Selects: Who were the Buffalo Soldiers?

Josh and Chuck dive into history in this classic episode to tell the story of the Buffalo Soldiers.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, happy, Saturday's Chuck here with a Saturday Select
Select shun. Yeah, that works. This week, I'm going to
go with who Were the Buffalo Soldiers? This from January
twenty twenty, and I love my history episodes that we do,
and this is one that I really enjoyed doing because

(00:21):
we dug in didn't know anything about this topic, and
those are always my favorite when I go and kind
of blind and learn a lot. So check it out
Who Were the Buffalo Soldiers? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Charles w Action, Jackson Bryant, right, sure, and then there's
Jerry over there, the flash that makes this stuff you
should know.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
That's right. If there's a one thing people say to
me is how much I'm like Carl Weathers. Sure, and
how speedy Jerry is.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Why do I want to say that Carl Weathers had
one arm in Action Jackson?

Speaker 1 (01:15):
I don't think that was a case.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Has he ever had one arm in any of his Oh?
I think his arm gets pulled off in Predator? Okay,
I'm conflating the two.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
It sounds about right, I saw Predator, but just once,
like you know, when it came out.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
I saw it within the last twelve months. Oh yeah,
I think it's even better now as it grown up.
Oh yeah, yeah, Okay, I can really feel the tension
like you're in the jungle there with everybody. It's amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Have you been singing the Buffalo Soldier song like constantly
in your head.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Despite my best efforts, I can't stop.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Well, I looked up the lyrics because I was just
you know, I know some of them, but I wanted
to kind of see where exactly he was probably talking
about the soldiers. Yeah, and there were some kind of
on the those references. Sure you mentioned san Juan, mentioned
San Juan.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
What else?

Speaker 1 (02:04):
You know? Fighting for America, fighting on arrival, fighting for survival.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
I always got it wrong though. I thought he said
dreadlock rock Star.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
No, he says dreadlock Rosta.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
I know I've learned that today.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
I did Lock rock Star.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
I've been seeing well. I thought he was talking about himself.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
That's hilarious.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
I was singing it wrong. I mean he was singing
about himself.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
No, he's singing about the Buffalo Soldiers.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
They weren't rostas I.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Guess some of them could have been. Maybe we'll find out.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Anyway, I've been singing for forty years. Dreadlock rock star.
That's pretty great, like a dumb dumb.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Oh, that's all right, it's pretty close, man, And it
still makes sense. The ones that don't make sense are
the hilarious ones.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
That just seems like a very like, I don't know,
nineteen ninety one white college kid thing to sing.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Dread like rock star, Yeah, dread lock frock. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
When you first start listening to Bob Marley.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Uh huh, okay, you're ready, I'm ready. So we're talking
Buffalo Soldiers, and it is not just about Marley song.
It's if anything, the Bob Marley song is kind of
like a historic history lesson, which is kind of interesting
a bit. But the Buffalo Soldiers was the name of
some all black regiments and then eventually all black soldiers

(03:17):
in the United States fighting in the United States military.
That's right, from right after the Civil War all the
way up until I think nineteen fifty one, when the
last all black regiment was disbanded in the military, was
in practice desegregated.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yeah, but when did you say that happened?

Speaker 2 (03:35):
I think nineteen fifty one.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Okay, but they did not take on that name till
post Civil War.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Right, and at first it wasn't a name that they
took on themselves. It was a name that was given
to them. There's a lot of dispute over where it
came from, who's the first to use it, that kind
of stuff. But it's a really interesting history, and it's
not just an interesting like military history. There's a lot
of like terrible tragic irony involved. There's this kind of

(04:05):
overarching theme where you can make a case that the
Buffalo Soldiers are the ones who actually paved the way
for desegregation throughout the entire United States. You can trace
a direct line from their service to desegregation. It's pretty
pretty amazing stuff. And yet there's still this kind of
cloud that hangs over them historically because of one of

(04:28):
the things that they participated in, which was the genocide
of Native Americans at the behest of the white US government.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Right, because they were trying to earn a place in
white America and gain some status and prestige.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
And white America was like, we want you to do
something for us first.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
And we'll still probably not grant you that respect.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah, which is kind of par for the course from
what I understand as far as military service and being
black in America goes. In the Battle of New Orleans,
the Black Phalanx, this black regiment ended up.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Pretty cool name.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, it really is. They ended up basically winning the
battle against the British at the Battle of New Orleans,
which actually came ironically after the end of the War
of eighteen twelve, but it was still a decisive battle
and they had been mustered a lot of them from
local plantations by Andrew Jackson, and Jackson had promised them

(05:28):
their freedom if they came and fought and won. And
they came and fought and won, and Jackson said, yes, sorry,
you have to go back to your plantations. I was lying, yeah,
that's not a surprise. Yeah, but imagine that. And that
was not the first time that that had happened to him.
That was pretty much par for the course. While they
were enslaved, they would be promised freedom for fighting and

(05:49):
then no, after the fact, that's just it's not going
to happen.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah. And you know, like we said, the Buffalo soldiers
post Civil War were and we'll get to like their
formal designation and their regiments and stuff like that. But
there had been individuals enlisted in all the way back
to the Revolutionary War. There were you know, black individuals
that would go and fight, but they just weren't grouped

