Original subtitles

(men vocalizing)

JERRY LAWSON: This story is about a group of soldiers

that made up one segment of the United States Cavalry.

To the Indian, this soldier looked strange and different

because he wasn't White.

He was Black.

Thick woolly hair, strong.

He sort of reminded the Indian of the great buffalo,

so the Indian called this Black Cavalry soldier

Buffalo Soldier.

♪ ♪

SHELTON JOHNSON: The Buffalo Soldiers

were African American troops

who were veterans of the Indian Wars.

Soldiers from the Deep South,

these men sought refuge in the military.

DARRELL MILLNER: The example that the Buffalo Soldiers

demonstrated was one that Black people were proud of.

LENARD HOWZE: One of the messages that I share with youth

is that you have to figure out and learn where you come from.

They fought for us.

(fires)

MILLNER: In the Jim Crow era,

racial oppression was extreme.

JOHNSON: And a Black man standing tall

could have been a dead man.

QUINTARD TAYLOR: But Native Americans

don't necessarily see the Buffalo Soldiers as heroes.

JOHNSON: You don't ask when you are being enlisted,

"Who am I gonna be fighting?"

♪ ♪

TAYLOR: They all came to the conclusion

that if you fight for the country,

you should be a full-fledged citizen.

That's what drove Buffalo Soldiers to fight

even knowing that the United States

might not honor that promise.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

MILLNER: In the narrative of American history,

the West has always been this mythical and symbolic place

in which heroic deeds were done.

And being capable of great deeds

was not something that society was willing to admit

And so, as a consequence, when we tell our stories,

we leave the Black stories out,

and the Buffalo Soldiers were a perfect example of that.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Perhaps the best example

of this crossing-out of Black stories

comes from the Spanish-American War,

when the U.S. intervened in the Cuban struggle

for independence from Spain.

(explosion echoes)

The explosion of an American battleship, the U.S.S. Maine,

in Havana's harbor roused public support for war.

MILLNER: We go to war with Spain in 1898 to conquer

Cuba and Puerto Rico, and eventually, that culminates

in one of the most famous battles

of American military history, the Battle at San Juan Hill.

NARRATOR: Black soldiers make up about 3,000 men,

or 13% of the U.S. troops sent to Cuba.

♪ ♪

The Spanish-American War is brief,

lasting roughly six months,

but it was enough to promote the career

of a little-known New York City politician

named Theodore Roosevelt.

TAYLOR: Roosevelt was a prima donna.

He'd never been in the military before.

He literally organized the Rough Riders out of whole cloth

and he sort of pushed his way in

to lead the Rough Riders in Cuba.

ANTHONY POWELL: We've all heard the story of Teddy Roosevelt

charging up San Juan Hill.

Now the real story.

They charged up San Juan Hill

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: A Black soldier,

Sergeant George Barry of the 10th Cavalry,

planted the flags atop the hill.

Roosevelt and his men arrived well after

the 10th and the 3rd Cavalry, a White regiment.

LOUIS BOWMAN (dramatized): If it had not been for

the timely aid of the 10th Cavalry,

the Rough Riders would have been exterminated.

Sergeant Louis Bowman, 10th Cavalry,

"Tampa Morning Tribune."

After the battle was over,

there are all the official photographs,

and the photograph that we most see

now in classrooms is

Theodore Roosevelt standing in the middle

and his Rough Riders all around him.

If you extend that photograph out,

then you'll see the Black soldiers.

And in a way, that's a metaphor for what happened

on San Juan Hill. (chuckles)

That it is assumed that Theodore Roosevelt

led the Rough Riders up,

they were the ones who defeated the Spanish,

and that broke the back of Spanish resistance,

and led to the American victory.

In fact, it was a victory that belonged

as much to the Buffalo Soldiers.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The now little-known history of the Buffalo Soldiers

stretches from what came to be known

as the Indian Wars in the late 19th century

through the end of racial segregation

in the U.S. military following the Korean War.

The Buffalo Soldiers were all-Black cavalry

and infantry regiments.

The first part of the Buffalo Soldiers' story

takes place in the West,

as the United States expanded into Indigenous lands.

This story is embodied

by men like Ordnance Sergeant Moses Williams,

a Medal of Honor recipient.

The second part of the Buffalo Soldiers' story picks up

as Indigenous people are being forced onto reservations,

and the United States begins engaging

in military expeditions abroad

in Cuba, the Philippines, and Mexico.

This story is embodied

by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Young,

one of the first Black graduates of West Point.

♪ ♪

MILLNER: In every American war--

the American Revolution, War of 1812, the Civil War--

all of those have included large involvements

of African Americans.

(guns and cannons firing)

NARRATOR: When the Civil War broke out in 1861,

abolitionist Frederick Douglass

lobbied the Lincoln Administration

to accept Black men into the Union Army.

DOUGLASS (dramatized): Once let the Black man

get upon his person the brass letters "U.S.,"

let him get an eagle on his button,

and a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pockets,

and there is no power on Earth which can deny

that he has earned the right to citizenship.

NARRATOR: Thousands of Black men were recruited

by African American physician Martin Delany,

who was commissioned as a major

to lead the United States Colored Troops.

WOMEN: ♪ Glory, glory, hallelujah ♪

♪ We are Colored Yankee soldiers ♪

♪ Who've enlisted for the war ♪

♪ We are fighting for Union ♪

♪ We are fighting for the law ♪

NARRATOR: By the time the war ended in 1865,

40,000 African American soldiers had died

to help keep the nation whole.

