1,772 Black servicemen who died in WWI were ignored in South Africa. At last they are being honored

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — The names are carved on poles of African hardwood that are set upright as if reaching for the sun. No one knows where the men they represent were buried.

But their names, forgotten for more than a century, have been revived and are now written in the records of history.

Black South African servicemen who died in non-combat roles on the Allied side during World War I and have no known grave have been recognized with a memorial featuring 1,772 names.

An inscription on a granite block at the memorial in Cape Town says: “Your legacies are preserved here.”

Because they were Black, they were not allowed to carry arms. They were members of the Cape Town Labor Corps, transporting food, ammunition and other supplies and building roads and bridges during the Great War.

They didn't serve in Europe but in the fringe battles in Africa, where Allied forces fought in the then-German colonies of German South West Africa (now Namibia) and German East Africa (now Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi).

The men made the same ultimate sacrifice as around 10 million others who died serving in armies in the 1914-1918 war.

After the war, they were not recognized because of the racial policies of British colonialism and then South Africa's apartheid regime.

The memorial finally rights a historical wrong, said the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the British organization that looks after war graves and built the new memorial in Cape Town's oldest public garden.

The memorial was opened Wednesday by Britain's Princess Anne, the commission's president.

“It ensures the names and stories of those who died will echo in history for future generations,” Princess Anne said. "It is important to recognize that those we have come to pay tribute to have gone unacknowledged for too long. We will remember them.”

When her speech ended, a lone soldier played “The Last Post” on his bugle to commemorate the Black servicemen as war dead, 106 years, two months and 11 days after the end of World War I.

While South Africa has several memorials dedicated to its white soldiers who died in both world wars, the Black servicemen's contribution was ignored for decades.

It was in danger of being lost forever until a researcher found evidence of their service in South African army documents around 10 years ago, said Commonwealth War Graves Commission operational manager David McDonald, who oversaw the South African project.

Researchers discovered the more than 1,700 Black servicemen and the war graves commission traced the families of six of the dead, most of them from deeply rural South African regions.

Four of those families were represented at Wednesday's ceremony. They laid wreaths at the foot of the memorial and were able to touch the individual poles dedicated to their lost relatives and where their names are inscribed.

“It made us very proud. It made us very happy,” said Elliot Malunga Delihlazo, whose great-grandfather, Bhesengile, was among those honored.

Delihlazo said his family only knew that Bhesengile went to war and never came back.

“Although it pains us ... that we can’t find the remains, at last we know that he died in 1917,” Delihlazo said. “Now the family knows. Now, at last, we know.”

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Britain's Princess Anne, the President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, centre, in conversation with official during the opening of a memorial dedicated to more than 1,700 Black South African servicemen who died in non-combatant roles in World War I and have no known grave, in Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

A Royal Marine officer attends the opening of a memorial dedicated to more than 1,700 Black South African servicemen who died in non-combatant roles in World War I and have no known grave, in Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

Egyptian geese with goslings are seen next to an African "iroko" hardwood post bearing names and the date of death of 1,700 Black South African servicemen who died in non-combatant roles in World War I and have no known grave, in Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

Britain's Princess Anne, the President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, walks in between an African "iroko" hardwood post bearing names and the date of death of 1,700 Black South African servicemen who died in non-combatant roles in World War I and have no known grave, in Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

Lwanda Sindaphi, a praise poet performs a cultural tribute at the opening of a memorial dedicated to more than 1,700 Black South African servicemen who died in non-combatant roles in World War I and have no known grave, in Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

Britain's Princess Anne, the President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, attends the opening of a memorial dedicated to more than 1,700 Black South African servicemen who died in non-combatant roles in World War I and have no known grave, in Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

A memorials plaque dedicated to more than 1,700 Black South African servicemen who died in non-combatant roles in World War I and have no known grave, in Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

Britain's Princess Anne, the President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, attends the opening of a memorial dedicated to more than 1,700 Black South African servicemen who died in non-combatant roles in World War I and have no known grave, in Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

Britain's Princess Anne, the President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, walks in between an African "iroko" hardwood post bearing names and the date of death of 1,700 Black South African servicemen who died in non-combatant roles in World War I and have no known grave, in Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

A memorials plaque dedicated to more than 1,700 Black South African servicemen who died in non-combatant roles in World War I and have no known grave, in Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

A praise poet performs a cultural tribute at the opening of a memorial dedicated to more than 1,700 Black South African servicemen who died in non-combatant roles in World War I and have no known grave, in Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

African "iroko" hardwood posts bear the names and the date of death of 1,700 Black South African servicemen who died in non-combatant roles in World War I and have no known grave, in Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

The Trump administration’s top intelligence officials face Congress for back-to-back hearings this week to testify about the threats facing the United States and what the government is doing to counter them. The briefing will take place at 10 a.m. ET.

The hearing comes a day after The Atlantic magazine reported that top national security officials for Trump, including his defense secretary, texted war plans for upcoming military strikes in Yemen to a group chat that included the magazine’s editor-in-chief in a secure messaging app.

