Thirty years ago, Albany dedicated a monument for Sgt. Henry Johnson in Washington Park at Willet Street and Madison Avenue.
In 2015, Johnson, an African American World War I hero, was posthumously awarded the nation's highest military honor - the Medal of Honor - in a White House ceremony.
Almost 100 years before, in 1918, Johnson was presented the French Croix de Guerre medal for bravery. It took much longer for him to receive recognition from the U.S. military. He was awarded a Purple Heart, given to those who have been injured or killed in service, in 1996 and the Distinguished Service Cross in 2002.
In his remarks, President Barack Obama acknowledged the oversight: "It's never too late to say thank you."
Obama recounted Johnson's uncommon battlefield bravery. Johnson was part of the first Black unit of the U.S. Army to engage in combat in World War I. As a member of the 369th Infantry Regiment, the Harlem Hellfighters, Johnson was on watch in the Argonne Forest in northeastern France on May 14, 1918, when he fought off a German raid in hand-to-hand combat, killing multiple German soldiers and rescuing a fellow soldier while being severely wounded.
Johnson is "one of the five bravest American soldiers in the war," wrote Theodore Roosevelt Jr. in his book "Rank and File: True Stories of the Great War."
Times Union archive photos reflect the decades-long battle for Johnson to receive full military honors from his country.