In April 1917, Congress approved President Woodrow Wilson's request to declare war on the Central Powers propelling the United States into the European conflict with a self-proclaimed duty to ensure "The world must be made safe for democracy." Two months later 1,250 African American men--college graduates, businessmen, doctors, lawyers, reverends, and non-commissioned officers--left their homes and volunteered to become the first class of black men to receive officer training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. Despite the great irony that these men were going off to fight to preserve democracy abroad...