconnoitered the enemy trench position opposite it and progressed at a slow pace, because of the abundance of wire, until the right half had made an advance of three kilometers, where it met with strong opposition of machine-gun nests." The Third Battalion, according to plan, supported the advance of the second. On September 27 both were ordered to attack, the objective being the Trench du Dromadaire. The Second Battalion progressed two kilometers against machine-gun fire and the third reached the enemy trench line. On September 28 the objective of the two battalions remained unchanged.


This narrative matches roughly the poems in Chester Westfield's collection describing the Meuse-Argonne offensive and the brief engagement with enemy fire. The active battle that is described is followed by a lull, with a planned return to battle during the final phase of the offensive cut short by the Armistice.

For more, see Sidelights on Negro soldiers, by Charles H. Williams, with an introduction by Benjamin Brawley (1923).

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