>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
>> Teresa Sierra: Hi everybody.
Thank you for coming.
My name is Terry Sierra.
I'm the Chief of the Serial and Government Publications Divisions,
which is our sponsoring division for this program today.
We have with us local historians, W. Douglas and Fisher
and Joann H. Buckley, who will be discussing their book
"African American Doctors of World War I:
The Lives of a 104 Volunteers."
I bought, can you all hear me okay?
Yeah. Okay.
All right.
I thought I would tell you a little bit about how this came about,
this program came about, and here's the story.
I hope you find it interesting because programs at the Library
of Congress start differently, come from different places.
But in this case, it started when we received comments
on the National Digital Newspaper program contact page
from some fellow.
And he said, and I'm going to read what he said.
"My co-author, Joann H. Buckley and I spent hours at LOC
and online working with ProQuest and other digital newspaper archives
to develop these biographies, and we are most grateful for them.
Without them we would not have been able to complete our work."
So, that got our attention.
We had to know what was this book and who wrote this book?
So, at the same time that this came to our attention,
one of our librarians, Arlene Balkowski, was, had the assignment
of pulling and getting things together
for her World War I exhibit.
Which if you haven't seen it, I recommend it highly.
It's in the Jefferson Building; it's fantastic.
So, she was in the process of doing that and it seemed
like a natural thing to hand her this information.
Well, Arlene ran with it and within two months she had,
she was in touch with our authors.
She had it all set up.
So basically, it took us over a year to get
to this point, but here we are.
So, anyway I thought you might want to know about that.
I also wanted to tell you that one of the things that has touched me
about knowing about these folks and their book is
that they were both inspired by their grandparents.
Both grandfathers served during the war and Joann's grandmother,
whose picture is over there, was a nurse in New York tending
to the wounded as they came back.
I was touched by that.
And before I turn over the program to them, there are a couple
of people that I need to acknowledge who are with us today,
and we're very thrilled to have them.
They're over there in that corner.
We have Dr., I don't if you're a doctor, but Urbane Bass' grandson.
>> Urbane Bass Grandson: Yes.
>> Teresa Sierra: Okay.
And Dr. Richard Sterling grandson as well.
And we're very pleased that you could make the trip.
>> Thank you so much.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you so much.
>> Teresa Sierra: So, one more thing, and I'll move on.
Joann and Doug brought a number of artifacts that are part
of their collections that are on display.
So, after our program, after their presentation, please,
you can take a couple of minutes to go and look,
ask questions and so forth.
They will also be around to sign books.
I see that they are being sold in the back if you didn't have them.
But you may have it already.
So, without any more delays here, I give to you,
Douglas Fisher and Joann H. Buckley.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Okay.
>> Joann H. Buckley: Thank you.
Terry hold on a minute.
I'm giving back to Terry.
We're giving back to the Library of Congress.
We did a tremen-- , we were doing research and writing for five years.
And we spent a lot of time in this building.
And we gathered all of our material and some of the women
in my building sat around my dining room table for a long time
and we reviewed all this material.
And then another one had some connections
with a scanning company and we had it scanned.
And then we had it made searchable with some wonderful little software.
This is 8000 pages of material that we gathered he
at the Library of Congress.
And now it's all digitized on one subject, the World War I,
the African American Doctors, and we're getting it back
to the Library of Congress.
So here you are Terry.
>> Teresa Sierra: Thank you very much.
We're delighted to receive it.
>> Joann H. Buckley: We want some new young writer in on this.
Doug's grandfather, John North Douglas,
commanded the 317th Motor Supply Train of the 92nd Division,
an African American combat unit.
He, Doug was fascinated by his grandfather's letters and diaries,
another book, and began his research on the war.
Jonathan Rucker was a black doctor who take
of the 500 troops in the supply train.
Doug got to know five of Rucker's 10 children,
even setting up a Rucker family reunion in Natchez, Mississippi.
In 2009 I entered Doug's life.
I met his family.
Then I met the Rucker family.
I knew something of World War I.
I'd been a history teacher and two
of my grandparents had been involved in the war.
My grandfather was a sergeant with the 77th Division,
a teamster with the artillery unit.
My grandmother was a nurse at Saint Vincent's in New York,
and she took care of the returning wounded.
She didn't want any of us to go into nursing after that.
Doug wanted to write Rucker's biography.
But it was a good story, but I could not believe
that Rucker was the only doctor.
The Army just doesn't do ones.
So, we went to Fort Des Moines where Rucker trained to find out more.
No one, including the curator at Fort Des Moines Museum,
where the physicians received their basic training knew their names
or even how many of them there were.
We spent months combing through the files here
at National Archives before the eureka moment
and the discovery of the list.
It was in an ancient folder of the U.S. Army Surgeon General's records;
so old that the identification tab had disintegrated.
It as typed by some clerk 100 years ago on many sheets of paper
with columns of information; hometowns, medical schools,
graduation years and ages.
The sheets were then glued together
and the resulting document was four feet long and 18 inches wide.
And then it had been folded in and in,
until it fit into a standard file.
One hundred years ago, the United States was largely a country
of racial segregation, discrimination,
lynching and Jim Crow laws.
These 104 men were among the nations estimated 1500 African
American doctors.
They had succeeded in gaining advanced education and training
at a time when it was problematic
for any African American to achieve such success.
Yet they answered their country's call and left their practices
to provide medical care for the fighting men
of the 92nd and the 93rd Divisions.
Sixty percent of these doctors came
from just three African American medical schools.
