Although military political policymakers fervently opposed the participation of black Americans in American conflicts, the need for manpower eventually overwhelmed racial biases, though not in practices. Black Americans eagerly volunteered for military service, hoping their sacrifices might lead to political, if not social equality. As Jim Crow policies superseded federal law in the South, black soldiers and civilians faced blatant reminders of their second-class status in the United States. By the turn of the century, however, the beginning of organized resistance by Negro soldiers against Jim Crow erupted in the military. While some historians have mentioned these racially motivated disturbances in narratives of the "old army," the failure of historians to seriously analyze and assess these clashes between black soldiers and Jim Crow policies in 1898 has led to the neglect of an important source of African-American resistance to racial discrimination in the Post Reconstruction era.