470,000 Black Men Conscripted in WWI Draft Despite Being Citizens Without Civil Rights

When the Selective Service Act was signed in 1917, approximately 2.3 million Black men registered for the draft, and roughly 370,000-470,000 were inducted — about 13% of all draftees, roughly proportional to the Black share of the population. They were required to fight for a country that denied them the vote, subjected them to mob violence, and legally segregated them from white citizens. The contradiction between fighting for democracy abroad while being denied it at home was explicitly argued in Black newspapers and became the basis for postwar civil rights demands.