The largest contingent were graduates
of two Tennessee medical schools.
Thirty four from Meharry Medical School in Nashville and eight
from the University of West Tennessee in Memphis.
But 16 came from Howard in D.C. Thirteen from Leonard Medical School
at Shaw University in Raleigh, two went to Harvard,
three from the University of Illinois, two from the University
of Michigan, and two from Northwestern Medical School.
Why would they enlist?
They expected times would be different.
After the war, they thought they'd be recognized for their service.
They thought all men of their race would benefit.
But nothing changed after the war.
But some of, many of these men would become the leaders
of their communities and organizations like the NAACP
that would make racial equality possible.
So we had to tell their stories.
We spent the next five years at the Library of Congress,
the National Archives, numerous state
and city historical associations, libraries,
and with a variety of newspaper sources.
We met the children and the grandchildren
of these extraordinary men.
Initially we wrote four historical journals and spoke to small groups.
Then, after a chance meeting with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.,
in the elevator of Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington, well,
actually what happened was we had gone to a wedding the night before.
And we were coming down to go to breakfast.
We got out of the elevator and we saw Henry Louis Gates checking in.
So we stepped over to the side and we waited
until he got in the elevator.
And then we jumped in with him.
And we started talking as fast as we possibly could.
And so, he said, "What is this, a hustle?"
And we said, Doug said, "Absolutely."
So, we told him about the project and so he had us, he said,
I don't have a card, but here, I'll repeat my email address.
I want you to send me one.
And so, we did.
And in the subject line we put, Hay-Adams Hustle.
It was a Sunday we sent it.
Monday, we heard from him.
He hired us to write 15 of them.
So, he wanted shorter ones.
We're still writing for him.
We're still doing shorter biographies
for his African American National biography.
We did this and then the book came next.
And now Doug will talk about the Army in 1917, as we entered the war.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: There's your arrow there for your advancing.
>> Joann H. Buckley: Okay.
This one.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Yes.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Thank you for coming.
Now prior to World War I the U.S. Army was tiny.
I mean, 200,000 people spread around the world and around this country.
And it was totally segregated.
Black officers were virtually non-existent.
Nevertheless, between 1917 and 1919, 400,000 African American men served.
Most of them were in labor and support units.
But 10 thous-- , 10 percent, or 40,000 of these troops served
in the combat units that we've talked about, the 92nd
and the 93rd divisions in France.
The black officers were trained at Fort Des Moines Iowa,
with 639 line officers completing a special officers' training camp,
only done once.
And 104 doctors, who we're writing about,
completed the medical officers' training camp that was there.
Things had been written about the officers' training camp,
but not the medical officers, and we uncovered that.
Training for the doctors was rigorous, with a 10-mile march
and a three-day outdoor encampment.
In this picture that you can see here, this is a picture of the guys
out in their tents at the encampment on the state fairgrounds
and you can see the rollercoaster in the background.
I don't think they were having a lot of fun, though.
These doctors were also given command of the medical detachments
with 10 enlisted men in each of the detachments, saving some leadership.
After the MOTC training, the doctors were assigned to the 92nd
or 93rd Divisions and spread
across eight different U.S. encampments across the country.
Then in 1918, the combat units were sent to France.
The 93rd Division, which consisted of 12,000 soldiers
and four national guard regiments arrived overseas first.
The French wanted American troops to fill its decimated ranks.
So General Pershing gave him the 93rd Division, the four regiments
of that, and the French loved it.
They were terrific.
They fought more time, one of the units there fought longer
than any other American unit in combat.
The 92nd Buffalo Division, consisting of 27,000 men,
arrived in mid-1918 and fought with the American 1st and 2nd armies.
That's the unit that my grandfather served in.
The 104 doctors were assigned to frontline medical detachments,
ambulance companies, and field hospitals, right up front.
They endured combat and suffered aerial and artillery attacks.
Many were wounded from the effects of exploding gas shells.
Gas was a terrible problem in World War I.
One doctor was killed in field.
His grandsons are with us here today.
Interesting, almost as many American soldiers died of disease as died
in combat in World War I.
Army doctors such as ours faced both the enemy
and killer diseases including the horrendous Spanish flu epidemic
of 1918 that killed tens of millions of people worldwide.
Today we're going to share a glimpse of three
of these extraordinary doctors with you and Joann's going
to lead off introducing you
to Dr. Thomas E. Jones, who is from this area.
>> Joann H. Buckley: Dr. Thomas E. Jones served with great distinction
for more than five years in the National Guard
and the Army earning a Distinguished Service Cross,
the highest Army declaration for heroism.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Second highest.
>> Joann H. Buckley: The second highest.
A military expert.
No, he is really.
He also earned the French Croix de Guerre
for his courage under fire in France.
Born in Lynchburg, Virginia, where his father was a merchant,
Jones attended public schools and graduated
from Lynchburg High School in 1896.
He went on to Howard University in Washington, D.C. During college,
Jones worked at different time as a newsboy, waiter,
messenger, laborer, and watchman.
It was hard work, but he was cheerful
and determined, and he succeeded.
He entered Howard University's Medical School in 1908 and graduated
with his MD degree in 1912.
He interned at D.C.'s Freedman Hospital for a year, and then,
was then appointed anesthetist at the hospital;
a position he actually held after the war and through until 1917.
Nineteen 14 he served in the D.C. National Guard as a Lieutenant
in Company C of the 1st Separate Battalion;
an African American component of the National Guard.
