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The Harlem Hellfighters Paperback – April 1, 2014
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From bestselling author Max Brooks, the riveting story of the highly decorated, barrier-breaking, historic black regiment—the Harlem Hellfighters
In 1919, the 369th infantry regiment marched home triumphantly from World War I. They had spent more time in combat than any other American unit, never losing a foot of ground to the enemy, or a man to capture, and winning countless decorations. Though they returned as heroes, this African American unit faced tremendous discrimination, even from their own government. The Harlem Hellfighters, as the Germans called them, fought courageously on—and off—the battlefield to make Europe, and America, safe for democracy.
In THE HARLEM HELLFIGHTERS, bestselling author Max Brooks and acclaimed illustrator Caanan White bring this history to life. From the enlistment lines in Harlem to the training camp at Spartanburg, South Carolina, to the trenches in France, they tell the heroic story of the 369th in an action-packed and powerful tale of honor and heart.
- Reading age8 - 12 years
- Print length272 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Lexile measureGN780L
- Dimensions6.09 x 0.63 x 9.1 inches
- PublisherDel Rey
- Publication dateApril 1, 2014
- ISBN-100307464970
- ISBN-13978-0307464972
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Amazon Exclusive: Essay by Max Brooks (adapted from the author’s note within The Harlem Hellfighters)
I first learned of the Harlem Hellfighters from an Anglo-Rhodesian named Michael Furmanovsky when I was 11. Michael was working for my parents while getting his MFA in history from UCLA. He taught me about the British Empire, the Falklands War, Hiroshima, the Holocaust, and a host of other topics not covered in my fifth-grade western civilization class. Of all his after-school lessons, the one that left the deepest impression was the story of a unit of American soldiers who weren’t allowed to fight for their country because of the color of their skin. To a white, privileged kid growing up on the west side of L.A. in the 1980s, that kind of prejudice was just inconceivable. When I confessed that I didn’t know about them, he assured me that I wasn’t alone.
Ten years later I was an exchange student at the University of the Virgin Islands. The experience brought me back into the orbit of the Hellfighters when, while walking through an old cemetery, I noticed some graves from 1918. I wondered if they might be casualties of the Great War, maybe even members of the 369th. I decided to ask my professor of Virgin Islands history. He was an African-American from the mainland, and to call him passionate would be a laughable understatement. With his beard and spectacles and flaring dashiki, he would rail against the historical crimes committed by white men of Europe and North America. Most heinous was the erasure of black accomplishments by white historians. Colonization, he would tell us, begins with the mind, and the best (or worst) way to colonize a people is to bury their past. “There were no black soldiers in World War I.” That was his dismissive answer to my question about the graves from 1918. When I started to argue, even bringing up the name “Harlem Hellfighters,” he assured me that I must have been confused with the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II. I was shocked. Here was a scholar, a crusader, a thoughtful, driven man who’d made it his life’s mission to trumpet the glory of Africa and her diaspora, and HE didn’t know about the Harlem Hellfighters. I wish I could say that I decided then and there to write their story, but that would have to wait for nearly another decade.
In the late 1990s, I was living back in L.A., just out of graduate school and trying to make a living as a writer. My decision to tackle the story of the Hellfighters came after watching two TNT made-for-TV movies about the Tuskegee Airmen and the Buffalo soldiers. I thought TNT might be interested in a story about World War I’s black heroes, especially after A&E’s successful Lost Battalion movie. I started collecting books about the subject (the most influential was and still is From Harlem to the Rhine by Arthur Little), and a year and several dozen drafts later, I pitched my screenplay to the TNT Network. They passed. So did everyone else.
Things changed when I sent my script to actor/director LeVar Burton. “There are actually more than a couple Harlem Hellfighters scripts floating around Hollywood,” he told me during our meeting, “but yours comes closest to the truth.” He agreed that the subject matter would be difficult to sell to studios, but that by no means should that deter me. “I don’t have the power right now to make this movie,” he said, “but I’m not going to give up, and you shouldn’t either.” Thank you, Mr. Burton.