(06:15):
in their own regiments. The first one was the Black
Regiment in Rhode Island, I think, yeah, in the Revolutionary War.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Didn't we talk about them in a short stuff about
the Black Revolutionary War Fighters and they moved up to
Nova Scotia. We definitely did, did we.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
So the Grabster put this a lot of this together
for us, which was a big help. And it's important
to look at what was going on after the Civil
War and this unique set of circumstances that created that
kind of led to these regiments being formed. Yeah, which
was about twelve thousand maybe a little bit more black

(06:55):
veteran soldiers from the Civil War all of a sudden
needed jobs and they were soldiers at this point, so
they were like, you know, I'll keep doing this, this
could be my career. Like give us a job in
reconstruction in the South, they needed federal troops.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
They needed white federal troops.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Well, yeah, it was probably not a good idea to
send black troops to oversee reconstruction, so.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
To occupy the South, can you imagine?

Speaker 1 (07:22):
No, it would not have been oh my god. So
they sent white troops, of course, but that created a
vacuum elsewhere where they could use and utilize these black troops.
There were four million slaves that were now free and
ed hazard a guests that you know, let's say a million,
one and a half million of these were adult males
that were ready to go and serve and fight if

(07:43):
need be. And then we were going west, and we
knew that there were Native Americans out there that were
not going to go easily. There was Mexico looming on
the horizon as potential conflict. And because they were sending
white soldiers to the South, they needed people to go
out west and kind of, you know, keep the peace

(08:04):
in a way and take care of business in another way.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Or to remove Native Americans forcibly from their ancestral lands.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
So on July twenty eight, eighteen sixty six, Congress did
something really surprising. They said, we've got all these kind
of expansionist ideas. We've got the South that we need
to occupy. We need a bigger army. We're going to
raise a huge peacetime army. And not only that, we're
going to form some all black regiments. We're going to

(08:32):
let black people enlist for the first time ever as
peacetime soldiers.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah, and partially because they just needed people, and partially
because they thought these black veterans that fought in the
Civil War for the Union, they should be rewarded with
jobs exactly.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
So for the first time, the federal government didn't renege
on the offer of something better after having served and
fought as a soldier. So there's a big deal in
just having allowing soldiers black soldiers to enlist during peacetime. Yeah,
But the fact that they could enlistment that they could
become officers as well, which meant West Point was open

(09:12):
to black soldiers for the first.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
Time, which was a huge deal in eighteen So in
eighteen sixty six is when they expanded the army. Just
a few years later they wanted to shrink the army
a little bit, so they consolidated a bunch of regiments
down to twenty five and the original I think it
was six four infantry and two cavalry were now shrunk

(09:39):
down and combined into the ninth cavalry, the tenth Cavalry.
I'm saying both cavalry and cavalry.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Sure, just covering all your bases.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
Even though only one of them is correct in this cavalry,
the twenty fourth Infantry in the twenty fifth Infantry, right.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
And the fact that they survived this downsizing of the
army because Congress went, we need a big army. That's
too big, let's get rid of some soldiers. The fact
that all black regiments survived is really miraculous because in
that downsizing decree a few years later, it wasn't included
like and we still needed to keep black regiments intact, right,

(10:18):
And William T. Cumps to Sherman was no great friend
to the black man by any stretch of the imagination.
And he was in charge of downsizing these troops. And
yet he knew enough that there was still congress people,
congressmen in Congress who had created the black regiments in
the first place. They would not be very happy if
he just dissolved them, so he kept him intact and

(10:39):
actually just went from six to four.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah. And it's interesting because it was peacetime, you know,
during wartime, especially back then, it was really pretty easy
to get people to sign up and volunteer and fight
for whatever side they were on. But in peacetime they
found that they could get the cream of the crop
of black soldiers because they didn't have as much opportunity,

(11:01):
so they could really be picky and get these really
like super capable fighters, whereas on the other side during
peacetime it was harder to get white soldiers that were
as capable because they had much more opportunities to do
other things beyond like, hey, I got nothing going on,
let's sign it for the army.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
Right exactly. And in the army too, there's a lot
of mythologizing about, you know, how the black regiments were treated.
It related to white regiments as well, and it seems
like some historians have shown if you trace the supply lines,
the black regiments got the same shoddy and then increasingly

(11:38):
better supplies as the white regiments at the same time.
And in the army, you had just opportunities that just
weren't afforded to you outside, like the opportunity to make money,
you know, and to have savings and a pension, things
that you could you could kind of bank on a
future with that that was just not part of the

(12:00):
black experience of black men back then, right, you know, I.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Think that's a very robust set up and more.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
Oh oh, we're still doing setup.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
No, let's be on, like that's why I said and more. Okay,
But I think what I'm trying to say is it's
a great time for a break. Okay, Yeah, yeah, all right,
We'll be right back and we'll talk a little bit
about how this name came to be right after this.

(12:44):
So there's a lot in here about how this name
came to be, right, But I think we candense it.
We can condense it to just a couple of versions,
one of which was that the name may have come
from the Native a mayor Pricans as sort of an honor,
like they're brave and they fight, They're like fierce, like

(13:06):
the buffalo.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
And like Sasha fierce.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
I don't know what that is.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
That's like Beyonce's weird alias. Really, why do stars, when
you get to this enormous, huge point, decide to create
an alter ego that's always not good? Chris Gaines, Yes,
learn the lesson from Chris Gaines.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, who else has done that?

