Taylor County GaArchives News.....Colored Drafted Men Honored - Letter Written By William Gray - 1918 April 18, 1918
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Carla Miles http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00010.html#0002476 July 4, 2005, 3:58 pm

The Butler Herald April 18, 1918
The Butler Herald
Thursday, April 18, 1918
Page Three

Colored Drafted Men Honored

Dear Editor:

Please allow me space in your paper to thank the good colored people of Reynolds
for the reception given in my honor for myself and nine other drafted men at
Bethesda Baptist church.

We had everything to eat that one could wish for and, too, they gave us socks,
toothbrushes, towels, shaving outfits and many other useful articles too
numerous to mention.  They also donated to us $24.25 in cash.

It has been true everywhere that there has mounted higher and higher a
patriotism in the breasts of white men and a patriotism as well in the breasts
of colored men.  Colored mothers and colored fathers have sent their sons off,
feeling as the woman felt to whom Lincoln wrote: “That they were not making a
sacrifice at all, but rather that they were embracing a rare privilege of
serving their country.”  Colored men everywhere are loyal, patriotic and eager
to serve their country.  They are asking but one thing of their country – that a
square deal and fair play shall be vouchsafed to them.

We are glad that Secretary Baker was not afraid to undertake the experiment of a
training camp for colored men, and was not afraid to call colored men to arms. 
In a very real sense we, too, are citizens of this republic.  No one can make me
feel as we go out in this great international conflict, to make the world safe
for democracy and make democracy safe for the world, that within the triumphant
folds of democracy, when it has been achieved for the men of Serbia and Romania,
France, Russia and England, and even for the men of Germany, that there is not
also to be included the men of America – the colored no less than the white.

Wishing you and your paper the best of success, I am yours,
William Gray
Reynolds, Ga.


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