The U.S. military was segregated, until Harry Truman ordered otherwise, with black and white troops serving in separate units. Jerome Tuccille recounts part of their story in The Roughest Riders. He takes the title from Theodore Roosevelt’s much-publicized victory charge in the Spanish-American War with his volunteers, the Rough Riders. Less publicized was the crucial role in that battle by a black regiment. Tuccille provides a pocket history of African American service from the Civil War until World War I, studded with many acts of ingratitude toward their patriotism along with a few outstanding moments when prejudice was overcome. Racism persists in America, but seldom in the virulent and undisguised form recorded in The Roughest Riders.