Nineteen 17, when America entered the first World War,
Jones volunteered for the Army Medical Reserve Corp
and entered the Medical Officers' Training Camp at Fort Des Moines.
After 60 days of training he was sent to Camp Meade
to join the 368th Infantry Regiment of the 92nd Division.
And he served with them throughout the war.
Lieutenant Jones received his Distinguished Service Cross
and French Croix de Guerre in the Argonne Forest in France.
He was also promoted to Captain
for displaying extraordinary heroism while attending the wounded
in an open area under machine gun fire.
The Army citation says quote, "While dressing a wounded runner,
a machine gun bullet passed between his arms and his chest.
And the man was killed within a few yards of him."
Another account of the incident says that "Under falling shell
and machine gun fire the boys say he walked out and got wounded men
with same coolness that was his when he was putting a patient
to sleep for an operation."
Following the war, Dr. Jones returned to Freedman's Hospital
in Washington, D.C. as resident assistant surgeon.
In 1936, he was promoted to the top job, becoming Surgeon in Chief,
until he retired in 1942, after 27 years of service.
He also taught at Howard University's Medical School.
The Smithsonian has a photograph of Dr. Jones
with Eleanor Roosevelt in its collection.
He was clearly recognized as a leader
in the African American community.
His commitment to his community is remarkable.
He was an active member of at least 10 national
and local benevolent associations.
Militarily he belonged to the League of Valor whose members are medal
of honor winners and recipients
of the Army Distinguished Service Cross.
In 1934, his American Legion Post adopted a resolution deploring
segregation and civil service
and urging the passing of anti-lynch bill.
In 1941, as Surgeon and Chief of Freedman's Hospital,
he represented the medical world in the second selective service drawing
in Washington, D.C. for World War II.
By 1950, at the age of 70, he was semi-retired,
still maintained an office downstairs in his four-story house
that we found in Washington, D.C. It's a handsome townhouse.
He died of a coronary thrombosis 1958, just before his 78th birthday.
He was buried with full medical, military honors
in Arlington National Cemetery, next to his first wife.
Dr. Jones believed that the best interest
of his race would be promoted by acting for the good of the masses,
rather than by the accumulation of property
and by investing financially in local community projects.
He as an extraordinary, patriotic, courageous, well-respected,
and hardworking physician and community leader.
And now Doug with talk about another of our doctors.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Thanks Joann.
Our next distinguished MOTC graduate is a Dr. William Holmes,
also known as Billy Dyer.
He's featured in a book by Clif Cleaveland entitled "Healers
and Heroes", published back in 2004 by the American College
of Physicians in Philadelphia.
You can see the picture there.
The arrow's pointing to him.
It's one of the six that they featured there.
He was also the subject of a 1992 book by an author, William Maxwell,
entitled "Billy Dyer and Other Stories."
Billy was a personal friend of William Maxwell's.
Uh, Dr. Dyer also served in the Buffalo Division along
with my grandfather, Captain Douglas.
Dyer's written accounts and descriptions which we found
in Schomburg, up in New York in the library up there, his descriptions
of France helped us paint really vivid mental images
of what they experienced.
His hometown of Lincoln, Illinois halfway
between St. Louis and Chicago.
After graduation from Lincoln College and the University
of Illinois Medical School in 1916, he interned in Kansas City.
Internships were very dear, very hard to find
for black physicians in those years.
After Dyer volunteered for Army service he received orders
to proceed to Fort Des Moines.
When he left Lincoln, 300 people saw him off
at the train station; amazing.
His diary recorded his disappointment with his quarters
when he reached the fort at Fort Des Moines, which he described
as a cold room in a stable.
A lot of people weren't very happy with that.
[ Audio cuts off ]
And harrowing war-time experience clearly shows
that in combat he gained an appreciation
for the value of the drills.
After completely his training, he was assigned to,
as the Medical Officer to the 92nd Division's 317th Ammunition Train.
He was assigned to Camp Funston, Kansas out in the Midwest.
In route from Hoboken, New Jersey, New York basically to Brest France,
Lieutenant Dyer's assignment at sea was
to give physical examinations to 600 men.
He said the only excitement during the voyage was on June 21, 1918,
when shots were fired from all the surrounding ships at what proved
to be a floating beer keg.
Dyer wrote that once in France, the 317th was marked to a barracks
that had been a prison camp during the time of Napoleon.
He said it was a terrible and dirty old place.
In a letter home, my grandfather described these same barracks
as being badly crowded with no beds or cots and wrote
that they were supplied with French beds, which consisted
of three one inch by 12 inch planks, pine planks, fastened together
with two cleats at the bottom to keep them
from lying flat on the floor.
There was no straw and they were very uncomfortable.
It was called a rest camp, where troops regained their land legs
and rest after the three-week ocean voyage.
My grandfather wrote that the term rest was a gross misnomer, saying,
"I defy anyone to rest there."
The officers were assigned to small room downstairs.
It was damp, musty, and smelled of urine and fecal matter.
There was a stone floor and there were no lights available,
but they had a few candles.
It was summer and the weather was drizzly and disagreeable.
The flies were thick and ravenous and the windows were not screened.
My grandfather's letter reported, "The men were touchy
for want of sleep and food.
They were not fed from early morning until late in the afternoon.
He said, finally, got a few bedding rolls.
Mine is missing.
Got four used blankets from a guardhouse.
They smelled awful.
The atmosphere seems thoroughly saturated with a fecal odor.
Fortunately, after several days they boarded trains going eastward
to the division's training area Bourbonne-les-Baines.
