From the opening shots in the American Revolution, Bunker's Hill and the struggle to wrest independence from Britain, to Hamburger Hill and the emergence of fully integrated units, this is a story of struggle. Even in the liberating times of the American Civil War, the Federal government put blacks in segregated regiments, a policy which was to continue throughout World War I and II. Gerald Astor examines the full history of African Americans in the military, and establishes the contribution they have made, right up to the present day.