Speaker 2 (13:26):
It doesn't matter Chris Ganes.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Some of them Ziggy Stardus certainly worked. Captain Fantastic worked fine.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
Chris Gaines negates all those.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
No, I agree, Okay, I didn't know that. Beyonce very
short lived? Really and what was the persona? Was it?

Speaker 2 (13:43):
Really? I guess she was fierce. I don't know. I
just heard her name a couple of times.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Beyonce's fierce though, right right.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
You don't need an alter ego Beyonce. You're fierce enough.
You don't want to go too much fiercer.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
You should be her manager. I should, you know all
the right moves, so that that is. One of the
stories was that it was honor, a name of honor
from the Native Americans. But this to me sounds like
it might have been just something kind of cooked up
in history.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Books, or it just kind of converted into that. Maybe
the Smithsonian Museum of African American History says, yeah, that
stands as popular lore. That's one example. Another is, basically
there's two competing ones, and that is that the Native
Americans did give this name to the black soldiers, but
that they were referring to the wooliness of the black

(14:33):
soldier's hair compared to white soldier's hair, and that if
you look between the horns of a buffalo, that kind
of like to pay almost that the buffalo is wearing
bears of vague resemblance to it, And that's where it
initially came from.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, And there's like direct evidence from letters and stuff
of the time of this, whether or not it was
true or not, it was at least down in print
as being the reason. Yeah, but we don't know for sure,
and we don't know for sure how they felt about
the name, other than it seems like as time went
on they kind of embraced the name as a designation.

(15:10):
And in one case there was one troop that did
use a bison on a patch on their uniform, but
then bison were used on other patches on uniforms of
white soldiers too.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
I think it was strictly Black regiments, oh really, just
later ones that weren't the ninth, tenth, twenty fourth, or
twenty fifth. Oh gotcha, that was my interpretation, Okay, But yeah,
by the time I think nineteen eleven is when that
first patch appears, So by the time nineteen eleven rolls around,
the Black regiments had totally like taken on buffalo soldier

(15:40):
as a name of honor.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
Yeah, and Ed points out, and I think it's fair.
It's easy now in twenty twenty to look back at
two ethnic groups that were kept under the thumb of
the white man and say that, oh, you know, the
Native Americans respected them as fierce fighters, and the black
soulis respected the Native Americans. But that's probably retroactive revision

(16:07):
is history, because you know, there were plenty of cases
where the Buffalo soldiers referred to them as you know, savages,
and one case of one soldier, you know, going as
a costume party dressed up in I guess what you
would call red face. Oh yeah, and so yeah, it
seems like that's sort of cooked up these days, like

(16:28):
they really had much respect for one another during their battles.
But I don't know if that's the case.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
No, but you can understand how that would how people
would want to do that, sure, you know, because I
mean the sending African American soldiers out to remove Native
Americans from their land with violence. Yeah, at the behest
of white people.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
It's not a good story.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
No, it's a terrible story.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah. It takes a bad story makes it worse.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
And then at the same time, there's a real silver
lying to it. There's that good story that like black
soldiers served as heroes for the black community in America
as a whole at a time when they really needed
some black heroes, you know, the Jim Crow South was
really starting to solidify. So it's not like an all

(17:16):
bad story, but it's definitely not an all good story either.
So people want like a nice story book ending for sure,
which is surely where that came from.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah, I think so. So should we talk a little
bit about what they did, Yeah, we should service record.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah. When they were first assembled in I think that
late to mid eighteen sixties, they were almost immediately moved
out to the frontier Kansas and Texas, New Mexico, pushing
further and further west as their work was increasingly successful.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah, and usually under the command of white officers. It
was not looked at as some great assignment. If you
were a white officer to west and command one of
the Buffalo Soldier regiments.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
Yeah, it would have been like being stationed in Alaska
or something like that. Alaska's great, although some white commanding
officers did rise to the occasion.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, and had a lot of great things to say
about the soldiers too.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
For sure, some of them definitely did not rise to
the occasion and actually went the other way, right, you know.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, and you mentioned West Point. This was a huge
deal because, like you said, now, these young men could
go attend West Point and come out officers upon entry
into the army. There were quite a few cases. One
was a man named Henry Flipper. He was the first
black graduate of West Point in eighteen seventy seven, came

(18:43):
out as second lieutenant in the tenth Cavalry and was
basically set up with a court martial. There was a
case where there was some He was put in charge
of a quartermaster safe to guard it basically and take
charge of it. Money comes missing, he kind of freaks
out and lies about it. It's kind of all evidence

(19:05):
pointing to the fact that he didn't take the money,
but he did lie about how did he went?

Speaker 2 (19:10):
What did he lie about?

Speaker 1 (19:11):
Then?

