Howard University in the World Wars

Book excerpt: Despite African Americans' lack of political, social and economic equality in the United States, the students of Howard University answered the call to service in both world wars. Howard supported its men and women in the quest to serve their nation. The university started an army training program during the First World War, and Howard faculty, staff and students pushed the War Department to begin an officer training school for African Americans. The university organized a Reserve Officer Training program in the interwar years, the first at an HBCU. Many of the famed Tuskegee Airmen of World War II were trained first at Howard. Based on a collection of letters sent by Howard students and alumni to the university, historian and archivist Lopez D. Matthews illuminates their wartime experiences.