By Precious Fondren
For most of her life, Debra Willett had a vague idea about who her grandfather was. She knew he had fought in France in World War I at some point. But she didn’t grasp the importance of what her grandfather, who died in 1956, had accomplished until she began doing some genealogy research in 1998.
Sgt. Leander Willett served with the distinguished 369th Infantry Regiment, commonly known as the Harlem Hellfighters, the most celebrated regiment of Black soldiers during World War I. Unlike many Black soldiers who were limited to manual labor and custodial duties, the Harlem Hellfighters made it to the front lines. There were celebrated for their bravery, helping to change the perception of Black soldiers as inferior.
As time passed, however, the Hellfighters, who numbered in the thousands, were largely forgotten. Somehow, they did not maintain the same historical prestige as the Tuskegee Airmen, the country’s first Black aviation unit, or the Montford Point Marines, the first Black marines, though the Harlem Hellfighters preceded both groups.
Since American white soldiers were unwilling to fight alongside the Hellfighters, the Black soldiers were eventually assigned to the 16th Division of the French Army. The Hellfighters spent 191 days in combat, which is believed to be longer than any other American unit in the war, according to multiple accounts. Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts were the first Americans, Black or white, to receive the Croix de Guerre, a French award given to those who show immense acts of heroism in battle.
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