WOMEN: ♪ Glory, glory, hallelujah ♪

♪ Glory, glory ♪

DELANY (dramatized): Do you know

that if it was not for the Black men,

this war never would have been brought to a close

with success to the Union?

Major Martin R. Delany, 1865.

NARRATOR: President Lincoln agreed, saying,

"Without the military help of the Black freedmen,

the war against the South could not have been won."

At the end of the war,

the United States Colored Troops were disbanded.

♪ ♪

Wartime casualties had reduced the U.S. Army

to a fraction of its former size.

♪ ♪

RYAN BOOTH: It isn't until the end of the Civil War

that the nation's energy shifts,

and they're suddenly interested in Western land and expansion.

from sea to sea, was kind of an official policy,

but it was also an attitude.

Most people forget that we are on lands

that once had all of this rich Native American life.

That there were people who were living and dying

and being born on these lands.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: In order for the quest

for continental expansion to succeed,

the Indigenous peoples who had lived on the land

for thousands of years had to be dealt with.

BOOTH: They're building these railroads

through Native homelands,

which inevitably creates conflict.

NARRATOR: "Indian removal," as it came to be called,

required a larger military force.

In 1866, Congress authorized the formation of 30 new units.

MILLNER: And that included

two African American cavalry units

and four African American infantry units.

POWELL: Many of the veterans

of the United States Colored Troops,

they would become the nucleus of the soldiers

that enlisted in the six Black regiments

after the Civil War.

The economic circumstances are what's driving things.

to go into the Army was all about making money.

JOHNSON: If you're poor, if you're a sharecropper's son,

that $13 a month sounds pretty good.

MILLNER: You have to remember that

although Blacks were now newly free--

slavery had been abolished

by the adoption of the 13th Amendment--

had not changed that much.

They had no property,

they had no money,

they had no political power.

JOHNSON: They come from a background where it was illegal

to teach an enslaved person to read or write.

If you tried to vote at that time,

there were literacy tests that were there, put in front of you,

and they were designed

so that you would fail that test.

And if you could pass the literacy test,

if you could pay for the poll tax,

you had to deal with outright intimidation

at the polling place.

All of these barriers were put in front of them,

but which road was clear and open?

And that was the road to enlistment.

♪ ♪

POWELL: When I was a kid, I was very, very lucky

to have my grandfather

who had been a Buffalo Soldier.

His name was Samuel Nathanial Waller.

He joined the Army in 1887 and retired in 1927.

He died in 1979 at 105.

I asked him one time, I said, respectfully,

"How come you served this racist country for 40 years?"

♪ ♪

And my grandfather told me something

that it took me a while to appreciate.

He said the Army gave him

the only part of the American Dream

that the nation would let him share in.

♪ ♪

The Army offered to them

something that outside of its structure didn't exist:

an opportunity to advance, an opportunity to grow.

That is why many of them joined.

(people talking in background)

NARRATOR: In October 1866, in Lake Providence, Louisiana,

dozens of Black men show up to join the 9th Cavalry.

One of them is 21-year-old Moses Williams.

GREG SHINE: We don't know much about

Moses Williams' family at all.

And what little information we have

MOSES WILLIAMS (dramatized): Father and Mother died

when I was an infant.

One brother died of consumption, one sister of fever.

Moses Williams.

NARRATOR: What he describes as

"smallpox when I was 20 years old"

left him with almost zero vision in his left eye,

which makes his later reputation as a skilled marksman...

(gun fires) ...extraordinary.

When Williams enlisted,

he could not read or write.

Service in the Army gave Williams the opportunity

to start educating himself.

The soldiers got meals, they got uniforms,

they got pensions and benefits.

But at that time, Black soldiers

could only rise as high as sergeant.

The ranks of lieutenant and above

were held by White officers.

♪ ♪

In Missouri, another former slave chooses to enlist

under the assumed name of William Cathay--

because she was female.

She was born Cathay Williams in Independence, Missouri,

in September 1844.

MILLNER: There were few opportunities

for aspiring young Black women in this time period

beyond marriage,

or beyond domestic service to White society.

NARRATOR: Once owned by a wealthy farmer,

Cathay was liberated by the Union Army,

but pressed into service as war contraband.

CATHAY WILLIAMS (dramatized): When the war broke out

and the United States soldiers came to Jefferson City,

they took me and the other Colored folk with them.

I did not want to go.

Colonel Benton wanted me to cook for the officers.

Cathay Williams, 1862.

NARRATOR: The 22-year-old had no experience as a cook,

and was soon reassigned to the laundry,

exploited by the Yankees

as she had been by her former master.

After the war, used to the military life,

she disguised herself as a man

to enlist in the Regular Army near St. Louis, Missouri,

on November 15, 1866.

CATHAY WILLIAMS (dramatized): I wanted to make my own living

and not be dependent on relations or friends.

How she was able to get into the infantry,

you know, during that time is to me still amazing.

NARRATOR: "William Cathay" passes

a clearly superficial examination

and is assigned to Company A of the 38th Infantry.

CATHAY WILLIAMS (dramatized): I carried my musket

and did guard and other duties while in the Army.

NARRATOR: During her two years of service,

Cathay Williams and her unit

march roughly 1,000 miles on foot,

from Fort Harker in Kansas

to Fort Bayard in New Mexico Territory,

enduring extreme weather,

meager rations, and primitive living conditions.

