## The Pattern Across World War I and World War II
Henry Johnson’s story was not unique. It was an instance of a documented pattern that applied to Black soldiers across both World Wars.
The 1993 Shaw University study — formally titled “Buffalo Soldiers and the Medal of Honor” but more commonly called the Shaw University study — was commissioned by the Army to examine the decoration records of Black soldiers from the Second World War. It found that no Black soldier had received the Medal of Honor for Second World War service, despite documented actions that clearly warranted the award. The study identified 10 Black soldiers whose records showed actions consistent with Medal of Honor criteria. Seven of them were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 1997 by President Clinton.
A subsequent review of World War I records found the same pattern: Black soldiers from the First World War whose actions met Medal of Honor criteria had not received the award, in a pattern that was inconsistent with the Army’s decoration practices for white soldiers under similar circumstances.
The Army’s review process for these historical corrections required the specific evidence of documented actions — citations, unit reports, eyewitness accounts, official military records — that researchers had to reconstruct from archives in many cases. For Johnson, the Pershing communiqué was the critical discovery: a document from the commander of the AEF specifically acknowledging Johnson’s performance, which had been in the archives without being used to generate the American decoration that it should have supported.