Speaker 2 (19:12):
I couldn't find.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
That the initial money was missing at all. Maybe I'm
not really sure, but it looks like it was a setup.
He was acquitted of the main charge even back then,
and was found guilty of an added charge of conduct
unbecoming of an officer. The lying part right and was
dismissed from the army, which even back then was an
overblown sentence compared to the similar charges of white officers.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
Right and the army at the time. He could have
gotten his discharge changed to a honorable discharge, but the
Army apparently didn't have any procedure to do that, so
it was up to the commander in chief, Chester A.
Arthur to decide yeah or nay, and he just he
just let it pass by, right. But he so, lieutenant

(19:55):
was he a lieutenant?

Speaker 1 (19:56):
Second lieutenant?

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Second lieutenant Flipper went to his grave saying that he
was innocent. And in the nineties, I think nineteen ninety eight,
Bill Clinton finally pardoned him. Billy boy, he did, and
Clinton that ghoul ordered him exhumed and reburied with full
military honors. Oh interesting, But they suspect that Clinton just

(20:18):
wanted to see what the body looked like. Come on,
he said, let's do this, right, Yeah, he probably did
say that.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
So there are another couple of cases, John Hanks, Alexander
and Charles Young. They were West Point grads early on
they went on to lead these regiments. And that's not
to say that at West Point it was smooth Salin
of course, you know, they had a very hard time
there and still persevered extraordinarily.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
It points out that in the Tuskegee Airman Episode two,
I think we talked about how those guys who went
through West Point had or the military academies had just
an awful time of it too.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah, I mean that happened. I mean it probably still
happens to some degree, sure, But I mean I read
The Lords of Discipline. I did too, and saw the movie.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
I don't know if I saw the movie or not.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
And that was what year was that set? That was?

Speaker 2 (21:14):
It's probably sixties, wasn't I don't remember. What was the
problem with that guy? He just was soft or something,
wouldn't it He like was h he had feelings, you.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
Know, I don't remember. I haven't seen it in a
long time. Yeah, but that was the Citadel, not West Point.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Which is Navy, I think, right, Air Force Marines.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
What the citadel is?

Speaker 2 (21:39):
National Guard?

Speaker 1 (21:40):
No, cub Scouts, Yes, it was cub Scouts, Citadel famous
cub Scout. So these regiments had about a thousand troops
and officers, but they were constantly under supplied, and like
you said earlier, there's no evidence that they were intentionally undersupplied.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
No, but it's a myth that they were.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, but kind of everyone out west was because it
takes a long time to get stuff out there, and
a lot of those old Civil War weapons and equipment
were pretty shoddy anyway. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Plus, I mean it's not really easy to come by
water in the New Mexico Desert. Sure, you're fighting the
Cheyenne or the Apache, like, so you have horses that
need water too, because you're a cavalry unit and the
horses were breaking down. Was a really bad time as
they were moving further and further west. Because we tend
to think of the United States military like in the

(22:36):
terms of today, this just incredibly well oiled, logistical juggernaut. Sure,
that was not the case after the Civil War. As
a matter of fact, until I believe the Spanish American War,
the United States military was looked upon internationally is kind
of like a not the best around. Oh yeah, certainly
not the best equipped the logistics. We didn't have that

(22:59):
kind of stuff down.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
You didn't hear it from me, but right exactly.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
But and this is you know, the army that these
guys were enlisted in. Yeah, so they were dealing with
an army that was not was finding its feet, and
then also on the frontier of the United States at
a time when they're protecting the people building the railroads.
So there's not even the railroads out there yet. One

(23:25):
of their jobs was to protect railroad workers, mail carriers,
people who were on trattle drives. Yeah, these were the
jobs they were tasked with.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
Well, they were also fighting, like we said, in what
was known as the Indian Wars, including some of the
some of the big ones.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
I think we need to do a big old episode
on the Indian Wars.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, let's do it. Wounded Knee, the White River War.
I'd never heard of that one.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
I looked it up. The war is not a term
for most of these. It should be a massacred. No,
it should be straight up massacres.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Well, here's the other thing too, this is really easy
for guys like us to do, especially in retrospect, is
what's called like mythologizing the noble savage, right where where
we kind of make it seem like the Indians were
just the people who, you know, kind of meekly accepted
their fate and were just rolled over by the US government.

(24:22):
Through this westward expansion. That's not the case. In almost
every case, the further west we got, the fearce of
the fighting got. They pushed back. For sure. They engaged
in massacres that included killing women and children and non combatants.
Both sides did. So it's not like the Native Americans
were just innocent of bloodshed. But it's important to remember

(24:47):
that they were defending their lands from invaders. They were
the insurgents in that so there's like a certain amount
of moral higher ground that they're afforded just for in
that position, right, you know, oh, for sure. But it's
just that's the thing. That's why I've always been fascinated
about history. It is like it's never just you know,