The conditions in which they served was terrible.

You had so many soldiers dying,

so many soldiers being disabled,

because of cholera and different types of diseases.

NARRATOR: After several hospitalizations

for rheumatism and neuralgia,

Cathay's sex was finally discovered by an Army surgeon.

She was discharged on October 14, 1868.

CATHAY WILLIAMS (dramatized): The men all wanted

to get rid of me

after they found out I was a woman.

Some of them acted real bad to me.

NARRATOR: Upon her discharge,

Cathay Williams discarded her male disguise

and struck out for Colorado,

where she worked as a cook and a laundress.

Stricken with diabetes and neuralgia,

she applied for an Army pension, but was refused.

Cathay Williams died in Trinidad, Colorado, in 1893,

at the age of 48.

Final resting place unknown.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Of the six new regiments of Black soldiers

created in 1866, after the Civil War,

two are ordered to Texas,

one to New Mexico Territory,

and the others to Kansas and the Indian Territories

in present-day Oklahoma.

Only two are initially stationed outside the West.

Even those regiments would soon be posted to the frontier.

The American West was a very difficult, hostile place

to live at this time,

whether you were engaging in combat or not.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Mexican bandits and White outlaws

operate freely on both sides of the Rio Grande.

And bands of Kiowa, Comanche,

and Mescalero Apaches raid across West Texas.

SHINE: The Buffalo Soldiers served as a police force,

because it was literally the Wild West.

NARRATOR: Moses Williams and the 9th Cavalry

will spend the next decade in Texas.

They range out on patrol for as much as a year at a stretch.

But despite their role in securing the frontier,

many Texas citizens do not welcome the Buffalo Soldiers.

Think of the irony here.

Black people were being attacked in East Texas

by Ku Klux Klan types.

Black people in West Texas

are defending Whites from Native Americans.

MILLNER: The Blacks who had to coexist

in those Western outposts would be surrounded by

former Confederates who would look upon a Black soldier

as not a full human being,

and would not be willing to treat a Black soldier

the same way that they would treat a White soldier

or a White citizen.

NARRATOR: When the 9th Cavalry first arrives in Texas,

a White company commander, Lieutenant Edward Heyl,

orders several of his men

hung by their wrists from tree limbs

when they did not respond quickly enough to his orders.

Heyl's brutality results in a mutiny.

Two officers are killed,

and several of the soldiers are court-martialed and jailed.

Heyl gets off with a reprimand.

There's controversy about how the Buffalo Soldiers

got the name "Buffalo Soldier."

SHINE: As early as 1872,

soldiers' letters reference the term "Buffalo Soldiers."

FRANCES ROE (dramatized): The officers say that

the Negroes make good soldiers and fight like fiends.

The Indians call them "Buffalo Soldiers,"

because their woolly heads

are so much like the matted cushion

that is between the horns of the buffalo.

JOHNSON: The Plains Indians,

the Lakota, Dakota, Sioux, the Cheyenne,

they saw these African American soldiers,

and because of their ferocity in battle

and the, the texture of their hair,

they began to call them "Buffalo Soldiers"

as a term of respect.

The buffalo were incredibly important.

They were at the heart of culture for these tribes

along the Great Plains.

NARRATOR: Another possible explanation

is that the name could have come from the heavy buffalo robes

that soldiers wore in the winter.

But regardless of its origins,

the name "Buffalo Soldiers" stuck.

MILLNER: And so it was the name that they adopted for themselves

and held with honor well into the 20th century.

WOMEN: ♪ Buffalo soldiers ♪

NARRATOR: Soon after his enlistment,

Moses Williams is promoted to first sergeant.

He would have been both an adviser

to his commanding officers

and a mentor to men of lower rank.

SHINE: The role of sergeant was key in an Army company.

The sergeant not only helps oversee

the daily activities of those soldiers,

but also is that conduit above to the White officers.

SINGERS: ♪ Buffalo soldiers ♪

- ♪ Well, well, well, well ♪ - ♪ Buffalo soldiers ♪

NARRATOR: On May 20th, 1870,

Williams ordered one of his men, Sergeant Emanuel Stance,

to pursue a group of Apaches near Fort McKavett.

STANCE (dramatized): I discovered a party of Indians,

about 20 in number,

making for a couple of government teams.

They evidently meant to capture the stock.

I immediately attacked them by charging them.

SINGER: ♪ How dignified, sanctified ♪

STANCE (dramatized): I set the Spencers to talking

and whistling about their ears so lively

that they broke off in confusion and fled for the hills.

Sergeant Emanuel Stance, 9th Cavalry.

NARRATOR: For his bravery in this engagement,

Stance became the first Buffalo Soldier

awarded the Medal of Honor.

♪ ♪

Life at a typical Army post in the West

would have been a hub of activity.

♪ ♪

SHINE: The day-to-day work of African American soldiers

was escorting supply wagons, helping string telegraph lines,

helping protect parties that were surveying locations

for railway lines.

Really, the work that they were doing

was supporting the American infrastructure

moving west of the Mississippi.

All this expansion into the American West

is coming at the cost of displacing Native peoples

and their life ways.

♪ ♪

Who's on the front line of that conflict?

It's largely the Buffalo Soldiers.

MILLNER: We look back and we see two populations of color,

so we assume there would be some kind of potential alliance.

The Buffalo Soldiers did not look at the Native Americans

and see another, in quotes, "Colored population."

