I’ve always been interested in military history, and I am particularly drawn to Black military history.
I first became aware of the 761st Tank Battalion in 1995 when legislation was introduced in Congress to award a posthumous Medal of Honor to Sgt. Ruben Rivers for his bravery in November 1944 with that tank unit.
My first reaction was: “Who?” and “What unit?”
It only took a minimal amount of research to discover that Rivers was indeed a war hero and the tank battalion he served in had an exemplary record. I decided that I was take a whack at writing a history book on them.
My first step in that direction was to suggest to Smithsonian Magazine that I write an article for their edition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. The magazine’s editor later told me it was a great idea. But I was too late. They already had assigned all the pieces for that issue.
I was stunned and disappointed by the rejection – and, I must say, too easily deterred. I put off my desire to write a nonfiction book on the unit.
Truth be told, a few distractions also played a part. A little less than a year later Ron Brown, the first Black man to lead the Democratic Party and the first to serve as Commerce Secretary was killed in a plane crash in Croatia. I was soon recruited to write a biography of this extraordinary man. Since I continued to work full time as a reporter at the New York Times, that effort took four years.
Over the next years, a divorce, a new love, marriage, a new assignment at the Times, recruitment by the Washington Post, recruitment by CNN, a heavy work schedule and procrastination all conspired to take my focus off writing a history of the 761st. When I finally turned my full attention to it I discovered that others had written books on the unit as well. I faced the problem of how to make mine different.
The answer to my dilemma? Make mine fiction. I could use the actual story as the framework but make my book – almost – completely fictitious. Little did I know that I was soon inspired to make another completely different element a major part of my novel.