Five years and what seemed like a lifetime later, an unexpected opportunity opened up in the world of comic books. In 2006, I began collaborating with Avatar Press on a graphic companion to my first book, The Zombie Survival Guide. I learned very quickly how different comic book writing was from prose, but how similar it could be to movie scripts. I also realized that comics presented a forum for telling very visual stories without the cumbersome budget of movies or television. It seemed the ideal medium for telling the story of the Harlem Hellfighters. It’s now been close to six years since I began working with William Christensen of Avatar Press and the amazingly talented artist Caanan White. And now it’s time to share this heroic regiment’s story of courage, honor, and heart with you. I hope that you are as captivated by it as I have been.
From Booklist
Review
“Writer Max Brooks and illustrator Caanan White hew closely to the true tale of the 369th Infantry Regiment...The horrors of war and the outrages of racism are vividly conveyed in a swift and suspenseful tale.” —U-T San Diego
“Shattering...A visceral evocation of the horrors of trench warfare...A sharp reminder that venerating volunteer troops for their service is an ideal that has not always been a reality.” —Washington Post
“[One] of of the most powerful books I've read so far this year...This is a stunning work of historical recovery and a very graphic graphic novel: bodies explode, rats feed on corpses, men are strafed and gassed. It's not pretty, but the "in your face" style of The Harlem Hellfighters is suited to dramatizing a crucial part of American history that hasn't been thrust forcefully enough into our collective faces.” —NPR, Fresh Air
“Stunning... Like the regiment of African American soldiers it depicts, Harlem Hellfighters can’t be stereotyped or pigeon holed. It might not be your typical history book, but it packs one hell of a punch.” —Newsweek
“A splashy, fun, gripping number, and an intriguing look at an oft-ignored footnote in the history books.” —New York Daily News
“Moral complexity is just one of the novel's many achievements. Dialogue and imagery are often richly juxtaposed... White's illustrations render the grisly and graphic details of trench warfare with haunting immediacy... The sharp lines and shadowy depths of his sketches are absorbing and Brooks’ words are equally evocative. The dialogue is bleak, funny, and efficient... [Brooks’] careful research doesn’t sap the story of its speed and strength.” —Christian Science Monitor
“Shines a literary klieg light on a woefully overlooked chapter of World War I...Bolstering Brooks’s storytelling muscle is the high-contrast black-and-white art of gifted Caanan White, whose graphic grit evokes Joe Kubert and 'Sgt. Rock'... A powerful comic that may do more than any previous work to illuminate the heroism of the 369th.”—Washington Post
“The Harlem Hellfighters brings to life a long forgotten piece of American history. Bravo, Max Brooks, bravo.” —Spike Lee
“An utterly fresh and shocking blend of storytelling and graphic art that takes us back to the global conflagration at the dawn of the last century and the heroic and outsized role brave African American soldiers played in turning the tide for the Allies. In an injustice oft repeated throughout our history, the heroic feats of the 'Harlem Hellfighters' were not just forgotten but deliberately suppressed by a nation eager to accept the Black man’s sacrifice but terrified to give him the slightest credit for it. Denied the ability to even defend themselves back home, the Hellfighters tear up the Western Front and terrify the Germans, facing down machine guns, rats, and poison gas with stoic relentlessness and deflected fury. White’s illustrations explode off the page and Brooks’ storytelling brings gripping action and anger to every page.” —Tom Reiss, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Black Count
“Brooks's text seethes with rage at the soldiers' mistreatment, but he insists that even the racists who saw them in action would have respected their accomplishments. Like the text, White's b&w art is intensely furious, emphasizing the war's chaotic horror. Reading the book is a painful, memorable experience.” —Publishers Weekly
“The Harlem Hellfighters is perhaps the first graphic novel taking as its theme a major episode in African American History, the heroic performance of black men in combat during World War I. Brilliantly dramatized by Max Brooks—author of such national bestsellers as World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide—and stunningly illustrated by Caanan White, one of our foremost African-American comic book illustrators, the novel tells the gripping story of the often overlooked black men who served their country in combat against enemy forces during 'the Great War.' The Harlem Hellfighters served in combat longer than any other American unit, losing neither men nor ground, even as they fought entrenched racism within the U.S. military. Brooks and White tell a thrilling saga of noble perseverance, individual valor and sacrifice and collective triumph, showing how combat abroad in war contributed to the larger quest for civil rights at home. Informed by judicious historical research and vividly illustrated storytelling, this book itself is an historical “first,” and is a major contribution to our understanding of Black History.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Del Rey; First Edition (April 1, 2014)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0307464970
- ISBN-13 : 978-0307464972
- Reading age : 8 - 12 years
- Lexile measure : GN780L
- Item Weight : 1 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.09 x 0.63 x 9.1 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #179,092 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #175 in World War I History (Books)
- #185 in Historical & Biographical Fiction Graphic Novels
- #1,534 in World War II History (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Max Brooks is the author of World War Z, the Zombie Survival Guide, Minecraft: The Island, and Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre. His graphic novels include GI Joe: Hearts and Minds, The Extinction Parade, Germ Warfare: A Graphic History, and The Harlem Hellfighters.
