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Theses: how were the African Americans treated differently than white Americans?African Americans benefited greatly from the pension system, but black applicants were not as successful in their hunt for support as were white applicants. In all categories, including veterans, widows, children, and parents, a smaller percentage of blacks won pension benefits than did white applicants. While more than 90 percent of white veterans were able to make at least one successful application, the rate for black veterans was only 75 percent. Black wives and parents, in particular, were much less likely to be successful than were their white counterparts.As with many universal government programs, the groups least able to benefit from the pension system included the poor, the uneducated, and the ill-informed. African Americans were overrepresented in all these categories, so it is not surprising that fewer black veterans applied and fewer were successful. Several practical factors worked against the ex-soldiers. The process of compiling an application for a pension and demonstrating worthiness required an initial expenditure of money and a knowledge of what was available for veterans. The hopeful pensioner had to track down and obtain documents from witnesses who could testify to the soldier's service. The claimant often had to travel to the nearest surgical board established by the Pension Board, in addition to obtaining various legal affidavits, sometimes paying a literate person to fill in all of the paperwork. All of the initial costs could put an application beyond the reach of desperately poor African Americans who might have been eligible for a pension.

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