They saw a designated enemy.

JOHNSON: You don't ask when you are being enlisted,

"Who am I gonna be fighting?"

When it came time to do their duty,

they would do what they were paid to do.

JOHNSON: They didn't join to kill Indians.

They joined because it gave them a sense of respect

to wear the uniform of the United States,

to potentially sacrifice their life for the United States

in the hope that that sacrifice would result

in conditions improving for their loved ones back home.

BOOTH: On the one hand, it is a story of great triumph,

but it's also a story about people being dispossessed.

It's a story about violence.

is one of total war.

The U.S. Army attempted, in its own way,

to starve, kill, maim, do whatever they could

to be able to get the end that they wanted.

JACOB WILKS (dramatized): We destroyed

everything in their village.

We found a vast amount of buffalo robes,

of which each man made a choice of the best.

The rest we destroyed.

Their tents were made of poles over which hides were stretched,

and these were all burned.

Sergeant Jacob Wilks, 9th Cavalry, 1874.

NARRATOR: After a decade in Texas, Moses Williams

and the 9th Cavalry are ordered to New Mexico Territory.

The Buffalo Soldiers set out to track down a group of Apaches

led by the charismatic warrior Victorio.

BOOTH: Victorio is probably one of the most brilliant

tacticians of the war.

And so he does this hit and run campaign

across the American Southwest and into Mexico.

NARRATOR: The 9th Cavalry pursues Victorio

for more than a year.

In 1880, the 10th Cavalry joins in the chase.

U.S. and Mexican officials want to see the Apaches crushed.

NARRATOR: The Mexican army finally catches up with Victorio

at Tres Castillos.

BOOTH: He ends up being pursued like a dog.

Ends up dying to try to achieve freedom for his own people.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Forty of Victorio's followers escaped,

including a respected elder known to his people

as Kas-Tziden and to outsiders as Nana.

He was 75 years old and crippled in one leg.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: On August 16th, 1881,

I Company of the 9th Cavalry--

where Moses Williams served as First Sergeant--

came into contact with Nana's band in northern New Mexico.

It would prove to be a pivotal day

in Williams' life and career.

Williams' commanding officer was Lieutenant George Burnett,

a recent West Point graduate without much field experience.

So you really have him looking toward Moses Williams

for support and leadership.

and Private Augustus Walley as

"the two men who are always by me in every danger."

Burnett later recalled the events of that day.

BURNETT (dramatized): It was practically a running fight

which continued for several hours,

and we had driven the Indians eight to ten miles

into the foothills of the Cuchillo Negro Mountains

when they made a final and determined stand.

NARRATOR: As they attempt to cut off

an Apache retreat into the mountains,

Sergeant Williams spots a potential ambush,

an Apache warrior in hiding.

♪ ♪

When Lieutenant Burnett dismounts and fires,

warriors start shooting from the ridge.

SHINE: The commanding lieutenant's horse takes off

and flees to the rear.

BURNETT (dramatized): Someone started the cry,

"They got the lieutenant, they got the lieutenant!"

And with this, the whole outfit proceeded to follow suit.

I called to Sergeant Williams to go after them

and bring 'em back.

SHINE: Moses Williams goes back to rally these soldiers

and brought them back up to the line.

NARRATOR: As they charge back into battle,

Burnett realizes that three privates had become stranded.

BURNETT (dramatized): My attention was attracted

by one of the men calling to me,

"Lieutenant, please, for God's sake, don't leave us!

Our lives depend on you!"

Private Walley mounted and galloped to him,

while myself and Sergeant Williams were

exposed to the fire of at least 25 or 30 Indians

without the slightest shelter whatsoever.

(fires)

SHINE: Moses Williams, Augustus Walley,

and their commanding officer

bring these soldiers that are abandoned

to safety in great peril

and almost the cost of their own lives.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: While Moses Williams battled in the Indian Wars,

the first generation of Black cadets fought discrimination

at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

One of those first cadets was Charles Young.

Born into slavery in Kentucky,

Young's parents fled with their infant son Charles

to Ohio, and freedom, in 1864.

Young's mother, Arminta, was one of the rare enslaved people

who had found a way to educate herself.

BRIAN SHELLUM: And really was somebody

that passed on to Charles Young

the importance of education and what an education could do

for a Black person.

NARRATOR: Soon after their arrival in Ohio,

Young's father, Gabriel,

joined the 5th Colored Heavy Artillery

and served for a year in the Civil War.

SHELLUM: He loved the Army

and he loved what it did for him.

And he passed that on to his son Charles.

It was one of the major reasons

why Charles Young went to West Point.

SHELLUM: 130 years ago, when Young attended West Point,

it was a very difficult place.

It was a place that reflected

the Jim Crow norms of society at the time.

MILLNER: Between 1870 and 1900,

12 Blacks had been admitted to West Point.

harassment and discrimination,

nine of the Blacks were forced to leave

before they graduated.

POWELL: They had been harassed by other cadets.

Johnson Whittaker was one.

He was tied up and he was cut.

And they didn't court-martial the, the cadets that did that.

and he was dismissed from the academy.

NARRATOR: While at West Point, Young has to learn

how to navigate a color line with the other White cadets.

SHELLUM: It was harder for him because he was Black.

What he learned from his struggles at West Point

were lessons that he used later in life in the officer corps.