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Senate Democrats are calling for further investigations and possible resignations following news that top national security officials texted military plans to a group chat that included Jeff Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine.

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, told CIA Director John Ratcliffe that the leak was an “embarrassment” and asked whether it was “just a normal day at the CIA?”

“Don’t insult the intelligence of the American people,” Bennet told Ratcliffe before asking how Goldberg was added to the chat. “Did he invite himself to the Signal thread?”

“I don’t know how he was invited,” Ratcliffe said in response. “Clearly, he was added to the Signal group.”

Four protesters interrupted the hearing in Congress to decry former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s ardent support for Israel.

One blew a shofar, and another shouted, “I am a proud American Jew!” and then “Let Palestinians live!”

Police quickly grabbed the protesters, but their shouts could still be momentarily heard in the Senate hallway.

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said on Tuesday he would defer to the White House on whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or National Security Adviser Michael Waltz should face repercussions over war plans that were texted in a group chat that included a journalist.

“But I think we should be critical,” he said.

“The fact that classified information was put on an unclassified system, I think the secretary of defense needs to answer for that,” Bacon added.

He dismissed the need for an Armed Services committee investigation, simply because the facts were apparent.

Bacon also called the White House’s saying that no war plans were shared “baloney.”

“They ought to just be honest and own up to it,” Bacon said.

Bacon served nearly thirty years on active duty in the U.S. Air Force, specializing in electronic warfare and intelligence.

“My communications to be clear in the Signal message group were entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe told lawmakers during a Senate hearing on global security threats.

Democrats have said the leaked military plans in a Signal group message that included a journalist show a sloppy disregard for security, but Ratcliffe said no rules were violated.

During heated questions from Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said there’s a difference between “inadvertent” releases of information and intentional leaks.

“There was no classified material that was shared,” Gabbard said.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said China has heavily invested in stealth aircraft, hypersonic weapons and nuclear arms and is looking to outcompete the U.S. when it comes to artificial intelligence.

Noting Russia’s large nuclear arsenal, she called the country a “formidable competitor.” She added that while Iran is not currently seeking to build a nuclear weapon, it has become a critical supplier of weapons to Russia.

And North Korea, she said, remains committed to pursuing military capabilities that would allow it to strike U.S. forces in the region or the U.S. homeland.

Gabbard’s remarks came during her testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee during a hearing on worldwide threats to the U.S.

“These actors are in some cases working together in different areas to target U.S. interests,” Gabbard told lawmakers.

Democrats are blasting national security officials in the Trump administration for texting war plans to a group chat that included a reporter, saying it demonstrates sloppy conduct that would often result in firings.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., blasted Pentagon and intelligence officials for engaging in the chat, which he said revealed secret information about U.S. plans to strike Yemen.

Warner, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called the leak “sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior.”

Warner said that if a lower ranking officer had texted similar secret plans, “They would be fired.”

The comments came at the start of a Senate hearing featuring testimony from CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and FBI Director Kash Patel.

The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee has told the leaders of America’s intelligence community that it has become too bureaucratic and political to keep up with emerging national security threats.

“As the world has become more dangerous, our intelligence agencies have gotten more politicized, more bureaucratic, and more focused on promulgating opinions than gathering facts. As a result of these misplaced priorities, we have been caught off guard and left in the dark too often,” Cotton said in his opening statement.

At the hearing, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe are likely to face questions after it emerged that Gabbard, Ratcliffe and other national security officials texted war plans to a group chat that included a reporter.

The Arkansas Republican delivered an opening statement in which he ticked through a litany of challenges facing the United States from a report on worldwide threats.

Cotton asked, “Are our intelligence agencies well-postured facing against these threats? I’m afraid the answer is ‘no,’ at least not yet.”

Cotton said that after years of “drift,” the intelligence community “must recommit” to what he said is its core mission of “collecting clandestine intelligence from adversaries.”

Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat and vice chairman of the committee, called the report “one of the most complicated and challenging” during his 14 years on the panel.

The federal lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in New York by the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers, which represent members of Columbia’s faculty. The groups allege the Trump administration violated free speech laws and federal procedures when it cut $400 million in funding for Columbia over allegations of antisemitism tied to pro-Palestinian protests.

Tolerating that at Columbia risks turning other colleges into “servile arms of the government, advancing only the political preferences of the latest president in order to secure federal funding,” the lawsuit says.

The Education Department did not immediately comment.

Columbia on Friday agreed to several demands from the administration as a condition for restoring its federal funding. It put its Middle East studies department under new supervision and overhauled its rules for protests and student discipline, measures that the suit calls an unprecedented intrusion on the school’s autonomy.

The Atlantic editor-in-chief’s account of being added to a Signal group chat of U.S. national security officials coordinating plans for airstrikes has raised questions about how highly sensitive information is supposed to be handled.

The National Security Council has since said the text chain “appears to be authentic” and that it is looking into how a journalist’s number was added to the chain.

Signal is an app that can be used for direct messaging and group chats as well as phone and video calls.

Signal uses end-to-end encryption for its messaging and calling services that prevents any third-party from viewing conversation content or listening in on calls.

