On February 17, 1919, upon their return home, the Harlem Hell Fighters were celebrated as they marched from 5^th avenue all the way into Harlem. A stark contrast in how the regiment left for WWI. Despite the warm reception they received, the African Americans faced the same reality from when they left, except these times were a lot volatile. 

After the war was over, the accomplishments made by the Harlem Hell Fighters were forgotten immediately by white America. During his discharge from the army, Jones recalls the White man filling out his discharge papers not believing that blacks played a combat role in the War, and on his discharge papers marked “none” on the section used for combat experience although he fought on the front lines. Like Jones, none of the Harlem Hell Fighters received any military honors from America or its military. Furthermore, after the war, films like “Ham and Eggs on the Front”(1927) and “Anybody’s War”(1930) used blackface to portray black soldiers as unintelligible and foolish.

It took until 2015, nearly a century after the war, for America to finally recognize one of the Hell Fighters’ service. On June 2, 2015, Henry Johnson of the Harlem Hell Fighters was finally awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award.