While I and the rest of our country celebrate all of our veterans today on #VeteransDay, let us not forget the horrific ways our fellow Americans treated Black military veterans after they risked their lives for their country in foreign lands.

After World War I, Black veterans returned home to the South and were lynched, burned alive and beaten just for daring to walk down the street with their uniforms on. Research shows that at least 20 Black veterans were lynched between 1918-1920.

The charges were on things like "writing an insulting note" or "intimacy with a white woman" in Mississippi, "failure to yield the road" or "wearing his uniform too much" in Georgia, "insulting a white woman" in Arkansas and robbery in Kentucky.

And those are only the ones that we know of, because they were reported in the media.
These men gave their all for their country, and when they returned home, their fellow countrymen betrayed them.

And yet and still, their descendants, their friends and their fellow countrymen and countrywomen of color still made the decision year after year after year to wear the uniform, fight for the United States and bleed for the red, white and blue. That is TRUE patriotism.

When you say "Thank you" to a vet today -- and you should -- also think about those veterans who not only didn't get a thank you, but instead got discriminated against, beaten, shot, burned alive and lynched because their countrymen didn't really believe in red, white and blue.

They believed in white over black.

Thank God that Black veterans believed in the promise of America, even when their countrymen didn't.
Happy #VeteransDay2020 to all of those who served and truly believed that we can still create #AMorePerfectUnion.