Then at the end of August, they were on the move again to the front.
Dyer recalled the convoy drove without lights
and they kept passing broken down Army vehicles and infantry men,
who because of fatigue, had fallen out of line to rest.
They always traveled at night.
The convoy destination was Raon-l'Etape
in the eastern Vosges mountains, which was described
as a desperate place full of graves, where Dyer said he gave
up counting the houses with the roofs gone.
After nearly a month in the mountains,
they moved up to the Argonne Forest.
Dyer wrote quote, "No accommodations here.
Not even water to drink or cook with.
Mud everywhere over shoe tops.
While camped in this wet filthy woods, many of our boys became ill
from the dampness, cold, and exposure,
thereby causing me much work and worry caring for them.
On September 25, at the outset of the great Meuse-Argonne Campaign,
the 47-day campaign where more lives were lost than ever before
in any battle of American troops.
Dyer said quote, "The old woods trembled as if by earthquake.
The flashes of the cannon lighted up the inside of our tents
and our ears were deafened.
At the hospital, Dyer saw a steady stream
of ambulances bring wounded soldiers.
The dead were also being brought back on trucks piled
like cord wood and dripping blood."
In early October, the 92nd Division was transferred
to the AEF's second Army and Dyer was sent southeast,
through a wasteland, which he described, which he said, in which,
even the grass was burned.
And they were sent to the village of Belleville on the Moselle River.
He set up an infirmary in a small electrical plant there.
Because of the constant cold and rainy weather,
there was a great deal of sickness among the African American troops.
The division's artillery had been in training in the south
of France, separated, since July.
And Dyer wrote that, "Major Howard, my commanding officer
from whom I'd been separated about four months, called to see me
and complimented me on my good work."
He was very pleased with that.
All through October and early November the 317th Ammunition Train
labored on.
Everyone was hearing much talk of peace
and preparing for the final drawing.
The 92nd was part of a large attack on the city of Metz,
the German stronghold throughout the war.
The attack began in earnest on November 9, 1918.
And in it the division suffered many casualties.
The fighting, the war, essentially ended two days later
with the November 11 armistice on the 11th hour
of the 11th day of the 11th month.
Lieutenant Dyer wrote a month later, in December 1918,
he was awakened by an orderly.
In a heavy fog, a passenger train had plowed into a troop train full
of happy French soldiers returning home from the front.
The bodies of the dead and dying were pinned under the wreckage.
"He spent the night", he said, "Dressing wounds and putting splints
on broken arms and broken legs."
Just three days later, on December 18th, the 317th began
to leave Belleville on foot.
Six days later, after traveling on foot, by truck, and train,
they finally reached the village of [Inaudible] in Normandy in the rain
and the snow on Christmas Eve, where even the people
of [Inaudible] took them in.
Finally, two months later on the morning of February 22, 1919,
the 317th marched to Brest Harbor where they were ferried
out to the ship Aquitania, for the trip home.
Dyer said his cabin had quote, "Mahogany fittings and private bath,
taps for fresh and salt water and soap.
A far cry from anything he'd experienced
or encountered during his time in France.
Then after the war, he established his medical practice in Kansas city.
In addition to his private medical practice, he served as a surgeon
for the Santa Fe railroad, an enormous enterprise at the time.
He was invited to join the American Association
of Railway Surgeons in 1946.
And in 1947 he was the lone legal member present among 400 surgeons
who attended the 58th annual convention
at the Palmer House in Chicago.
He was quoted as saying, "I was quite interested in the types
of operations for mangled hands and feet.
For quite frequently, we railroad physicians have to care for victims
of railroad [inaudible] and wrecks."
He was also the surgeon for the Kansas City,
Kansas Police Department.
A 1947 news article said he served
as the lone police surgeon there for many years.
He was honored in 1953 by his home city of Lincoln,
Illinois at its Centennial celebration as one
of its 10 most distinguished men and the only negro.
In January 1956, at 70 years old, he wrote from Kansas City
to an old friend in California saying, "In the last four months,
I've been put on the staffs of three of the major hospitals in our city.
I thought at first it was an honor, but with the increase in activities
that such appointments entailed, my work has increased twofold."
Since it was the first time that one of my race had such appointments,
I'd been working diligently to make good,
thereby keeping those doors open.
At age 70, he was still a surgeon for the Santa Fe Railroad
and the Kansas City Police Department.
He died in 1958, at age 71, and was buried
in a mixed-race cemetery in Lincoln, Illinois.
And now Joann will talk to you about Dr. Bass.
>> Joann H. Buckley: Dr. Urbane Bass was the only one
of the 104 African American doctors of the 92nd
and 93rd Divisions killed in action in France.
About five years ago Doug and I climbed into the choir loft
at the Fredericksburg Shiloh Baptist Church to get pictures
of this extraordinary stained glass window that was installed
by the congregation in his memory.
Bass was born in Richmond, Virginia to Rosa and Richard J. Bass.
His father was a salesman, shoes and clothing
in the 1880's, insurance in the 1900's.
His mother stayed home with the six children.
The family live in Richmond on East Duval Street.
Urbane worked as a clerk while in school.
He graduated from Virginia Union University in Richmond in 1902
and then went on to Leonard Medical School
of Shaw University in Raleigh in 1906.
After graduating from Leonard, he married Maude Vass,
the sister of his medical school classmate, Rufus Vass.
And then he opened a medical practice and pharmacy
on Williams Street, in Richmond, Virginia.
By 1909 he'd moved his practice
and his pharmacy north to Fredericksburg.
