Erased from Memory

The forgetting was not accidental. After the war, colonial powers systematically downplayed non-white contributions to maintain the myth of European superiority. Even where colonial troops did take part — France's African and North African units marched in the Paris victory parade of 1919 — their sacrifice was steadily written out of official histories and public memory in the years that followed.

The Harlem Hellfighters spent more days in front-line combat than any other US unit and never lost a trench or a man captured. France awarded them the Croix de Guerre — yet the US Army had refused to let them march in its 1917 farewell parade before they shipped out.