Roberts, Needham, 1901-1949

Needham Roberts (April 28, 1901 – April 18, 1949) was an American soldier in the Harlem Hellfighters and recipient of the Purple Heart and the Croix de Guerre for his valor during World War I.

Roberts was born in Trenton, New Jersey and raised on Trenton's Wilson Street. He sometimes spelled his first name as "Neadom", which is how it appears on his grave marker. Roberts graduated from Lincoln Elementary School and attended high school, but dropped out before graduating so he could begin working, first as a hotel bellhop, and later as a clerk in a drugstore. At the start of US involvement in World War I in 1917, the seventeen-year-old Roberts lied about his age so he could enlist in the United States Army, falsely claiming to be eighteen. He made his way to Brooklyn, where he joined the 15th New York National Guard, an all-black regiment known as the Black Rattlers.

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