'World War I supplied a new field in the battle for freedom rights. Nearly four decades after the close of Reconstruction,African Americans still sought the basic rights of American citizens, and they pushed their fellow Americans to create the world secure for democracy at home as well as abroad. Their triumphs and failures would shape the subsequent civil rights movement and its aftermath. Adriane Lentz-Smith is the Andrew W. Mellon Associate Professor of History at Duke University. Her most recent book is Freedom Struggles: African Americans and World War I (Harvard University Press, and 2009).'
Source: blogspot.com