▶ Read more about Signal

In a social media post, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said “war plans” were not discussed and that no classified material was sent to the thread.

She said the counsel’s office has provided guidance on different platforms that Trump’s top officials can use to communicate “safely and efficiently.”

Leavitt reiterated that the National Security Council is looking into how a telephone number for Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief, was added to the thread.

She said U.S. military strikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen were successful, “terrorists were killed and that’s what matters most to President Trump.”

Since plunging during the COVID-19 pandemic, international student enrollment in the U.S. has been rebounding — a relief to American universities that count on their tuition payments. Two months into the new Trump administration, educators fear that could soon change.

Unnerved by efforts to deport students over political views, students from other countries already in the U.S. have felt new pressure to watch what they say.

Educators worry it’s a balancing act that will turn off foreign students. As the U.S. government takes a harder line on immigration, cuts federal research funding and begins policing campus activism, students are left to wonder if they’ll be able to get visas, travel freely, pursue research or even express an opinion.

Some students are waiting to see how policy changes will play out, while others already have deferred admission offers for fall 2025, he said. Student social networks are active, and news about immigration-related developments in America — like a Republican proposal to prevent Chinese students from studying in the U.S. — spreads quickly.

▶ Read more about the impact the Trump administration is having on international students

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas says the news that several top Trump national security officials texted war plans in a group chat that included a journalist on a secure messaging app will come up.

But Cotton said on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” that he’d like to keep the focus on the subject for the hearing, which is threats facing the United States and what the government is doing to counter them.

FBI Director Kash Patel, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, are among the officials set to appear on Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee and Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee.

When Ash Lazarus Orr went to renew his passport in early January, the transgender organizer figured it would be relatively routine.

But more than two months on, Orr is waiting to get a new passport with a name change and a sex designation reflecting who he is. The delay has prevented him from traveling overseas to receive gender-affirming care this month in Ireland since he refuses to get a passport that lists an “inaccurate sex designation.”

Orr blames the delay on President Donald Trump, who on the day he took office issued an executive order banning the use of the “X” marker as well as the changing of gender markers.

“This is preventing me from having an accurate identification and the freedom to move about the country as well as internationally,” said Orr, who is among seven plaintiffs — five transgender Americans and two nonbinary plaintiffs — who have sued the Trump administration in federal court over the policy.

▶ Read more about the lawsuit challenging the policy

Whether to return to the federal workforce is a decision confronting thousands of fired employees after two judges this month found legal problems with how Trump is carrying out a dramatic downsizing of the U.S. government. One ruling by a California federal judge would reinstate 16,000 probationary employees.

On Monday, the Trump administration sought to stop giving fired workers any choice by asking the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the rehiring orders. It was not clear how quickly the nation’s high court could rule on the emergency appeal, which argued that U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, went beyond his legal authority.

Although it is unknown how many federal workers are taking up the offers to return to work, some employees have already decided to move on, fearing more reductions down the road.

Others who were asked to return were immediately put on administrative leave, with full pay and benefits, or offered early retirement. For those who chose to return, some say the decision came down to their dedication to the work and a belief that what they do is important.

▶ Read more about the choice that fired federal workers now face

Trump and Vance are scheduled to have lunch in the White House private dining room at 12:30 p.m. ET, according to the White House. Later, Trump is expected to sign executive orders at 2 p.m. ET.

The Trump administration’s top intelligence officials face Congress for back-to-back hearings this week, their first opportunity since being sworn in to testify about the threats facing the United States and what the government is doing to counter them.

FBI Director Kash Patel, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, are among the witnesses who will appear on Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee and on Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee.

Tuesday’s hearing will take place one day after news broke that several top national security officials in the Trump administration, including Ratcliffe and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, texted war plans for upcoming military strikes in Yemen to a group chat in a secure messaging app that included the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic.

The annual hearings on worldwide threats will offer a glimpse of the Trump administration’s reorienting of priorities, which officials across agencies have described as countering the scourge of fentanyl and fighting violent crime, human trafficking and illegal immigration.

▶ Read more about Tuesday’s briefing

The Trump administration on Monday invoked a “state secrets privilege” and refused to give a federal judge any additional information about the deportation of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador under an 18th-century wartime law — a case that has become a flashpoint amid escalating tension with the federal courts.

The declaration comes as U.S. District Judge James Boasberg weighs whether the government defied his order to turn around planes carrying migrants after he blocked deportations of people alleged to be gang members without due process.

Boasberg, the chief judge of the federal district court in Washington, has asked for details about when the planes landed and who was on board, information that the Trump administration asserts would harm “diplomatic and national security concerns.”

Government attorneys also asked an appeals court on Monday to lift Boasberg’s order and allow deportations to continue, a push that appeared to divide the judges.

▶ Read more about the Trump administration invoking state secrets privilege

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before departing on Marine One en route to New Jersey, Friday, Mar. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

President Donald Trump waves to the media as he walks on the South Lawn of the White House, in Washington, Saturday, March 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)