Washoe County Library System

"In the late 1950s, as the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. was at last gaining ground, 16 soldiers sat confined in basement cells on death row in the army's Fort Leavenworth maximum security prison in Kansas. Exactly eight were white and eight were black. All of the white soldiers were commuted. Not only were their lives spared, but they all were eventually released and returned to their families. They benefited from powerful Washington powerbrokers,...

Drawing on newly uncovered military records and original interviews with surviving members of the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion—a unit of African-American soldiers that has been overlooked by history—and their families, the author tells the story of these heroic men charged with manning armed balloons meant to deter enemy aircraft on D-Day.

In May of 1942, at the age of eighteen, Ashley Bryan was drafted to fight in World War II. For the next three years, he would face the horrors of war as a black soldier in a segregated army. He endured the terrible lies white officers told about the black soldiers to isolate them from anyone who showed kindness—including each other. He received worse treatment than even Nazi POWs. He was assigned the grimmest, most horrific tasks, like burying fallen...

Explains the events leading up to the formation of the Massachusetts 54th, a regiment of free blacks, and its participation in the Civil War. Sidebars include quotations from leaders of the time and facts about African American soldiers.

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.

Describes the Civil War battle of Morris Island, South Carolina, during which Sargeant William H. Carney became the first African American to earn a Congressional Medal of Honor by preserving the flag. In July 1863, a significantbattle in the Civil War was fought. Sergeant William H. Carney, an officer of the newly formed Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Regiment - comprised entirely of African Americans - led his soldiers over the ramparts of Fort Wagner,...

A fictionalized account of a real-life, 19th century black soldier who fought against the Indians in New Mexico. He is Moses Williams, an ex-slave serving as sergeant in the Ninth Cavalry, and facing him is the great Apache warrior, Nana.

Here is the riveting dual biography of two little-known but extraordinary men in Civil War historyGeorge E. Stephens and James Henry Gooding. These Union soldiers not only served in the Massachusetts 54th Infantry, the well-known black regiment, but were also war correspondents who published eyewitness reports of the battlefields. Their dispatches told the truth of their lives at camp, their intense training, and the dangers and tragedies on the battlefield....

"When the United States entered World War II, it had to face its own contradictions at home. Opportunities opened up for Black people and women in support of the war effort. But ideas about race and gender didn't change as swiftly. Read the story of the first all-Black battalion in the Women's Army Corps-the Six Triple Eight-and its leader, Major Charity Adams. These women bravely confronted the racism and sexism they experienced. And they did it...