Brooks holds dual fellowships at the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the Modern War Institute at West Point.
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Such anomalies were in existence in all of the United States Armed Forces throughout the late 18th and the entire 19th century and half of the 20th century. During this time frame the black men of these times served in the military very often times as support troops doing menial tasks very much like slaves prior to the Civil War. During the 19th century we see for the first time that blacks were used in the Indian Wars of the West and were given the name of Buffalo Soldiers.
This piece of historical fiction is based on factual material written by Max Brooks and illustrated in black and white by Caanan White which gives us a detail account that many Americans have no knowledge of. This being the centennial of the start of WWI, we are also given an education of a black 369th Regiment from New York. The fact that this unit was one of the first American units to be deployed to France and the French at this time were in desperate need of fresh combat troops to be the needed fodder to fight the German Hun, we see the 369th fighting not with other American units but rather the French.
At this time in American history the American army would not use a black regiment to fight in any combat arm during WWI. However the French needed bodies and for them the color of the skin did not matter. Brooks shows the frustrations and the injustices that the black soldiers had to endure. What the author also brings to the table is that this regiment was one of the most decorated of all the units in WWI. It endured the most time of all American units on the combat line.
If you go to Harlem today you can visit the 369th Regiment Armory and see a monument of the Harlem Hellfighters so named by their German adversaries on the Fields of Flanders.
This book gives a wonderful history of this unit and is an enduring story which should be imbedded into American Military History.
Woodrow Wilson knew what would happen if black soldiers returned from Europe victorious, having made the world "safe for democracy."
The Harlem Hellfighters fought a double war: they fought the terrifying war against the Germans, and they fought the insinuating, sly racist oppression of their own president, Woodrow Wilson. Wilson was an uncloseted democrat racist, and his appointees understood that the black soldiers had to be sternly repressed, or else they might succeed.
The book is excellent in its depiction of different social classes and accents, especially in the beginning of the bok where the recruitment is shown. At times it is difficult to figure out who is who as the people are being blown to bits, but usually the next frame calls out the name of the deceased, so you can figure it out.
Black and white graphics, a lot (a LOT) of bodily fluids, and people being blown to smithereens.
The book does show the sickening racism against these soldiers by dishonorable democrat politicians, like Mayor John F Floyd and Woodrow Wilson himself. And of course, it looks at the soldier's feelings of bitterness, resentment, and the desire for violent revenge that arose from their treatment. You see a race riot on page 39.
The book offers good historical quotes: from WEB DuBois on page 77, from Irvin S. Cobb on page 124, and the Alan Seeger poem "I have a Rendezvous with Death." There is a great discussion on page 175 on dignity and respect, and an excellent summary of what these men overcame. The graphics offer very good sensory information, and one of the best visual tricks involves "remembering." Great presentation of the graphics. As a parent, I highly recommend this book.
Top reviews from other countries
Amazing WWI comic book, Harlem Hellfighters story is worth telling, a story made of war, heroism and discrimation. I can't believe they were forbidden to serve in the US Army because black, however they proved their valor on the battlefield. Highly recommended to WWI fans, White and Brooks did a great job !