He was the city's first African American physician
since reconstruction.
The practice located on Amelia Street was well received
by the African American community,
in spite of the local hospital's denial of privileges to Bass.
By 1916 his practice and his family were growing.
In 1917, this father of four wrote to Secretary of War,
Newton Baker, offering his services.
One of Bass' friends, J.B. Morris told his family,
Dr. Bass was dedicated to serving his country
in a time of critical need.
He knew or men were going to die in France and told me
that he would give his life to save them, if he had to.
I could see the sincerity in his eyes, Baker said,
I mean, excuse me, Morris said.
"He was committed to the end."
Bass received his commission as First Lieutenant
in the Medical Reserve Corp and was 37 years old when he reported
to duty at Fort Des Moines on August 14, 1917.
After basic medical officer training at Fort Des Moines he
and Rufus Vass were sent to Camp Funston, Kansas.
Bass went to France with the 372nd infantry regiment
of the 93rd Division, which was immediately turned
over to the French and sent to the front lines.
On October 17, 1918, he was frantically working
on wounded soldiers at a forward aid station under heavy German fire.
He was hit with shrapnel when a shell exploded near him.
Both of his legs were severed.
While he was dying, he actually continued to direct medics
on how to treat his wounds.
He died before he could be taken from the field.
Bass was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross posthumously.
And that citation reads, "For extraordinary heroism
in action near Mont Blanc, France on October 1 through 5, 1918."
"Lieutenant Bass", it said, "Administered first aid in the open
and under prolonged and intense shell fire,
until he was severely wounded and carried from the field", unquote.
It was the policy then that if someone died
in the field they were buried,
until they could be returned to the United States.
So, he died in 1918.
He was not returned for reburial until July of 1921.
He became the first African American commissioned officer to be buried
in Fredericksburg National Cemetery.
He lies in Officers' Row near the entrance to the cemetery.
The Social Services building
in Fredericksburg is named the Bass-Ellison building
in honoring him and Richard C. Ellison,
another African American doctor who served the community.
And back to the Shiloh Baptist Church, you really have to go
to Fredericksburg and see this to believe it.
But you can see the, from the inscription there
that the community was very much in his debt and very distraught
about losing him at the, during the war.
Dr. Bass had a love worthy of envy when he married Maude Vass.
The couple had four children, three daughters, Ann, Frances-May,
and Ruth and one sign, son, Urbane F. Bass.
After his death, Maude was a widow at age 32.
She had quite a difficult time accepting his death.
In 1922 she was staying with a family Washington,
D.C. when she was taken to a Washington asylum
because of her violent, nervous state.
A few weeks earlier she had attempted suicide
by jumping from a two-story window.
It was her father, the Reverend Samuel N. Vass,
who had her committed for care for several months.
Early in 1923 she and four children moved back to her hometown
of Raleigh, North Carolina.
There she raised her family and taught music to the blind
for 30 years at North Carolina State School for the Blind.
Maude and her Vass family saw
that all four children were well-educated for productive lives.
Daughter Frances Mae Bass graduated from Shaw University.
She completed some graduate work at Columbia University and then worked
for the Durham City School System for nearly 30 years.
She married Charles Clinton Spalding of Durham, General Counsel
of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company.
Ruth graduated from Shaw University and obtained a master's degree
from the University of Michigan.
She taught at Mary Ellen Teacher's College in Crockett,
Texas before marrying Moses Newsome [ph].
The couple then moved to Charleston,
West Virginia where the reverend was the pastor
of the First Baptist Church.
Ann married Richard Sterling and moved to Washington,
D.C. Urbane Bass, Jr. followed
in his father's footsteps and became a physician.
And we are honored that we have two
of the Bass grandchildren with us today.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Now in closing,
let me say we've enjoyed sharing with you a glimpse of the lives
of these three really extraordinary doctors.
Now doctors Jones, Dyer, and Bass were only three
of the 104 African American doctors who answered their country's call.
Excuse me.
But all of the 104 doctors endured as black in a Jim Crow world
and what they accomplished despite society's racial divide is
truly remarkable.
If you live to see the Civil Rights legislation
of the mid 1960's enacted, but their efforts
and accomplishments definitely helped pave the way for it.
The 18 months that these doctors spent serving in the Army
between 1917 and 1919, provided them with new medical skills
and life experiences well beyond what they'd learned
in their medical school lessons.
Their new organization
and leadership skills were unique for most physicians.
Most were able to use these skills and continue to serve our nation
in their African American communities for decades.
The story of these patriotic men
in World War I was lost history for 100 years.
We're just delighted and pleased we rediscovered it so it can be shared
with you and future scholars a century later.
Thank you very much for you time and attention.
We'd be glad to answer questions
and we have some things there you can look at.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>>Questions.
>> Yeah, I just want to thank you both so much.
And yeah, if you want to ask questions, the one thing we ask is
that you have to repeat the questions right?
You have to repeat the question so it will be on the webcast.
And thank you so much Joann and Doug for your presentation.
It was so eye-opening and I just think it was terrific
and I hope people have more questions.
Thank you.
>> By the time of World War II the Army was still segregated.
Did they have separate training camps
for the doctors during World War II?
Had they learned from the World War I experience?
>> W. Douglas Fisher: They did not have a special training camp.
This was the only one in history was this one
at Fort Des Moines in the First World War.
There were reserve units that had been developed.
And so you still had National Guard units and reserve units.
You had people slightly better prepared for the Second World War
than we were for the First, but not terribly well.
Yeah.
