Having resigned as Jefferson County Solicitor, Black joins the US Army to fight in World War I. Black leaves Birmingham for Army training as wartime Americanism tears the city apart. Black's short military career takes him across the country where he befriends men from all parts of the nation and all walks of life. Although his regiment went to the battlefields of France, Black returned after the war to Birmingham where he survived a deadly strain of influenza. In late 1918, broke and in debt, Black resumes the practice of law.

Even before America's formal declaration of war, rumors circulated in Birmingham that Germans were establishing a network for intrigue and sabotage among Negroes. To evidence their patriotism, black leaders quickly organized a flag-waving rally at the courthouse and pushed enlistment in colored regiments.

Living by the Army rule to "hurry up and wait," the 81st Regiment shipped to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where they drilled and waited for additional orders. At the request of Colonel Littebrandt, Black practiced a little military law at Fort Sill...

"No able-bodied man, rich or poor, has a right to consume without producing. Take heed and go to work. The eye of scrutiny is upon you! Be respectful to the flag . . . And by every means . . . the suppression of disloyalty by either speech or action . . .The Ku Klux Klan is pledged to the enforcement of the above tenets."

Captain Black was in Birmingham to put his own worldly affairs in proper order, in the event he joined his three brothers on the other side of eternity.

Black believed that, to win the war, the country had to conscript not only working men's labor but also wealthy men's riches. "Every penny, every nickel and dollar should be spent unstintingly by those at home until Old Glory waves from the highest peak of the biggest palace in Berlin," Black declared.

"Captain Black has resumed practice and has opened his office on the ninth floor of the First National Bank Building," noted the local newspaper a week before Christmas. Black certainly needed free publicity and the season's goodwill. After twelve years of law practice and public service ... Hugo Black was flat broke.