(25:09):
black and white.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yeah, there's so much nuance. Yeah, that gets overlooked, especially
if you were raised in like, you know, public schools
in America.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Exactly, not a lot of nuance going on, right, and
white people swooped in and everything was great, exactly.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
So by the eighteen nineties, the Indian Wars ended, the
reservations popped up, or they were just flat out massacred
like you said, or imprisoned. And this is when the
Buffalo soldiers started taking part in some of the land
disputes out west with white settlers. Yeah, the removal of
the Sooners in Oklahoma.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
That's huge. It is huge because all of a sudden,
black regiments show up and they're like, you might be white,
but you need to get out of here because you
didn't follow the rules.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
That's a huge change from a decade or so before
when like those people would have been enslaved in the South. Right,
it's a big deal.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
What else you mentioned San Juan from the Bob Marley song.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Yeah, that was when they entered the national stage for
the first time.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah, fighting in Cuba in Puerto Rico.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
Yeah, it's very confusing. They fought at the Battle of
San Juan Hill in Cuba and the Battle for San
Juan in Puerto Rico. That's right under the tenth Regiment,
under the command of a guy named General John Pershing, Yes,
who you might be familiar with, is known as black
Jack Pershing, the famous World War One general.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
Yeah, I had heard, I knew, I'd heard of him.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
He was named Blackjack because he was in command of
the black regiments, the tenth Cavalry.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
And I mean, I think in the First World War
he was a little less willing to stand up and
like advocate for them. But by the time World War
Two came around, he was okay.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
So I didn't hear about the World War two part.
But that was a pretty big betrayal in World War
One because he led the tenth Cavalry up San Juan
Hill in Cuba, along with the rough Riders, along with
white infantry. This battle was one of the first ones
right before the turn of the twentieth century where there

(27:08):
were if you were standing back, like looking at this battle,
there's black guys, there's white guys, there's black guys on horses,
there's Spanish people coming down here, like there's all these people,
but the black soldiers and the white soldiers were intermingling,
fighting together, side by side. Yeah, and they won. And
Teddy Roosevelt said it was all me. I won the

(27:29):
Battle of Cuba San Juan in Cuba. But historians say, actually, no,
these black regiments, specifically the tenth Cavalry, really won this
battle in the Spanish American War done in Cuba, and
it was huge. It put the Buffalo soldiers on the
map for really the first time ever in the American
popular consciousness and like black families around America, Like you

(27:55):
could go into their dining room and there'd be a
print of like a painting of the Battle of San
Juan with the buffalo storming the hill. Like one historian
put it that they were there that generation's Jackie Robinson
and Joe Lewis, like they were the heroes. Like I
was saying, they were the heroes at a time when
Jim Crow laws were really coming into into force. I'd

(28:15):
a really really bleak time for black America. All of
a sudden, there's these buffalo soldiers that basically helped win
the Spanish American War, fighting alongside white soldiers too and
being equal in that respect.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
And that's why you'll see all those statues right next
to Teddy Roosevelt exactly exactly. And you know what, I
may have made up that part about General Pershing advocating
more of World War two, now that I think about it.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
Oh, well, that was I didn't get to the betrayal thing, chuck.
So when World War One rolled around, he was in
charge of I think basically everybody in Europe, and he
turned his back on his black regiment and all black
soldiers and basically said, no, you guys fight in your
own regiment, so I don't want you fighting side by side.
But the French were like, hey, come fight with us,

(29:02):
we'll command you.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
And that happened.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
That reminded me. The French were also the first ones
to recognize officially the native American code talkers, even before
the United States did.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
Oh I remember that.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
And they also used black aviators in World War One too.
So up with the French historically speaking, right, there's a teachhert.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
They gave us those fries, sure, and that bread you.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
Mean freedom fries?

Speaker 1 (29:27):
Uh huh, freedom bread.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
I feel like I'm talking a lot.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Oh yeah, am I? I mean no more than usual?

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Okay, freedom bread.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
So in World War Two, the Buffalo Soldier units were
used a lot a lot of times, though they were
not on the front lines. They were stuck to administrative
and support duties. But they did join in combat here
and there and on both the theaters and the war mostly
toward toward the end of World War Two. But it

(29:58):
was you know, a lot of the US A lot
of the good that you see coming out of what
the Buffalo Soldiers did was foundation work and groundwork for
desegregating the military, for showing that these guys are just
the same as white soldiers. They're just as capable, they
fight just as bravely, and it really kind of laid

(30:19):
that groundwork for the desegregation after the war.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
Yes, like a direct line for it. It's weird, but
they basically a way to put it is that white
America said, okay, all right, if you will, we'll give
you a shot. You go out and serve in battle,
and let's see what you what you can do, and
then maybe we'll see what we'll see from there. And

(30:44):
just by being given that one opportunity to show that
they could do things that were presumed they couldn't, like
act bravely and fight and be a good soldier, that
was like, you know, good at being a soldier. They
proved that all of these myths about how black people
couldn't do these things were wrong. And that kind of

(31:06):
thing opens up some people's eyes to Okay, well, what
else do I think about black people that are wrong?
And it's weird to think about because.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
On a.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
On a social level, that that's what it takes, that
people's minds can be changed like that. But historically speaking
in retrospect, like that's how it happens. Yeah, you know,
like one prejudice is tested and then all of a sudden,
other prejudices start falling slowly. Yeah, kind of kind of
falling over like dominoes, totally, very very slowly though.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
Yeah. Unfortunately, like dominoes, you can only picture falling fast.
I know, do that in slow mo.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
It's almost a terrible analogy almost.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
So it's crazy to think. But even though desegregation happened
long before this, it takes a while for that to
fully happen, right, And they were buffalo so nits in
the Korean War, all black units in the Korean War.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
There was but it was nineteen forty eight I think
that Truman signed this act desegregating the military.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
Yeah, and I think it was. It took three more years.
Nineteen fifty one was when the final final one was disbanded,
the twenty seventh.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Right. But that's why I was saying you could trace
a direct line of desegregation from the military, because that
was the first chance that Black America had to show
that it could be treated equally and that it could
act equally. And they showed that and it led to
desegregation in the military. And then three years after the
actual in practice desegregation of military regiments, there was the

