A More Unbending Battle: The Harlem Hellfighter's Struggle for Freedom in WWI and Equality at Home [Hardcover]

The night broke open in a storm of explosions and fire. The sound of shells whizzing overhead, screeching through the night like wounded pheasants, was terrifying. When the shells exploded prematurely overhead, a rain of shrapnel fell on the men below -- better than when the shells exploded in the trenches . . .

In A More Unbending Battle, journalist and author Pete Nelson chronicles the little-known story of the 369th Infantry Regiment -- the first African-American regiment mustered to fight in WWI. Recruited from all walks of Harlem life, the regiment had to fight alongside the French because America's segregation policy prohibited them from fighting with white U.S. soldiers.

Despite extraordinary odds and racism, the 369th became one of the most successful -- and infamous -- regiments of the war. The Harlem Hellfighters, as their enemies named them, spent longer than any other American unit in combat, were the first Allied unit to reach the Rhine, and showed extraordinary valor on the battlefield, with many soldiers winning the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor. Replete with vivid accounts of battlefield heroics,A More Unbending Battleis the thrilling story of the dauntless Harlem Hellfighters.Pete Nelson's writing has been published in numerous publications, includingHarper's, Esquire, Men's Health, Outside, andRolling Stone. He is an award-winning author of seventeen books, the most recent beingLeft for Dead. He lives in South Salem, New York.New York Times
“In rich detail, Mr. Nelson recalls how the regiment fought valiantly at the front (and through its marching band helped introduce jazz to Europe.) Some of the most moving passages, though, are about what happened before and after.”

Kirkus Reviews
“Nelson seamlessly interweaves the military narrative with vivid firsthand accounts…[He] offers a nuanced, in-depth portrait of this group of ordinal“: