Spanish Peaks Library District

What did it take to be a paratrooper in World War II? Specialized training, extreme physical fitness, courage, and -- until the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion was formed - white skin. In 1943, Americans were fighting World War II to keep the world safe from tyranny, yet at home, white people had rights that black people did not. What is courage? Perhaps it is being ready to fight for your nation even when your nation won't fight for you.

"From bestselling author Max Brooks, the riveting story of the highly decorated, barrier-breaking, historic black regiment--the Harlem Hellfighters. The Harlem Hellfighters is a fictionalized account of the 369th Infantry Regiment--the first African American regiment mustered to fight in World War I. From the enlistment lines in Harlem to the training camp at Spartanburg, South Carolina, to the trenches in France, bestselling author Max Brooks tells...

"A detailed and gripping account of the 1917 Camp Logan riots, which left eleven civilians, five policemen, and four soldiers dead and created conditions that sparked a nationwide surge of wartime racial activism. The resulting trial was considered the trial of the century at the time, and resulted in the hanging of thirteen black soldiers"--

Five major historians return to the battlefield to explain the South's defeat. Provocatively argued and engagingly written, this work rejects the notion that the Union victory was inevitable and shows the importance of the commanders, strategies, and victories at key moments.

"The dramatic story of W. E. B. Du Bois's reckoning with the betrayal of Black soldiers during World War I-and a new understanding of one of the great twentieth-century writers"--

"A regiment of African American soldiers from Harlem journeys across the Atlantic to fight alongside the French in World War I, inspiring a continent with their brand of jazz music"--

Presentation of the little-known story of the American Revolution told from the perspectives of the African-American slaves who fought on the side of the British Royal Army in exchange for a promise of freedom.

A runaway slave during the Civil War, Hope's father returns after the Emancipation Proclamation as a member of the U.S. Colored Troops.

Revealing the estimate by historians to be that about one quarter of American cowboys were actually black, Latino, Native American or women, a collection of biographical portraits reveals the true stories of famous sharpshooters and rodeo stars.