(32:43):
Brown Versus Board of Education ruling, which not in practice
but in theory desegregated schools. So it went army schools,
and then eventually socially it just kept going. Yeah, but
it was because of the Buffalo soldiers in their service directly, undisputedly.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Oh yeah, I mean it's crazy to think as late
as the Korean War, though some of those units were
still fighting. Yeah, it is because when I think of match,
it doesn't feel modern, but it doesn't feel like Buffalo
soldier territory.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Right, Yeah, the Buffalo soldiers you think of like nineteenth
century American westeen fifties Korea.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
No, you don't think of Hawkeye and his gin. Still.
I guess there was one black character on mash with
a very unfortunate name, but we won't talk about that.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
I'm not familiar. No good, I don't remember.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
All right, Well, I think we should take a break
and come back and talk about what is to me
one of the cooler aspects of this whole story.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
The Bob Marley song.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
No, We'll be right back, all right, We're back, and

(34:06):
we're going to talk about what I think is one
of the coolest little parts here of this whole story,
which I never knew. If you've ever been to Sequoia
National Park or Yosemite National Park or some other national
parks out west and you're hiking a trail or driving
down a road, you might have the Buffalo Soldiers to

(34:27):
thank for that trail in those roads. Yeah, and it's
one of their highlight achievements to me is once we
establish the national parks, Teddy Roosevelt again, build statues of him. Right,
you had to enforce this stuff because this was the
first time we were like, wait a minute, this is
protected land. Can't just come in here and take the

(34:48):
timber or hunt, you know, the animals, Like, there are
rules now.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
You set up like you set aside grazing land, you
set aside national parks. Libertarians they take issue with that
kind of thing, and you need to have Buffalo soldiers
to fight them off.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
That's right. So from eighteen ninety one to nineteen thirteen,
about twenty five years or so, these some of these
black regiments were essentially the first park rangers. Yeah, they
didn't have that name at the time, but they kept
the poachers at bay and stopped the illegal grazing and
the timber thieves. They fought wildfires.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Yeah, I didn't get a chance to really look into this,
but I wonder what nineteen thirteen wildfire fighting was. Like,
I'll bet it was real dicey bucket brigade stuff, right,
Like twenty twenty firefighting is dicey wildfire fighting. But one
hundred years ago, man, I'll bet it was.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
I can't imagine. Good Lord, But like I said, with
the trails and stuff, a lot of some of the
more significant trails and roads. Some of the buildings, yeah,
some of the older cabins, they were built and constructed
by Buffalo soldiers, which is just super cool.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
Yeah. So if you find a building in Yosemite or
Sequoia National Parks that's.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
From eighteen ninety one to nineteen thirteen, yes.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Then it was probably built by Buffalo soldiers or.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
Hiking a trail.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, this is all just super cool. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
They also rode bicycles around the place too, which is
kind of neat.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
Yeah, so Chuck the last Buffalo soldier, and I mean,
like original Buffalo soldier Mark Matthews. He died on September six,
two thousand and five. He was interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
He was one hundred and eleven years old, and he
actually fought under General Pershing in the tenth Cavalry on

(36:33):
the hunt for Pancho Villa.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
Oh yeah, yeah, I think I don't know if we
mentioned that. How many medals of honor were there? Twenty three?

Speaker 2 (36:41):
I saw twenty three. The National Museum of African American
History says eighteen. I'm gonna go with them, all right,
somewhere between eighteen and twenty three, let's say that.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
Yeah, So you know, the I guess the moral of
the story is that they did provide this direct line
to desegregation, not only through the army, but, like you're saying,
all through America. But sadly, a lot of them did
exit the military. Some of them did have a little
higher status and a leg to stand on, many of

(37:12):
them didn't. There was a study of lynchings in the
US that found that black military veterans were targeted and
lynched more than non veteran black people, with the idea
that it was a real threat in the racist white
South for a black man to leave the army with
some rank and some status and feeling good guns, feeling

(37:34):
good about himselves.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
Don't forget the Tulsa massacre episode. It was the World
War One bets who are like, uh no, we're gonna
go defend this boy from being lynched, right with guns.
They showed up with guns. I think there. I remember
in The Black Panther episode two, they traced a direct
line of this, this sense of like you need to

(37:56):
defend yourself and protect yourself with firearms. They traced that
directly to World War One veteran. Oh yeah, yeah, so
there is a terrible logic to that, I guess.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
Yeah, for sure. There was also a terrible senator and
governor of Mississippi named James Vardeman who was just straight
up white supremacist. Like, no matter how you slice it.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
You could have just said senator from Mississippi in nineteen seventeen. Ah.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Sure, he spoke to the US Senate and he really
kind of crystallizes how they felt about black veterans in
nineteen seventeen on the Senate floor, he said, once you
impress the Negro with the fact that he is defending
the flag and inflate his untortured soul with military airs,
his political rights must be respected, and he wasn't saying