>> I was just wondering as I was listening to you,
and looking at all those pictures,
how did they get medications out to the field?
Did they have a way to, did they carry it with them?
>> W. Douglas Fisher: The question was how did they get medications
and things to the field?
And actually, they med-, they had a medical unit.
The called it a Sanitary Train.
There was 317th Sanitary Train and that was all of the medics,
the doctors, and it included people that were doing logistics.
And so my grandfather's supply train, for example,
would be carrying medicines and things to the front.
The difficulty was that the Germans by this time had decent aviation
and they also had artillery in place and it was a static front.
So people, it was very hard to move things around during the daytime.
So it all had to be done in the dark at night with blackouts.
I mean, it's hard to imagine, I mean, thank goodness the moon came
out a few times to help them get these things done.
But they would move things up to a forward aid station
and take the bandages, the basic bandages, so on.
And then they would come back to an ambulance company
where there would be more logistics.
And then they would come back to a field hospital where,
where they would be, and then they would be triaged
and to base hospitals which were even further back
if they were not able to recover there.
But it's the logistics and the organization
that it takes to run an Army.
I mean the division had 28,000 men.
That's a lot of people.
It took days to move them.
It took lots of trucks, lots of trains,
and lots of people walking long distances just to move them
from one location to the next.
If you look at the, there's one map over here that shows the disposition
of these forces at the end of the war in December.
And you can im-- , I mean, it's just miles.
It's miles in this direction, miles in that direction
to get 28,000 people disbursed and organizationally.
They learned a lot about organization and how
to organize hospitals in the process.
Yes.
>> Were the base hospitals also segregated?
>> W. Douglas Fisher: I don't believe so.
I think, no, I can't imagine that they were.
Actually, the hospitals were segregated within the hospital.
But the hos-- , they didn't have a black-based hospital.
So, they had segregation within it, but they didn't have
that many people that were moved back to the base hospitals.
If you didn't die in the front, then you would be disfigured perhaps
from the shrapnel and the gas.
But the numbers were much more, were different.
There were 200,000 African Americans in the combat zone over there,
but only 40,000 of them were in actual combat.
That's dwarfed by the size of the American, the white officers
and the white soldiers that were there.
So, there were many more of them that had to be cared for.
Yes. Yes.
>> And how many families did you get a chance to interview [inaudible]?
>> W. Douglas Fisher: A dozen, 15, 20.
>> Joann H. Buckley: Maybe 20.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Maybe 20, uh-huh.
Well we met two people today that we'd never talked to before.
Urbane Bass and Mr. Sterling, the grandsons of Dr. Urbane Bass here.
And so, we continue to have people reach
out as they learn the story and so on.
We had one very interesting experience in Los Angeles.
One of the physicians is named Claudius Ballard
and he fought with the French.
Quite an interesting guy.
It's a good story in here too.
But his son is now in his 90's.
We spent some time with his son.
He's a retired fire chief in Los Angeles.
And we met, we spent time with his grandson who's a minister
out in Los Angeles.
We did this just a couple months ago
when we were coming back from a trip out west.
The family people have learned so much from us and we've learned
so much from the families.
It's been a wonderful exchanging of information.
And it's, a lot of these children,
grandchildren were born after the war.
So, what did their dads or grandads tell them about the war?
Usually not much.
So, we've been able to give them a lot of information
that they had no idea about and then they've been able
to give us a lot as well.
>> Joann H. Buckley: When we were at Ballard, the son, his unit,
when we were at his home, we were telling him, because he had been,
he and his father never could talk, never, you know,
it was like he came back and he, this was his reaction to battle.
And so, the son, so anyway he went off and he left the family.
And so, the son was so angry about that,
that the father had received the Croix de Guerre,
and when we were sitting in his living room and we were telling him
about what his father went through at the 93rd and what a horrendous,
you know, time he had and everything, finally then,
he says to his son, "Upstairs under the bed, there's a picture.
Why don't you go and get it?"
And it was his father's Croix de Guerre, the beautiful picture of it.
So, he brought it down to share it with his son for the first time.
So, this is, you know, not unusual though.
You know, there's so much death and destruction there
that they would come back with battle fatigue
or whatever they call it now.
You know, so we saw that.
We were there when this kind of realization came to the family.
That was very rewarding.
Yeah.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: It's actually changed the way he feels
about his father.
>> Joann H. Buckley: Yeah.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Yeah.
He was very moved by that.
>> Joann H. Buckley: Yes, Richard.
>> I, I have one question and something not very important, but,
was my grandfather on the front line when he was killed?
He treated soldiers on the front line.
>> Joann H. Buckley: Absolutely.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Yes.
>> Joann H. Buckley: Yes.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: The question was, was his father
in the front line when he was killed?
>> Joann H. Buckley: Grandfather.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Grandfather on the front lines when he was killed?
And the answer is yes, most definitely.
>> Thank you.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Uh-huh.
He was at a forward aid station.
Forward aid stations are right up there with the regiments.
And he was with the regiment.
They were right there, indeed.
>> You said he received Distinguished Service Cross,
I believe.
>> Joann H. Buckley: Yes.
>> Do you know when he received that?
>> W. Douglas Fisher: I don't know offhand.
It was, he received it posthumously, obviously.
But I don't know the actual date it was received.
But it was in that timeframe.
It was not 50 years later or something of that sort.
>> Joann H. Buckley: You can probably find out from the Army.
In fact, you could probably get a copy of it or get a copy
of the medal and the citation from, by contacting the Army.
