Black History
Black World War I Soldiers at Camp Dodge in Des Moines, Iowa Died from the 1918 Pandemic
The 1918 ‘Spanish Flu’ posed a threat to American troops rivaled only by the Germans and their allies in World War I with hundreds of Black soldiers stationed at Camp Dodge in Des Moines, Iowa losing their fight against the deadly ‘flu virus.’
There were reportedly 3,000 Black soldiers at Camp Dodge when the virus began its fatal march. According to published reports, on Tuesday, October 1, 1918, doctors were monitoring 300 men. By the weekend, that number had skyrocketed to 1,500.
According to the Des Moines Register, “A camp document said many soldiers who awoke healthy were sick by noon. They were dead before supper.”
A Black soldier, Private Fennon Landers, from Henderson, Kentucky was the first to die. Army documents show 100 deaths in the first week and 350 the next. By October 9, the Army stopped issuing updates.
The Black Officers Training Facility
Not far from Camp Dodge at Fort Des Moines, history had already been made in 1917 when the United States Army decided to utilize the Fort as its first facility to train Black men as officers.
“This was the first time in American history that a substantial number of Black men would be commissioned as United States Army officers,” Attorney and author William Morris said during an interview with Iowa Public Television. “You had men with Bachelors and Masters degrees and even Ph.d’s who came out here to fight for their country.”
President Woodrow Wilson proposed the camp despite national concerns about arming Black men. Despite his Southern roots and segregationist stance, Woodrow navigated the “political struggle” and persevered in his plan to establish the training facility.
“The fear that Black men armed and taught military tactics could, perhaps, become an insurrectionist force was very real during the early part of the century, particularly in the South,” Morris stated.
Military records indicate more than 600 Black men received their commission in 1918. Morris’s grandfather was one of them.
“He was proud of his sacrifice, but at the same time, he was disappointed that that didn’t count for much when he came back in 1919,” Morris recalled.
End of a Pandemic…Continuation of Racism
By 1919 World War I had come to an end, and the ‘Spanish Flu’, named for the journalists in Spain who reported the pandemic while American journalists and others refrained from covering the devastatingly fatal pandemic due to government concern their reports would impact national morale, had also been defeated. And, Black soldiers returning home from Europe discovered a virulently racist backlash to their newfound confidence forged in the face of death on battlefields on the other side of the world. The next few years were defined by lynchings and other violent acts directed at Black America, resulting in a particularly brutal period known as the Red Summer of 1919, when hundreds were killed by white supremacists.
In Arkansas a formerly all-Black school, Ouachita County Training School, has launched a national fundraising effort to restore the campus following its designation as a site on the National Register of Historic Places. One of the first corporate donations to OCTS, located in Bearden, Arkansas, came from the Katherine Anthony Foundation.
Anthony’s nephew, Steve, and CEO of Anthony Timberlands, presented a $10,000 check to the historic committee.
“We are happy to support the work of the Greater Bradley District Association and the Ouachita County Training School committee in their efforts to maintain the infrastructure and grounds of the training school, which is such an important part of the Bearden community,” Anthony said.
The National Park Service listed OCTS on the prestigious register in 2023.
“Since we received the news, we have been excited and motivated to raise the fund necessary to preserve this part of our history!” Virginia Ashley, committee president said. “We recognize the pivotal role OCTS played in educating several generations of young people who started right here and went on to contribute greatly to the Black middle class and the world.”
The gift of education
For education advocates, December holds a special place in American history. During the Christmas Season in 1952, the Supreme Court first heard arguments to eliminate segregation in the nation’s public schools. But, it took two more years before the Court issued its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, declaring segregation unconstitutional.
During the 1950s, OCTS educated Black students in the small southern town south of Little Rock, which became known internationally for The Little Rock Nine and their efforts to integrate Central High School. In Bearden, several Rosenwald Schools had consolidated to create the larger OCTS campus that educated students from the first through the 12th grades.
“I have such wonderful memories of my days as a student at OCTS,” recalled Pearlie Newton, a retired educator and executive director of the OCTS historic committee. “My dad helped pour concrete at the campus, my husband and I met there and it was in one of the classrooms that my goal to become an educator took shape.”
Despite the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision eliminating “separate but equal” schools, OCTS remained segregated until 1971 when it merged with the white school district in the area. An association of Black Baptist churches known as the Greater Bradley District Association purchased the campus for use as its headquarters.
Pastor and Association Moderator, Verna Thompson, said, “We are excited about the renovation and look forward to holding our church services and meetings in a modernized facility that holds so much historic significance.”
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