JOHNSON: His experience at West Point was so intense,

so severe, he once said

the worst thing he could ever wish on an enemy

would be to make them a cadet at West Point.

of West Point, in 1889,

and he was the last Black graduate

until 1936, a period of almost 50 years.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Enlisted men like Moses Williams

did not get a formal education

like the kind Charles Young received at West Point.

But the Army needed skilled clerks,

and assigned its regimental chaplains

to attend to the soldiers' spiritual and educational needs.

SHINE: Educational opportunities were really limited

for African American men at the time,

and so the Army offered this opportunity.

NARRATOR: With the encouragement of his regimental chaplain,

Williams studies to become an ordnance sergeant,

the officer in charge of arms and ammunition at an Army post.

SHINE: Ordnance sergeants were not appointed lightly.

It required appointment by the Secretary of War

after recommendation from a board of officers.

NARRATOR: Williams passes the test

and becomes one of the first

Black ordnance sergeants in 1886.

He then transfers to the 25th Infantry

to take charge of the ordnance

at Fort Buford in the Dakota Territory.

It was a remarkable achievement for a man

who could not read or write when he joined the Army.

♪ ♪

Three years later, in 1889,

Charles Young graduates from West Point.

The racial barriers that he had overcome as a cadet

would shape the rest of his career.

SHELLUM: The Army was preoccupied with minimizing

Young's contact with White troops and White officers.

the Army had one choice:

assign Charles Young to one of the four Black regiments.

NARRATOR: Lieutenant Young is assigned

to the 9th Cavalry, Moses Williams' old unit,

and posted to Fort Robinson, Nebraska.

SHELLUM: The mission of the Army had changed

on the Western frontier.

NARRATOR: America's campaign to usurp Indigenous lands

was almost finished.

Indigenous peoples had been forced onto reservations,

like the Sioux reservation north of Fort Robinson,

and the U.S. Army was tasked

with making sure they didn't leave.

SHELLUM: And these larger posts like Fort Robinson

were connected by railroad, by telegraph.

The posts just weren't isolated like they had been

in the, in the former frontier time.

NARRATOR: But it was a lonely life for Young

as a Black officer. SHELLUM: As an example,

say there was a mandatory function at the officers' club.

Charles Young would show up,

stay for what he felt was an appropriate time,

and excuse himself.

He had to stay on his side of the color line.

JOHNSON: Corporals or privates that were well beneath his rank

would not necessarily salute him

because that meant saluting him, a Colored man,

and Euro Americans at that time

did not show deference to any African American.

NARRATOR: In 1894, the Army reassigns Lieutenant Young

to Wilberforce University in Ohio.

SHELLUM: His mission was to establish

a military training program for Black officers,

the first one in the country, at Wilberforce University.

NARRATOR: Unlike his experience of social isolation in the West,

at Wilberforce, Young quickly becomes accepted

as part of a vibrant Black intelligentsia.

SHELLUM: He developed a friendship with W.E.B. DuBois,

who was assigned as a professor

at Wilberforce University at the time.

DuBois' biographer calls it the first genuine

male friendship that DuBois ever had in his life.

NARRATOR: Young is also reunited with his mother, Arminta.

He purchases a house for his family

that he calls Youngsholm,

which would remain a refuge for the rest of his life.

In 1895, Moses Williams' final posting

is to Fort Stevens, Oregon,

where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean.

The old Civil War fort is being modernized,

and he is the only soldier still stationed there.

With no soldiers to command,

Williams has one last battle to fight:

the battle for recognition.

During the summer of 1896, he receives news

that galvanizes him into action.

SHINE: Through his correspondence,

he learns that at least one of his former fellow soldiers

has received the Medal of Honor,

and he realizes, well, he was in the very same action.

and Lieutenant George Burnett had both been decorated

with the nation's highest military award

for their bravery during

the Battle of the Cuchillo Negro Mountains.

SHINE: At the time,

the way that the Medal of Honor process worked,

a soldier could self-nominate,

provided that they had the support

of their commanding officer.

Moses Williams tracks down

his commanding officer,

who had since retired and was living in Germany,

who writes a very descriptive letter.

BURNETT (dramatized): I recommend

Sergeant Moses Williams

for a Medal of Honor for his coolness, bravery,

and unflinching devotion to duty

in standing by me in an open exposed position

under heavy fire, thus enabling me

to undoubtedly save the lives of at least three of our men.

NARRATOR: On November 23rd, 1896,

the War Department responded.

MAN (dramatized): I am instructed

by the Assistant Secretary of War to transmit to you

the accompanying Medal of Honor,

awarded to you by the president of the United States

for most distinguished gallantry in action with hostile Indians

in the foothills of the Cuchillo Negro Mountains.

NARRATOR: Moses Williams retires in May 1898

after 37 years of military service.

He moves to Fort Vancouver in Washington.

MILLNER: The unfortunate reality for many Buffalo Soldiers

was that in spite of the kind of service that they provided,

their fate after their military service

was generally disastrous.

They were not able to take advantage of opportunities

that might have been available to them as civilians.

So, as a consequence,

once many of their military careers were over,

they were in very desperate circumstances.

That was the case for Moses Williams.

NARRATOR: Moses Williams dies a year later,

on August 23rd, 1899.

He was buried with his sharpshooter's badge

at the Vancouver Barracks Post Cemetery.

♪ ♪

When war breaks out with Spain in April 1898,

Charles Young is stationed at Wilberforce University.

