--PARADE OF
MARTIAL POMP--CHEERS, MUSIC, FLOWERS AND FEASTING--"HAYWARD'S SCRAPPING
BABIES"--OFFICERS SHARE GLORY--THEN CAME HENRY JOHNSON--SIMILAR SCENES
ELSEWHERE.

No band of heroes returning from war ever were accorded such a welcome
as that tendered to the homecoming 369th by the residents of New York,
Manhattan Island and vicinity, irrespective of race. Being one of the
picturesque incidents of the war, the like of which probably will not be
repeated for many generations, if ever, it well deserves commemoration
within the pages of this book.

Inasmuch as no more graphic, detailed and colorful account of the day's
doings has been printed anywhere, we cannot do better than quote in its
entirety the story which appeared in the great newspaper, The World of
New York, on February 18, 1919. The parade and reception, during which
the Negro troops practically owned the city, occurred the preceeding
day. The World account follows:

"The town that's always ready to take off its hat and give a whoop
for a man who's done something--'no matter who or what he was
before,' as the old Tommy Atkins song has it--turned itself loose
yesterday in welcoming home a regiment of its own fighting sons
that not only did something, but did a whole lot in winning
democracy's war.

"In official records, and in the histories that youngsters will
study in generations to come, this regiment will probably always be
known as the 369th Infantry, U.S.A.

"But in the hearts of a quarter million or more who lined the
streets yesterday to greet it, it was no such thing. It was the old
15th New York. And so it will be in this city's memory, archives
and in the folk lore of the descendants of the men who made up its
straight, smartly stepping ranks.

"New York is not race-proud nor race-prejudiced. That this 369th
Regiment, with the exception of its eighty-nine white officers, was
composed entirely of Negroes, made no difference in the shouts and
flagwaving and handshakes that were bestowed upon it. New York gave
its Old 15th the fullest welcome of its heart.

"Through scores of thousands of cheering white citizens, and then
through a greater multitude of its own color, the regiment, the
first actual fighting unit to parade as a unit here, marched in
midday up Fifth Avenue and through Harlem, there to be almost
assailed by th