(38:49):
like and that's.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
Great, Yeah, so let's respect that.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
Yeah, this was a warning basically.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Right, and he was over looked. They didn't listen to him. No, ultimately,
because they did continue having black soldiers as soldiers and
eventually desegregated, which led to desegregation in America, which is
pretty great.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
That's right. I would love to hear from some current
African American military personnel because I want to know what
the current sort of temperature is as an active service person.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Oh, what the racism's like in the military. Yeah, sure, I'm.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
Sure you know that there'll be different versions of that
story depending on who you're in contact with and what
your particular like platoon is like.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah. I wonder though, because the military is like some
kind of weird similacrum of American society it is, I
wonder if it's more racist or less racist. I think
there's a chance you could go either way.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
I mean, my guess is less, you know, like I said,
my brother in law before, and as a marine and
pretty high up you could say, and every time I've
been on these marine bases a lot, and it all
seems like they're all sort of you know, got that thinking,
that group think going on, like we're just marines, like

(40:14):
none of us are a color, we're green.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Well, i've seen full metal Jacket, right, and there are
a lot of racist stuff in there.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
No, I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Okay, yeah, could go either way, It could go either way.
I would like to hear that as well. I'd also
like to hear from any Native American listeners to know
what they were taught about Buffalo soldiers too, what was
pressed down within the different tribes. Yeah, because they contacted
all sorts of different tribes, from the Lakota Sioux up
in the north down to the Apaches in New Mexico

(40:45):
and Mexico.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah, yeah, beaches everyone. Yeah, we'll read them on listener now.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
If you want to know more about Buffalo soldiers, there's
a lot of really great stuff to read. And you
can't really go wrong with a guy named Frank Schubert,
who is a scholar of them of Buffalo soldiers, and
he's got a lot of articles on the web and
I believe some books too. And since I said Frank Schubert,
it's time for listener mail.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
Oh no, it's not. Oh that's right, you know, what
it's time for Hit him Chuck. It is time for
administrative details. So we haven't done this in a little while.
If you're new to the show, administrative details is where
we take a couple of minutes. We're going to do
this on this episode. In the next you got that

(41:33):
straight to read out some thank yous, Tell him Chuck
for some of the kindnesses that people throw our way,
whether they be physical totems like what T shirts and
buttons and two confectioneries like cookies and pastries and Jesus,
I like that. What I did not do on this one,

(41:53):
and I feel bad because you probably did, is write
down all the names of all the postcards and letters.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
I wrote down the ones that I yeah, I think
I've got basically everybody, and we should say we almost
always miss somebody, yeah or a few. So if we
don't say your name and you have not been thanked
on a previous administrative detail, please get in touch with
us so we can correct that.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
That's right, And if you have a letter or a
postcard that is on my desk, I'll include those in
the next batch because now I feel bad.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
Bam.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
All right, let's go through these.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
Oh and There's also some people who I don't have
names for, but we do have the items, so you
can also write in and be like that was me.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
For example, the very nice person who gave us almond
cookies and whiskey cake at our Orlando show, our live
show in Orlando. Don't remember or don't have the name
of who gave us that, but thank you for him.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
Katie from Davis, California. Send us some cool little notebooks.
They were little notebooks like schemes. Was like the title
of one of them, oh right, where you can write
down schemes, band names, just sort of fun names the
covers of these notebooks.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
Yeah, thanks a lot, huge, huge thanks as always to
our good friends Hillary and Mike lows Are and they're
good friends. The people at Flathead Like Cheese for all
the cheese, that's right. Flat Heeadlake Cheese is far and
away my favorite cheese in the world.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
It's good cheese.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
They make very good cheese. You guys cannot go wrong.
Just go get some Flathead Like cheese and you'll love it.

Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yeah. A lot of the I don't know if they
specialize in Gouda, but we seem to be on the
Goudha mailing list.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
They make a hopped Gouda that is my favorite. Have
you had it?

Speaker 1 (43:31):
Oh yeah, Oh my gosh, it's you.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
It has hops in It's like it's a beer but
it's cheese.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
And while we're on the lows AARs, Hillary and Mike
and Coop. I just got this today. They sent us
aprons yea word butcher. Yeah, aprons.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
That is so appropriate.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
So it's a knife going into the lettering of a
word butcher. Because I don't know if you guys know this,
but we are well known to mispronounce everything.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
Yeah, but your words, and you're gonna do that. So
Smotty from France send us a T card with some
lay two Marmott's t attached.

Speaker 1 (44:11):
Thank you, Smarty.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Jess Fowl sent us his game that he designed, Philosophy
the Game or better yet, Drunk Philosophy.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
That's a great name.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
Katie Barnes from the Barnes Made Soap Company for the
Wonderful Soap. All of them are really good, but I
strongly recommend the Autumn fig and the Mariner Brian Bar
good stuff. Oh you can head over to Barnes Made
b A. R. N. E. S. M A d E
dot com for some of Katie soaps.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
Becky in France send us planetary coasters that she made
in her studio is uh SEFID studio dot com. That
is C E P h E I D studio dot com.
If you want some planetary coasters. They are pretty spacey
and awesome.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
Kevin Reuter gave us Basil Hayden and bullet rye you
remember that at our show at the Bellhouse. Yes, and
even wrapped them up as Christmas presents. That's right, which
is just lovely. Thanks a lot, Kevin, And funny enough.
At the show, somebody asked us, like, our like drink
we would want to have on a desert island. We
could only have one, and both of us were saying