SHELLUM: The War Department wanted officers to stay

at their posts to train the force,

in case it was a longer war.

NARRATOR: But the war is over by July.

SHELLUM: So Young wasn't able to rejoin the 9th Cavalry

to take part in the actions in Cuba.

NARRATOR: He doesn't get to witness the charge

of the 10th Cavalry--

followed by Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders--

on San Juan Hill.

SHELLUM: During the Spanish-American War,

the United States invaded the Philippine islands.

We took Puerto Rico, we took Cuba, we took Guam.

SHELLUM: It was a time when the president,

the politicians thought,

"Well this is our chance to establish an empire."

And so that led to the next war in the Philippine war.

NARRATOR: Philippine leader Aguinaldo

and his revolutionaries had fought alongside

the United States against Spain.

They now found themselves

the possession of a new colonial master.

SHELLUM: The Filipinos were not happy.

They wanted their own freedom and they wanted independence.

SHINE: And so you see that war quickly turning to

what's perceived by the Filipinos

as a war against the United States.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: African Americans were divided

in response to the U.S. war in the Philippines.

Ida B. Wells argued that...

WELLS (dramatized): Negroes should oppose expansion

until the government is able to protect Negroes at home.

NARRATOR: Booker T. Washington agreed.

WASHINGTON (dramatized): The Philippine islands should be

given a chance to govern themselves.

Until our nation has settled the Indian and Negro problems,

I do not think we have the right to assume more social problems.

NARRATOR: But an editorial in a Black-owned newspaper,

the Indianapolis "Freeman," supported the war.

MAN (dramatized): The Negroes must be taught

that the enemy of the country is a common enemy,

and that the color of the face has nothing to do with it.

NARRATOR: The debate among African Americans in the U.S.

carried over to Black soldiers on the battlefield.

Filipino insurgents distributed pamphlets

addressed to "the Colored American soldier"

encouraging them to desert--

and a small number defected.

POWELL: Soldiers like David Fagan decided enough was enough,

deserted, and they fought alongside Filipinos

against their brethren.

Now they lost the war and they lost their lives.

liberty and freedom.

That's why they deserted.

And I think that is misunderstood by a lot of people

because they, as Black men,

knew how America treated them at home.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Charles Young and I Company of the 9th Cavalry

arrive in the Philippines on May 16th, 1901.

Newly promoted to captain,

Young's first mission is to lead the Buffalo Soldiers

up the Gandara River

to pacify a village called Blanca Aurora.

SHELLUM: Young set off with I Troop.

They were in three flatboats

being pulled by an armed gunboat.

NARRATOR: One of Captain Young's officers,

Sergeant H.W. Nicholas,

described the mission in a letter.

NICHOLAS (dramatized): We were about 12 days

going the 18 miles, off and on the boats,

fighting our way up the stream on both sides of the river.

They would fight off one ambush, get back on the boats.

Tide would go in and out, and they'd be left high and dry

because the Gandara River was a tidal river.

NARRATOR: Drawing close to Blanca Aurora,

Sergeant Nicholas is stranded on a reef with the supply boats.

NICHOLAS (dramatized): The insurgents,

seeing my unfortunate position, began to pour fire at us.

(guns firing)

I had only six men with rifles.

We fought back with all the courage we had in us.

NARRATOR: Captain Young had the main body of his force

divided on each side of the river, fighting his way forward.

NICHOLAS (dramatized): Upon hearing my volley firing,

he knew that I had been attacked from the rear.

He rushed back to my aid and rescue,

drove off the attackers,

and, after the tide came in,

we advanced cautiously along, arriving at Blanca Aurora.

NARRATOR: Previous missions to Blanca Aurora had failed,

and many U.S. commanders

resorted to scorched-earth tactics in their fight

against the Filipino guerrillas.

Charles Young understood guerrilla warfare.

He pacified the village peacefully.

He gave them security and supplies,

kind of separated them from the insurgents.

NARRATOR: Young's deft touch was so successful

that his commanding officer promised I Company

a plum assignment after the war.

SHELLUM: So they got duty in the beautiful city of San Francisco

as a reward for their good service in the Philippines.

NARRATOR: Charles Young and I Company

serve for another year in the Philippines

and fight in the decisive Batangas campaign

against General Malvar.

The Filipinos will not achieve their independence

for another 44 years.

In 1903, shortly after Charles Young and I Company

returned to the United States,

President Roosevelt visited San Francisco.

SHELLUM: San Francisco planned a big parade

down Market Street,

and Young was selected to lead two troops of the 9th Cavalry

as the honor guard for the president.

NARRATOR: It was the first time that Black troops

had been included in a presidential honor guard.

SHELLUM: There were some troopers in the 9th Cavalry

at the time who had charged up San Juan Hill

with Teddy Roosevelt, so he knew them well.

NARRATOR: After Roosevelt's visit,

Young and two companies of the 9th Cavalry

are dispatched to Sequoia National Park.

POWELL: Charles Young was the first

African American superintendent of a national park,

and that was Sequoia National Park.

NARRATOR: Sequoia had only been established in 1890.

In the fledgling days of the National Park System,

U.S. Army troops served as park rangers.

POWELL: They would send troops

to the various national parks

to make sure that people didn't homestead

or people were not poaching.

JOHNSON: Charles Young has many accomplishments.

Building the first road to the top of Mount Whitney,

the highest mountain in the United States,

that's incredibly significant.

