African-Americans who bravely fought the 54th Massachusetts endured a lot of pain and discrimination before the actual battle started. In the movie Glory, it shows us the struggles of Africans-American soldiers who fought for the Union. During that time of the Civil War, the African-Americans who fought experienced racial discrimination and abuse. Despite the racism and abuse that they had experienced, these soldiers still bravely fought for the Union cause. .
African-American soldiers experienced racism and abuse multiple times. One of the people that we see who mistreated the African-Americans was Colonel James Montgomery. In the movie, Montgomery treated the soldiers unfairly and harshly. The part in the movie when he teaches them how to march, and the soldiers didn't know what's left and what's right. Montgomery made the soldiers feel that they are uneducated. Montgomery also called them names, words such as the "niggers", which is really offensive to describe dark-skinned people. High officials like Montgomery uses their power to abuse these soldiers. In the movie, there was a scene when an African-American soldier was shot by a higher official, when he was trying to hurt the white woman, but this high official didn't react when the soldier hurt the black woman. Another racial discrimination that the soldiers experienced is when they encountered a group of white soldiers and they were insulted and discriminated once again. .
These soldiers endured a lot of pain to gain equality, such as unequal pay and getting the proper equipment for the war. Uniform and shoes were an important gear for the war. In the movie, we see that the African-American soldiers didn't have good shoes and uniform for the battle. If these soldiers were white,the officials will already have extra uniform prepared for them but since they were African-Americans they were discriminated and not given extra shoes.
