Ralph Waldo Tyler

[2] Early on, his journalistic skills placed him in constant dialog with black political and business leaders in the Midwest who were engaged in improving the social standing of African Americans at the height of the Jim Crow laws.

He held this post until 1913, when during the first year of Woodrow Wilson's presidency—overlooking the advice of his colleagues—Tyler published an article in the Washington Evening Star criticizing the President's segregationist policies, such as the segregation of government offices.

His findings were reported in a 1914 syndicated column of the American Press Association, and his travels through the Southern U.S. enabled him to undertake a personal study of the Great Migration then in progress by blacks out of the rural South for the North and Midwest.

Concurrently, there was also a growing concern among U.S. government officials that blacks, who were experiencing ongoing racism in the civilian population as well as overseas in France, would be swayed by German propaganda to turn against the U.S. war efforts.

[3] Back in the States, Tyler's reports provided first-hand accounts of the heroic deeds of black soldiers and boosted the morale of the troops overseas.

He also documented discrimination that the black troops faced at the hands of white American organizations and service personnel, and contrasted it with the relatively unbiased treatment they received from the French.