But under his supervision, the first usable wagon road

and more work was done in the summer of 1903

than all the other preceding years combined.

NARRATOR: During that summer in Sequoia,

Young begins courting Ada Mills,

whom he soon marries in a small, private ceremony.

♪ ♪

SHELLUM: Ada Young brought some stability

to the life of a bachelor.

Young was 40 years old at the time, she was 24,

but she was well educated.

She was a good match for Charles Young.

NARRATOR: Officers like Captain Young

had long been allowed to bring their wives to postings.

Starting in the late 19th century,

enlisted men could bring their families, too.

TAYLOR: And so there now are communities

that develop around these Buffalo Soldier outposts.

NARRATOR: The Buffalo Soldiers were often

some of the first Black people

in predominantly White settlements.

This created the opportunity

for connection across communities.

As Charles Young argued in an impassioned speech in 1903...

CHARLES YOUNG (dramatized): We are part and parcel

of the body politic of the United States.

All we ask is a White man's chance.

Will you give it?

NARRATOR: Perhaps the most notorious incident

of racial injustice involving the Buffalo Soldiers

occurred in the summer of 1906,

when the First Battalion of the 25th Infantry

transferred to Brownsville, Texas.

On the night of August 13th,

shots rang out and a White bartender was killed.

Locals claim that they witnessed Black soldiers firing weapons.

White officers attested

that the soldiers had been in the barracks

and none of their weapons had been fired.

TAYLOR: But because they were Black,

they were all going to pay.

POWELL: 167 African American soldiers

were discharged without honor

for a crime that they didn't do.

QUINTARD: Many of those soldiers

had served with distinction for 20 years.

NARRATOR: One of those soldiers

was First Sergeant Mingo Sanders,

who was partially blinded during his service in Cuba,

and whose commanding officer called Sanders

"the best non-commissioned officer I have ever known."

POWELL: It was Theodore Roosevelt

who ordered this 25th Infantry discharged

after the Brownsville affair.

NARRATOR: The African American community,

which had supported Republicans since the Civil War,

was outraged, but Roosevelt refused to budge.

POWELL: All of the evidence showed

that these men were innocent,

but because Roosevelt wanted to make sure

that his Southern, you know, constituency was okay,

that's what he did to those men.

NARRATOR: Charles Young faced

a more subtle form of discrimination

as a Black officer in a White officer corps.

SHELLUM: The Army was preoccupied with keeping Young

in what they felt were

appropriate assignments for a Black officer.

As Charles Young rose in rank to captain, major,

this became an increasing problem.

NARRATOR: In 1904, the Army solved this problem

by assigning Captain Young as military attaché

to Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

He served for three years,

gathering intelligence to help the U.S. plan

for a possible military intervention on the island.

By 1912, the Army had assigned Young

as military attaché to Liberia,

a West African country founded in 1822

by free and formerly enslaved Black Americans.

The descendants of these founders

called themselves Americo-Liberians,

and ruled over a large Indigenous population.

SHELLUM: Can you imagine, in 1912,

you're a Black man and you're going back to Africa,

and he finds this upside-down world

where former African Americans have gone

and they've kind of reproduced plantations,

and they're treating their own Indigenous people terribly--

as slaves, practically.

NARRATOR: Young's mission was to train

the Liberian Frontier Force,

which was drawn from the Indigenous people.

He was assisted by three other Black U.S. Army officers.

SHELLUM: At first, he was all behind the mission.

But over the three years he was there,

he began to doubt the motives of the Americo-Liberians

who were trying to suppress the Indigenous people.

NARRATOR: Liberia in 1912

was a dangerous place for Westerners.

SHELLUM: Bad food, bad water.

There was one U.S.-trained doctor in the whole country.

NARRATOR: Young had brought his wife, Ada,

and their two young children to the post,

but they had to be evacuated

due to the lack of safe water and food.

Young develops blackwater fever, a malignant form of malaria,

which will come back to haunt him later in life.

In 1916, Charles Young and the Buffalo Soldiers

fight in the last great cavalry campaign in the West.

MILLNER: Pancho Villa was a warlord

in Northern Mexico at the turn of the 20th century.

And our relationship with our southern neighbor

was probably even more tumultuous

than the one we're experiencing

in this generation.

NARRATOR: Villa's bandits raided Columbus, New Mexico,

and shot up the town, killing 18 Americans.

SHELLUM: And the United States was not happy about that.

MILLNER: And so they sent an expedition

that at its height reached 10,000 American soldiers

into Northern Mexico.

NARRATOR: Charles Young had been promoted to major

while stationed in Liberia.

The Army transfers Major Young to the 10th Cavalry

to serve under General Jack Pershing

in the Punitive Expedition.

Early in the expedition,

on April 1st, 1916,

Major Young and the 10th Cavalry

surprise a group of 150 Villistas

near the outskirts of Agua Caliente.

SHELLUM: Young had three cavalry troops

and a machine gun troop.

NARRATOR: The troopers of the 10th Cavalry

dismount and attack,

forcing the Villistas to retreat behind a ridge.

SHELLUM: So Young used the machine gun troop

as covering fire to pin down the enemy force,

and he just overwhelmed them.

NARRATOR: Under covering fire from the machine gun troop,

Young directs a flanking maneuver,

forcing the Villistas to retreat in disorder.

Young then leads a pursuit of the Villistas

in a running battle

until his men and horses are overcome by exhaustion.