Even the Army Museum do you think in Arlington.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: We probably can find it
for you in our research papers.
>> Joann H. Buckley: Yeah.
Because we, we have done that trying to, yes.
We'll look.
>> Thank you so much.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Sure, by all means.
>> I have three very short questions.
Are Dr. Dyer's accounts at the Schomburg
in the form of diaries or letters?
>> W. Douglas Fisher: What he wrote was letters that were ty--
, later typed, transcribed.
And so, there's about a 24-page double spaced document that he wrote
about his experiences at the Schomburg.
And we have a copy, we got a copy of that.
And it was fascinating reading because I could blend it
with my grandfather's comments about the same place at the same time.
The Ammunition Train was here.
The Supply Train was here.
They were all moving together.
It was very vivid.
>> These are quick questions.
Can you repeat what you said at the beginning of the program
about the beautiful music that was playing to give credit for it?
And can you say a word about your collection that's on display?
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Certainly.
Could we comment about the music that we were playing before.
There's an album, it's a DVD now and it's obviously available online
about the James Reese Europe band, which was the band
for the 369th Infantry Regiment.
James Reese Europe was a famous musician and he'd been recruited to,
by the commanding officer
of the Harlem Hillfighters they called them to serve as a band.
Every unit had a band for marching and for parades and so on.
He recruited some other great musicians in New York.
When the band got to France it brought jazz to France, to Europe.
And the French absolutely loved it and you can imagine those tunes
in the time of war how they were embraced.
I mean it was spirited music
and then it gave you a good sense of spirit--
>> Yes.
>> Uplifting.
>> Clubs in Paris, you know,
because jazz is a very important part of Paris.
If you go to Paris, do go to the jazz clubs,
because this is where it came from.
>> Well, I downloaded the, I had heard a lot of the music,
but I downloaded it onto my cell phone.
So, I plugged the cell phone in here
and that's what you were hearing earlier.
>> And then she had-
>> W. Douglas Fisher: You had a last question, oh what the,
about the collection over here.
The collection, a friend of mine served on a board with me at a bank.
And one of his uncles had this collection
and it actually is much bigger than this.
And he didn't know what to do with it.
He was ill.
So, he asked me if I could take it over and share it with someone.
So, we went to the National World War I museum out in Kansas City,
Missouri, showed them all the stuff we had.
I mean, 50, 60 pieces of things and they loved it.
And they asked for about half of it.
We donated about a half of it.
It's there at the museum in Kansas City.
And then we kept pieces of it.
Some of it is still in our house,
but they wouldn't let us bring the bayonets
into the Library of Congress.
They were afraid we--
>> Joann H. Buckley: I don't know why.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Afraid we might get killed, I guess.
So, there is some, that's the story there on the collection here.
Yes.
>> I was just curious, you have these visitors, guests,
how did they find out about the program
and did they tell you what they knew about their grandfather?
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Well, we have had some conversations with that.
Joann reached out to Dr. Bass.
>> Joann H. Buckley: I found him on the internet.
>> Uh-huh.
>> Joann H. Buckley: There was an article about his fishing
and it said that he was living in Washington, D.C. And so,
I looked him up and called him.
And so, we have been communicating back and forth since then.
But he already purchased seven of our books
for his family and everything.
I wasn't aware he was here
and I guess you guys weren't aware that we were here.
So, we've all been in this area.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: So he's another hero
for buying so many books.
>> Joann H. Buckley: Okay.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Yes, ma'am.
>> [Inaudible audience question].
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Well, Joann can tell you all about that,
because she's the lady that really put it all together.
But we have a batch for each physician.
We had files for each doctor.
So there, those were all scanned and there are all sorts of those PDFs.
So, there are 104 of those plus there's a lot
of background information that we have, general information in there.
It's really, it's all our research.
And we, some of it as duplicated because you could get it
from so many different directions.
So, we tried to eliminate a lot of the duplication.
But I think it's all there.
Is there anything more you can add?
>> Joann H. Buckley: No.
We didn't do many of the photographs because that wasn't working well.
So, we will, they will find their way, somewhere.
Maybe the Army museum.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Yeah.
The National Army Museum that they're building down here
in Fort Belvoir, it's going to be a 250-million-dollar museum.
The Army's never had a museum.
I mean Marines got one down the road on 95.
The Army needs one too.
>> Uh-huh.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: The Air Force has one I guess
out at Wright Patt out in Dayton, Ohio.
So, the Army's a little bit behind.
They have smaller ones at different places, at Fort Benning and,
you know, at different bases, posts.
But there's never been a national museum for the Army.
So, they're hard at work at building there
and we've been supporting that activity.
And we will probably donate whatever they would
like to have to that one as well.
>> I just want to thank you both for your diligence in terms
of your research, intending to look for the names and discovering them
as you did in [inaudible] in the archives.
Because if it wasn't for you, this information would not be able
to summated in the way that it has.
And I really appreciate you all's efforts
and what you all have done with it.
And I hope you all continue to do your research
for others in that particular book.
>> Joann H. Buckley: Thank you.
>> W. Douglas Fisher: Thank you.
We really appreciate that.
[Applause].
>> Thank you all for coming.
[Applause].
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.
For more infomation >> ¿Por qué EEUU está perdiendo en AFGANISTÁN? - VisualPolitik - Duration: 15:18. 
For more infomation >> Neymar y PSG se mean en 'Fair-Play' financiero: Tebas - Duration: 3:50. 
For more infomation >> Huevo Sorpresa Gigante de Snoopy en Español de Plastilina Play Doh - Duration: 10:26. 
