Dr. Bryon Garner continues his research on Black Veteranality during his year as a Fulbright postdoctoral fellow at the University of Windsor. (Dave Gauthier/University of Windsor)
By Lindsay Charlton
After a nearly 10-year career serving in the United States Navy, scholar Dr. Bryon Garner was left with many questions surrounding race, patriotism and belonging.
“I was working for the federal government, but I had these questions about my experience being a Black person in America and in the military, and I was searching for answers I wasn’t sure how to find,” the historian said.
It was seeking those answers that led Garner to begin his academic journey.
“I wanted to explore what particular things meant to me, and then to the broader community — to other veterans and other Black people in the community,” he said.
Today, Garner is at the University of Windsor as a Fulbright Special Foundation Fellow, where he will be expanding on his work surrounding Black Veteranality.
‘Veteranality’ was first coined by British scholar Dr. Emma Murray while she was researching the experiences of veterans readjusting to life after war and returning home, Garner explained. The term prompted him to consider what that identity meant from the perspective of Black veterans.
“In the United States, for the first 87 years of the country, leading up to the Civil War, Black people were not citizens. Yet in every instance there was a call to arms, Black bodies were serving in the military,” Garner said.
“I didn’t feel as though we had a framework that was going to allow us to look more deeply into the motivations for why, for example, someone would serve in a polity, whether it’s the United States or Canada, without enjoying the full benefits of what that service means.”
His book, Black Veteranality: Military Service and the Illusion of Inclusive Patriotism, explores the intersection of these and other experiences through personal narrative, historical analysis and accounts from veterans.
The book offers historians a framework for taking a closer look at the experiences of Black veterans and understanding the tension of what it means to be part of something while not fully belonging to it.
“What are our claims on belonging, recognition and care as a result of that?” he asks. “These are things we have an opportunity to take a closer look at with this framework of Black Veteranality.”
Exploring one question often begets many others, which is what brought Garner to the University of Windsor.
“There’s a very rich history of military service and Black military service in the Windsor-Detroit region,” he said.
“Interesting stories and interesting questions to investigate, which is why I’m happy to be here doing this research and meeting the community.”
Garner, who is a resident of the United States, will spend a year at the University of Windsor for the Fulbright fellowship, conducting research and receiving training from professors in the history department.
Garner has waded into local history over his first two months on campus. He’s connected with members of the community, including Amherstburg Freedom Museum curator Irene Moore Davis and Leddy Library archivist Antoinette Seymour, who have helped him start exploring the region’s history.
“Since I’ve been here, something I’ve come across is the story of freedom seekers who arrived here in Canada and in Windsor-Essex, but they went back and joined the Union Army,” Garner shared. “That’s a very interesting phenomenon I’ll be looking into.”
He pointed to other stories he’s come across, finding that during the First World War, there were Americans who joined the No. 2 Construction Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) — the first all-Black battalion-sized unit in Canadian military history — while Black Canadians went to the United States and served during the Vietnam War.
“That changes the story about what we know about these wars and what the experience meant — what loyalty, community and what I focus on is just the idea of patriotism,” he said.
Some of this information, Garner says, he wouldn’t have encountered doing his research back home, or at least not in the way it’s been presented now.
“Which is why this is such a great opportunity — there will be a lot of scholarly writing for me to do on the other side,” Garner said.
“This is what the Fulbright experience is supposed to be about. It’s creating a scholarly academic network while allowing my work to grow as well. I am grateful that Dr. Shanthi Johnson and Dr. Robert Nelson advocated for me and helped facilitate my being here.”
The idea of shifting perspective and looking deeper into things we think we know is a driving force behind much of Garner’s research.
“We think we know about Black military service, about patriotism, about national belonging and claims to Canadian or American identity — let’s take a different look and ask some more questions,” he said.
For Garner, the four strongest words in the English language are: “I could be wrong.”
“I could be wrong keeps us all in a very humble space, it keeps us, most importantly, in the space of learning,” he said. “Being on this academic journey, being in higher education, it’s all about lifelong learning. I am a huge proponent of that.”
Garner will share his insights during a presentation Tuesday, Nov. 17, in the conference room at Chrysler Hall North. He is also scheduled to speak at the Essex County Black Historical Research Society Thursday, Nov. 19.
To learn more about Garner’s work, visit his website, podcast The Paradox and Substack.