More than a century after they came home from the trenches of France, the Black soldiers of the 371st Infantry Regiment are getting a place of honor at the front of the line. The association that carries their story is serving as grand marshal of Columbia's 48th annual Veterans Day parade, which steps off at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Sumter and Laurel streets.

The 371st was made up largely of Southern draftees who trained at Camp Jackson, now Fort Jackson, in 1917. Because the U.S. Army kept Black units apart, the regiment was sent to fight under French command as part of the French 157th Division.

They proved themselves in some of the toughest fighting of the war. During the Champagne offensive in the fall of 1918 the regiment battled for a stretch of high ground known as Hill 188. More than 150 men from the unit were killed there, many of them after German troops pretended to surrender and then opened fire.

Honored by France first

France awarded the whole regiment the Croix de Guerre with Palm for its service in Champagne. Individual soldiers earned the Distinguished Service Cross, the Legion of Honor and the Médaille Militaire. Cpl. Freddie Stowers of Sandy Springs, South Carolina, who was killed leading an attack on Hill 188, received the Medal of Honor in 1991, becoming the first Black soldier from World War I to be given the nation's top award for valor.

When the men returned to Columbia in early 1919, the city threw a community reception at Allen University to welcome them. Yet many came home to a South that refused to honor them.

A grandson's promise

Perry W. James IV of Dalzell knows that story through his own family. His grandfather, Sgt. Perry Loyd, was wounded with the 371st in France. James has said his grandfather could not safely wear his uniform after he got home because of the threat of racist violence.

James spent years digging through military archives and even traveled to the very hill in France where his grandfather was hurt. His work paid off when the Army formally awarded Sgt. Loyd the Purple Heart a hundred years after he earned it. This week he put on a World War I uniform to talk about the regiment ahead of the parade and to keep its memory in front of new generations.

A monument still to come

The 371st Infantry Regiment WWI Memorial Monument Association, led by founder Russell Wolfe, is raising about $350,000 to place a permanent memorial in Columbia. Camden sculptor Maria Kirby-Smith, who created a statue of Stowers, has been chosen to design and cast it.

Leading the parade gives the effort its biggest stage yet. For families like the Jameses it is a long-awaited thank-you to men who fought for a country that did not always fight for them.