They Came Home Fighting: War, Citizenship, and the Making of Red Summer

The uniform was supposed to mean citizenship. For thousands of Black veterans returning from World War I, it instead made their determination impossible to ignore. They had fought for democracy abroad and came home to lynching, segregation, disfranchisement, and a nation anxious to force them back into silence. They Came Home Fighting opens the story of the Red Summer of 1919 through the men and communities transformed by war. It follows returning soldiers, migrating families, Black newspapers, federal officials, and white political leaders as a struggle over work, public space, military service, and self-defense spread across the country. Drawing on military records, contemporary journalism, government files, and firsthand testimony, Nicolas De Lacroix reconstructs the forces that turned victory celebrations into a season of racial violence. This is narrative nonfiction about the moment Black Americans publicly claimed the rights their service had already earned - and the violent campaign mounted to deny them.