Black World War I Hero Finally Gets Full Recognition for His Valor

Washington, D.C.  President Obama will award the Medal of Honor to Henry “Black Death” Johnson. His Tuskegee Airman son struggled to get his father the honor he deserved.

Henry Johnson. Twitter Screenshot.

Henry Johnson, just 5 feet 4 and weighing 130 pounds, is a towering figure in American’s military history. France awarded Johnson the Croix du Guerre, that nation’s highest military honor, in 1918. Yet he died a forgotten man back home.

That will soon change. President Barack Obama will posthumously award Johnson America’s highest award for valor in combat, the Medal of Honor, on June 2, according to a White House press release .

Johnson volunteered for military service during World War I and was assigned to the 369th Infantry, an all-black unit out of New York. That was the famed Harlem Hellfighters, which have deep roots in American military history, as The Root co-founder Henry Louis Gates Jr. explained .

The unit, which performed menial labor under U.S. command, finally went into combat under temporary French leadership.

A group of German soldiers attacked Johnson and another black soldier, who were performing guard duty on the front line. Johnson fought them alone when the other soldier got injured. He engaged in hand-to-hand combat, killing four Germans and wounding at least 10 others, according to Smithsonian.com .

France immediately awarded Johnson the Croix du Guerre. President Theodore Roosevelt, who was not in office during the war, called Johnson one of the “five bravest Americans” to serve in World War I, according to the website.