Dear Bennie and Afrigeneas Military Researchers:

I am so overwhelmed by Lloyd's passing. His words about the African-American military experience will remain here at Afrigeneas as a reminder of our ancestors' heroism and loyalty to the country we shaped and built. Perhaps Florida's native son James Weldon Johnson, author of the Negro National Anthem and the poem below will bring us some comfort.

"THE COLOR SERGEANT"

(On an Incident at the Battle of San Juan Hill )

by James Weldon Johnson 1871-1938

Under a burning tropic sun,
With comrades around him lying,
A trooper of the sable Tenth
Lay wounded, bleeding, dying.

First in the charge up the fort-crowned hill,
His company's guidon bearing,
He had rushed where the leaden hail fell fast,
Not death nor danger fearing.

He fell in the front where the fight grew fierce,
Still faithful in life's last labor;
Black though his skin, yet his heart as true
As the steel of his blood-stained saber.

And while the battle around him rolled,
Like the roar of a sullen breaker,
He closed his eyes on the bloody scene,
And presented arms to his Maker.

There he lay, without honor or rank,
But, still, in a grim-like beauty;
Despised of men for his humble race,
Yet true, in death, to his duty.

"Fifty Years and Other Poems"
James Weldon Johnson
The American Verse Project, University of Michigan