(45:22):
gin drinks and he was like, well, I guess I
guessed wrong with the Basil Hayden bullet. I was like, no, dude,
you nailed it.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
We're all inclusive, our buddy Van Nostra, and I feel
like he sent us more than this, So if you
have something else, let us know. We just hung out
with him and his wonderful wife Leah. Yes, in Seattle.
They sent us. He sent us some records, some Awesome Records,
Smurf's Disco Duck Lawrence, Welcome John Denver, the John Denver
Muppets Christmas.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
And you know what. Van Nostron gave us books before,
and one of them was about Oh, I can't say
yeah because that really because the live show.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
Is not out.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
But he gave us a book about the live show
years ago and I never got around to reading it.
They reminded me after the show. They're like, you know
that we sent you that book, you dummy. I said,
I'll have to read it.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
Now, will and Katie Lynn Lee send his coffee from
Coffee by Design, So niceish.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
Let's see. Nicole Collins do O, doctor of Osteopathy, sent
us a copy of her book Insight, which is on
vision like real vision and the miracle that is vision.
So check it out.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
Insights, a Doctor of Metal.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
I was delivered by a doo and one of the
things they do is they adjust you like you're a baby,
and they adjust you like a chiropractor when you're born.
I was born breach, so the doo adjusted me in
reverse order, and apparently everyone in delivery room gave him.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
A golf clap afterward, and you waved your hand and
said thank you everyone.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
Yeah, thank you. I have a taste for this applause.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
Thing gurgled part. Indigo Proof from Portland sent me a
gift certificate for one free denim repair. Nice cause I
complained about my Levi's blowing out, so they said, send
me those jeens and we'll fix them for you. It's
indigo proof in where else do they fix jeans Portland, Oregon?

Speaker 2 (47:21):
That is a gene fix in town. Sure, I got
a super old one from not this past October, but
the October before last. Chuck, Wow, do you remember Kathy
with a K tosh and I believe our Phoenix show
or our Salt Lake City show, one of.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
The two are you talking about?

Speaker 2 (47:39):
Gave us lassos, real live lassos and rope and she said,
go on to YouTube and learn how to lasso. Now, yeah,
and I've yet to do that, but I still have
my lasso. So thanks a lot Kathy to appreciate.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Yeah, it's not only cool too, because I will try
and learn that one day. But it looks cool hanging
on a wall.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
For sure, you know. And also I think Kathy is
a postal worker, so hopefully you dug our going postal
episode I haven't heard from her.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
Email is Kathy and let us know how.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
We did have a correction to read. But I'll just
wait for a listener mail for that one.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
Oh yeah, that.

Speaker 1 (48:11):
Was that was me? That was my bad?

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Was it just you?

Speaker 1 (48:14):
I think so?

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Somebody else made it seem like it was me too?

Speaker 1 (48:18):
How many more should we do for this one?

Speaker 2 (48:20):
Let's teach do three more?

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Okay? Anna Parker she is a painter, a muralist who
did this lovely painting of my three dogs, two of
which are now dearly departed. But it's very very sweet
and speaking of which, you can find those her work
at Sweet Tea Murals dot com.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Oh yes, very nice. Let's see Lance Roper, who's my
boy from Toledo, who is from Actual Coffee in Toledo.
Send me some really good coffee. So check out Actual Coffee.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
Actual Coffee. Yes, Betty Everlys and us Voodoo Dolls of Us.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
Oh, I want to know who that?

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Those are so cool? Yeah, they're like really cute and
they're laden with little Easter eggs like I'm holding all
kinds of crazy things that all relate to shows.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
I'm holding a magic mushroom.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
Really Yeah, well that's from my show. But they had
no pins, we should point out, so they weren't voodoo
dolls that were out to harm us. Her son Josh
introduced her to the show and her husband.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
Way to go job.

Speaker 1 (49:26):
So thanks Betty.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
Yeah, momo's riding my foot online too. Oh really, Yeah,
that's very cute. Let's see the wooden egg and special
egg coasters SYSK egg coasters from the very kind people
at good egg World.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
Yeah yeah, all right. I got one more for this,
a dish Adam Peterson. This was a really cool gift.
He sent us two bottles of Coca Cola from the
very last run of returnable bottles that Coca Cola ever did.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
There were small family run bottler in Winona, Minnesota, and
he said his in laws had run it since nineteen
thirty two. So these were the last run of returnables
that came off the line. And they're even stamped with
their little family bottler name and everything.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
Oh that's really very cool. All right. Last one, this
one came from the Toronto Show. A guy named Phil
Bowen gave us each a prostheticie.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
Oh man, that's one of the best ever.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
One of the best gifts either one of us has
ever gotten so cool. So thanks a lot for our
prosthetic eyes, Phil. We still have them. I think there's
a picture of us wearing them too.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Okay. If you want to get in touch with us,
just to say hi or to send us something, it
doesn't matter. You can go on to stuff youshould know
dot com and follow our social links there I think,
and as always, you can send us an email, wrap
it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it
off to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
App Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
Have you listen to your favorite shows?