This essay explores the historiography of African American combat troops in World War I, in particular the 92nd Infantry division, which is the only one to have fought under American officers. Long ignored by academic historians, the experiences of these soldiers were obscured at the time and for many decades by two political narratives: the racist intent to discredit their contribution to the war effort and the reaction to that racism, which resulted in an equally unnuanced heroic counternarrative. The African American press at the time also had both political and personal reasons for idealizing the experience of France as a colorblind society, resulting in further blurring and selection bias of personal stories. In the wake of some recent scholarship which has explored new archival sources in the U.S., this essay proposes to expand on that work and to incorporate for the first time French local government and press archives to gain a more nuanced picture of the lived experience of these soldiers, restoring a value not only to their heroism but also to their daily existence.