Tyler, Ralph Waldo

Impact on the world

Selected in 1918 by a committee overseen by Emmett J. Scott, the Special Assistant for Race Relations to the Secretary of War, Tyler accepted the unpaid war-correspondent post — covering only his own expenses — specifically so he could speak freely about what he witnessed once he returned home, and was stationed with General John J. Pershing’s forces in the Metz region of France, sending front-line dispatches that were screened by the government’s Committee on Public Information before nationwide distribution to the Black press. His reporting provided rare first-hand documentation of Black soldiers’ heroism in combat, including the fighting at Bois Fréhaut, while also candidly contrasting the discrimination Black troops experienced from white American personnel with their comparatively equal treatment by French civilians and officers; many of his dispatches were later reprinted in Scott’s Official History of the American Negro in the World War (1919). Tyler had earlier served as Auditor of the U.S. Navy Department from 1907 to 1913 on Booker T. Washington’s recommendation, becoming one of the highest-ranking Black federal officials of his era, but lost the post after publicly criticizing President Woodrow Wilson’s segregation of federal offices in 1913.

Life & background

Born in 1860 in Ohio (some records indicate 1859), Tyler began his journalism career in Columbus in the late 1880s, working as a Black news columnist and society editor for the white-owned Columbus Evening Dispatch while also editing and co-founding several Black newspapers. He served as U.S. Navy Auditor from 1907 to 1913, worked for Booker T. Washington’s National Negro Business League, reported from France as America’s only accredited Black war correspondent in 1918, and returned to Ohio journalism as editor of the Cleveland Advocate in 1919; he died on June 2, 1921, in Columbus, Ohio, at age 60.

Sources

1. Journalism History journal; E.J. Scott, The American Negro in the World War; WikiTree