New exhibit at Henderson Library memorializes local African American veterans of World War I

Georgia Southern University history professor Brian K. Feltman, Ph.D., is creating a powerful exhibit titled “More than a Name: Commemorating Bulloch County’s African American Fallen Soldiers of the First World War” to honor the 13 African American soldiers from Bulloch County who died during World War I.

Georgia Southern history professor Brian K. Feltman, Ph.D., is creating an exhibit honoring the African Americans from Bulloch County who made the ultimate sacrifice during the First World War.

“More than a Name: Commemorating Bulloch County’s African American Fallen Soldiers of the First World War” will debut at Georgia Southern’s Henderson Library in March 2025 and run until July.

Twenty-six Bulloch County natives died in the First World War. Thirteen of them were African American. The exhibit, funded by Georgia Humanities, serves as not only a look back in remembrance but also a look into the lives of these men as they fought for a country that, at the time, viewed them as second-class citizens.

The impetus for this project was twofold. A German historian who wants his students engaged in research, Feltman said primary sources or sources in German can be challenging to study. To circumvent this, he often uses local sources. This was the origin of the idea for the exhibit.

The service of African Americans became the focus shortly after Feltman and his students began their research.

“We realized that it was easy to find a lot of information about the white veterans and the white fallen soldiers, but the African Americans who served and died had really been marginalized,” he said.

Student volunteer Andrea Raham inspects WWI artifacts from the Bennett Family Collection held in Special Collections. )Photo courtesy of Brian Feltman.)

Feltman elaborated that while documentation such as draft cards and ledgers were relatively easy to find for Black soldiers, there was very little in the way of public acknowledgment, either before or after the war. Perhaps the most tangible example of this is the absence of photographs of any of the 13 fallen soldiers included in the exhibit.

Feltman said this shortage wasn’t limited to photos: “The memory of the First World War is significant within the African American community. In the exhibit, we’ll display many books by African American authors about the African American experience. Still, within the broader community, this experience has been forgotten.”

The exhibit will include biographical information, photos of their gravesites, and their responsibilities specific to their regiment or battalion. Additionally, there will be original posters featuring African American soldiers and their families and era-specific covers of the NAACP’s official magazine “The Crisis.”

In addition to honoring the soldiers, the exhibit aims to place their service in its proper context. That context includes what Feltman referred to as the “everyday reality” of racism. Bulloch County remained a rural area in the early twentieth century. Despite nearly 50 years since the Civil War, the area and the entire South still felt its effects. A fact that isn’t lost on Feltman.

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