What the Data Say: Fighting to Save This Nation

By Wornie Reed Ph.D.

Franklin County residents and the local branch of the NAACP unveiled a monument last January to 70 black men from the County who served in the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War. Franklin County has long celebrated its links to the Confederacy and as the homeplace of a Confederate General. But this year, residents remembered a different connection to the Civil War, as a community movement called Raising the Shade unveiled a statue honoring black men from Franklin County who fought for the Union.

There was much attention to this project, a lot of it because many histories omit the role of blacks in the wars of this country. As the Raising the Shade Project states, “Often overlooked is the story of the United States Colored Troops and the role of [blacks] in securing the freedom of enslaved people, as well as promoting equality, opportunity and justice for all Americans.”

When the role of blacks in the Civil War is depicted, the usual approach is to distort the context. The movie Glory, starring Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Matthew Broderick, and Andre Braugher, and winning three Oscars, is guilty of this practice.

Through the years since the movie Glory was released in 1989, I have often asked people who have seen it, “Who were these men? Where did they come from? Invariably, the answers are essentially the same—escaped slaves, because that is the perception the movie falsely presents.

While a few of these men in the famed 54th Regiment depicted in the movie were escaped slaves, most were not. Mostly, they were free blacks from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Over 75 percent were born in free states.

Fathers and sons (some as young as 16) enlisted together. Most of the men were literate. Many left their wives and families at home. Yet the movie Glory told a story of men with nothing to lose.

The most famous enlistees were Charles and Lewis Douglass, two sons of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. One became a sergeant major, the highest rank available to blacks.

William H. Carney, a former slave from Norfolk, was the soldier who famously refused to let the flag touch the ground as they stormed Fort Wagner, though suffering three wounds. For his heroism in the war, he was the first of 21 Black recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Carney became a Sergeant.

James Trotter (from Ohio) was one of the leaders of the protest over the unequal pay of the black soldiers. After the war, he was appointed Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia by President Grover Cleveland.

Trotter was the father of William Monroe Trotter, who graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard, BA in 1895 and MA in 1896. William, an uncompromising civil rights advocate, was the founding publisher of the Boston Guardian newspaper

Significantly, the Denzel Washington character, Trip, was a conflation of William Carney and James Trotter. Both men survived the war. Yet in the movie, Trip dies! Exemplifying an expression in the black community that “Black heroes don’t live.”

As white men grew reluctant to join the northern army, the number of US Colored Troops increased throughout the Civil War, helping deliver Union victory. Nearly 200,000 black men serving in the United States Colored Troops provided crucial manpower that helped the Union win the Civil War.

So what? What does it matter that we have these differences from the facts?

First, it denies the role of blacks in winning the Civil War. And most importantly, it minimizes the contributions of these fighting men. If they were escaped slaves with no families, they had little to lose. However, the truth is that many had families, which meant that the sacrifices were great.

Second, it tells lies that deny the role of blacks in the making of America. People who do not know this fact tend to think that African Americans have no strong claim to all the rights and privileges held by other Americans.

“Would America have been America without her Negro people,” asked DuBois. He answered his own question by saying, “We have woven ourselves into the very warp and woof of this nation.”

The movie Glory tends to minimize that contribution while ostensibly trying to show it.