During Black History Month, we do more than celebrate Black history; we reflect on the individuals who laid the groundwork for generations of African Americans to succeed across the nation.
One of those many individuals who laid that foundation is a man by the name of Sgt. William Henry Johnson.
I still remember how I first learned about Johnson through a video game I played called “Battlefield One”. In the opening mission, you play as a member of the 369th Infantry Regiment, a unit nicknamed “The Harlem Hellfighters,” which was an all-black unit attached to the U.S. Army.
As an African American, I was compelled to learn more about the unit and its members, a search that led me to Johnson and his remarkable achievements.
Johnson and his comrades in the 369th Infantry Regiment wanted to engage in combat operations. The Army instead assigned his unit to manual labor duties such as digging latrines and unloading cargo, as African Americans weren’t seen as “reliable” for the battlefield. Johnson and the 369th would get a chance to prove their own government wrong, however, when they were assigned to fight under French command in the Argonne Forest.
On the night of May 15, 1918, Johnson and his comrade, Pvt. Needham Roberts, were on patrol near a bridge when they heard Germans approaching them and entered into a skirmish, which wounded Roberts. Johnson eventually ran out of ammo, resorting to fighting the Germans in hand-to-hand combat. He eventually broke the Germans’ resolve and forced them to retreat after sustaining 21 wounds, killing four Germans and wounding between 10 and 20 others. This tremendous feat saved the lives of Roberts and many of his French allies.
“There wasn’t anything so fine about it. Just fought for my life. A rabbit would have done that,” Johnson said, following the war.
Despite Johnson’s humility, the story reveals a darker truth that has gone largely untold.
The U.S. government at the time refused to recognize him or his unit for their efforts. The Army also denied Johnson a disability allowance, preventing him from finding work to support himself, ultimately leading to his death from myocarditis or heart failure in 1929 at the age of 32.
In 2015, the first African American president, Barack Obama, posthumously awarded Johnson the Medal of Honor, more than 80 years after his death.
Nearly a century later, the story reads as a cautionary tale: As a society, we often diminish people’s achievements based solely on how they look, what they believe or where they come from.
Being able to highlight this story of bravery and betrayal is ultimately what I think Black History Month is about: remembering how hard African Americans have fought for the freedoms they have today, and acknowledging what it takes to maintain those freedoms.