For more infomation >> Graves acusaciones contra Gloria Camila: ¿ha pactado ya su victoria? | Noticias de hoy - Duration: 2:44. 
For more infomation >> Arda Turan regresa lesionado tras jugar con su selección - Duration: 1:57. 
For more infomation >> 🆘❗Predicciones Del Futuro Del Hombre Aterradoras🔮 - Duration: 10:55. 
For more infomation >> La Tierra Media. Sombras de Guerra - Videoclip "Fires of War" - Duration: 4:08. 
For more infomation >> 🙏🌱Musica Per Meditazione Potente Con La Natura✨🌎 - Duration: 1:04:42. 
For more infomation >> Vanessa Paradis auprès du fils de Samuel Benchetrit, confronté à une épreuve- [Nouvelles 24h] - Duration: 3:02. 
For more infomation >> Tebas: "Neymar está meando desde el trampolín de la piscina" - Duration: 5:28. 
For more infomation >> Neymar: le pegan un codazo en la espalda y se vengó de la mejor manera - Duration: 2:03. 
For more infomation >> Yu Yu Hakusho HD Capitulo 6 (Sub Español) CC - Duration: 20:17. 
For more infomation >> HAUL MATERIAL ESCOLAR 2017-18 | Justine - Duration: 7:51. 
For more infomation >> Daniel Skye - Feelin' You feat...
For more infomation >> MariChat Comic | Spotting You Chapter 2 Part 7 | Miraculous Ladybug - Duration: 0:48. 
For more infomation >> [Karaoke]Nhạc Sống - Ca Dao Tình Mẹ - Beat Phối Hay Nhất - Duration: 4:30. 
For more infomation >> Calle con le cannucce di carta intrecciate -DIY- - Duration: 10:36. 
For more infomation >> Ремонт меховых изделий. DIY. Красивый ремонт шубы и переделка дубленки - Duration: 5:05. 
For more infomation >> U Test - Duration: 5:15. 
For more infomation >> Soy Luna 2 - Pocałunek Ambar i Benicio odcinek63 - Duration: 1:24. 
For more infomation >> DjangoCon US 2017 - Why can't everyone just do what I want them to? by Briana Morgan - Duration: 34:10. 
For more infomation >> Hyundai i10 1.0I I-MOTION - Duration: 0:57. 
For more infomation >> Hyundai ix35 1.6i GDI Active - Duration: 0:54. 
For more infomation >> Toyota Aygo 1.0 VVT-I X-PLAY 5-deurs | 1e eigenaar | - Duration: 1:02. 
For more infomation >> Toyota Aygo 1.0 VVT-I X-PLAY 5-deurs Sport design | Airco | Velgen - Duration: 0:54. 
For more infomation >> Hyundai Santa Fe 2.4i-16V 4WD - Duration: 0:47. 
For more infomation >> Hyundai Getz 1.1i Active Young - Duration: 0:59. 
For more infomation >> Citroën C3 1.6i-16V Exclusive - Duration: 1:01. 
For more infomation >> Hyundai ix20 1.6 124pk i-Catcher NAVI LEDER LM VELGEN SCHUIFDAK - Duration: 0:54. 
For more infomation >> Hyundai i30 CW 1.4I I-DRIVE COOL - Duration: 0:54. 
For more infomation >> Toyota Verso 1.8 VVT-I DYNAMIC BUSINESS Navigatie | Trekhaak - Duration: 0:58. 
For more infomation >> Citroën Xsara Picasso 1.8i-16V Plaisir - Duration: 0:54. 
For more infomation >> Renault Clio 1.6I-16V PRIVILLEGE, STOERE, PITTIGE 5DEURS, AIRCO,SPORTSTOELEN ... BOEKJES, NIEUWE DIS - Duration: 1:01. 
For more infomation >> Daihatsu Sirion 2 1.0i 12v TREND // MEENEEMPRIJS! APK 01-2018! - Duration: 0:57. 
For more infomation >> MINI Nachbar :O | Hello Neighbour BETA 3 Update (Deutsch/German) - Duration: 10:51. 
For more infomation >> Ronda grava para a WWE e aumenta rumores sobre ida para o telecatch - Duration: 5:03. 
For more infomation >> 蒼井翔太さんの最新アーティスト写真と2ndアルバム「O(ゼロ)」のジャケット写真が公開！ ライブツアー＆クリスマスイベントも開催決定！ | アニメ - Duration: 1:48. 
For more infomation >> Maria, passa na frente - Duration: 2:24. 
For more infomation >> Margaret's Weather Picture for September 7, 2017 - Duration: 0:24. 
For more infomation >> Campo fechado prejudica projeto social no Santa Fé - Duration: 2:57. 
For more infomation >> Candice fala sobre sua rotina com a pele após a gravidez para a Biotherm | Life Plankton Essence - Duration: 0:34. 
For more infomation >> Candice fala sobre maquiagem com a Biotherm | Life Plankton Essence - Duration: 0:27. 
For more infomation >> Volvo XC60 T5 245pk Automaat R-Design - Duration: 1:01. 
For more infomation >> Mahha GoGoGo Opening (Japanese Ver.) - SpaceToon Indonesia - Duration: 1:48. 
For more infomation >> Conheça personagens importantes na independência do Brasil - Duration: 5:59. 
For more infomation >> Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (2005) [PS2] #20: Rozwalamy ciężarówkę [Napisy 🇵🇱] - Duration: 17:41. 
No comments:
Post a Comment