This shifting reached its height in the summer of 1917, shortly after the first registration, and resulted in the failure of many men to keep in touch with their local boards, so that questionnaires and notices to report did not reach them.
"With equal unanimity the draft executives report that the amount of willful delinquency or desertion has been almost nil.

Several describe the strenuous efforts of the Negroes to comply with the regulations, when the requirements were explained to them, many registrants travelling long distances to report in person to the adjutant general of the state.

'The conviction resulting from these reports' says General Crowder, 'is that the colored men as a whole responded readily and gladly to their military obligations once their duties were understood." So far as the records show, there were neither "slackers" nor "pacifists" among the Negroes.Hon.Emmett J.Scott, Special Assistant to the Secretary of War, said that the war department had heard of only two colored "conscientious objectors".

When those two were cross-examined it was revealed that they had misinterpreted their motives and that their objections proceeded from a source very remote from their consciences.
Pacifists and conscientious objectors came principally from the class who held religious scruples against war or the taking up of arms.

The law permitted these to enter a special so-called non-combatant classification.
It is a well known fact that Negro religionists are members of the church militant, so they could not be included in the self-declared conscientious pacifistic sects.
Neither was the Negro represented in that class known as draft resisters or draft evaders.