♪ ♪

It's the first time that I know of

that Americans used machine guns in covering fire,

(cannon blast)

The Punitive Expedition saw

the advent of a lot of what we know as

modern warfare beyond machine guns.

It was the first use of trucks for transporting supplies.

It was also the first use of aircraft

used as reconnaissance and to carry messages back and forth.

So it kind of signaled the end of cavalry

and a new era of mechanized modern warfare.

NARRATOR: Despite a spirited campaign-- at one point,

the 10th Cavalry even disguised themselves

as Mexican bandits--

after nearly a year in Mexico,

the U.S. Army gives up the chase.

They never found Pancho Villa.

But Major Young receives high praise from General Pershing.

Young is promoted to lieutenant colonel,

and Pershing puts Young on his list of officers

to command future brigades during World War I.

SHELLUM: He was one of the best cavalry officers

in the Army at the time.

Charles Young was slated to become a brigadier general.

They couldn't have him in command of a division.

SHELLUM: If he was used in Europe the way he wanted to,

he would have been commanding Black troops,

but led by White officers.

White lieutenant colonels, White majors,

White captains, White lieutenants.

And at the time, that was a problem for the War Department.

NARRATOR: A medical examination board

found that Young had a range of health problems

related to his long service in the Army.

SHELLUM: He was about 52 years old.

He'd spent a lifetime as a cavalry officer in the saddle,

and he had blood in his urine.

He'd had blackwater fever,

and that was working on his kidneys.

NARRATOR: But due to Young's abilities

and the Army's need for the coming war in Europe,

another promotion board recommends

that the medical problems be waived.

SHELLUM: That recommendation went forward to Washington,

so then it became a political decision.

MILLNER: President Woodrow Wilson,

who was the first Southern Democrat

elected to the White House since the Civil War,

simply arranged it so that

Charles Young was retired

before he could assume that kind of position of command.

Clearly, it was a, it was a racially motivated decision,

politically motivated, influenced by

the racism of President Wilson and Secretary of War Baker.

NARRATOR: Young makes one last attempt

to prove that he is fit to serve.

SHELLUM: He saddled up his favorite horse, Blacksmith,

and decided he was going to prove his fitness

by riding from his home in Wilberforce, Ohio,

to the steps of the War Department in Washington, D.C.

NARRATOR: Young rides nearly 500 miles over two weeks.

Despite wearing his Army uniform,

he is sometimes refused service

at White-owned hotels along the way.

By the time Young arrives in Washington, D.C.,

his ride has been covered extensively in the press,

putting pressure on Secretary of War Baker

to reverse his decision.

SHELLUM: And Baker essentially promised him a command

if he'd go away.

Young took him to his word, and he went back to Ohio,

and Baker never carried through with his promise.

NARRATOR: Young never got to serve in World War I.

SHELLUM: To show the hypocrisy of the U.S. Army,

they recalled him to active duty after the war,

and asked him to go back to Liberia.

NARRATOR: As Young's old friend W.E.B. DuBois asked...

DUBOIS (dramatized): If Charles Young's blood pressure

was too high for him to go to France,

why was it not too high for him to be sent

to even more arduous duty in the swamps of West Africa?

Essentially, they were sending Young

back to Liberia to die.

Young loved the Army so much, he couldn't say no.

NARRATOR: Young was on a mission to the interior of Nigeria

when he was struck again by blackwater fever.

He showed up at a hospital in Lagos, Nigeria,

in terrible shape,

and died on January 8th, 1922.

SHELLUM: Ada Young wrote letter after letter

to the War Department saying

that she wanted Charles Young's body

brought back to the United States.

NARRATOR: A year after his death,

Young's body was disinterred and brought to Washington, D.C.

SHELLUM: Black citizens lined the streets

to get one last look

at Charles Young's casket as it rode by,

trailed by a cavalryman's horse

with boots in the stirrups backward,

as is tradition for a cavalry commander.

NARRATOR: Charles Young was finally laid to rest

with full military honors

at Arlington National Cemetery.

Although never officially called "Buffalo Soldiers,"

Black troops served bravely in segregated regiments

in World War I and World War II.

The Army's policy of racial segregation

finally ended in July 1948,

when President Harry S. Truman signed an executive order

abolishing racial discrimination in the U.S. Armed Forces,

but this did not really go into effect

until after the Korean War.

Black and White soldiers did not fight

in integrated units until the Vietnam War.

And it wasn't until 1972 that Dorsie Willis,

the last surviving member of the Brownsville affair,

was pardoned by President Nixon and given $25,000 in back pay.

By then, Willis was 87 years old.

(whinnying)

Hey! Settle down!

NARRATOR: The legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers

is being kept alive in Seattle, Washington,

and throughout the country.

HOWZE: My grandfather was an original Buffalo Soldier.

My father was one of the primary founders

of this organization, Buffalo Soldiers of Seattle.

(reverse signal beeping)

So, on a level of pride,

it just allows me to

continuously share the legacy

that my family has developed

around not only

the Buffalo Soldiers of Seattle,

but also just the Buffalo Soldiers in general.

This is P.J.

This is my favorite horse right here.

(chuckles)

We have our marching drills, our rifling drills.

We have an hour of reading,

so studying for Buffalo Soldiers' history.

♪ ♪

They fought for us.

HOWZE: Today we're going to do a couple events.

We'll be doing pony rides, a living history display,

and then some mounted drills also.

The kids that know me from being an inner-urban individual,

and then they see me in my cowboy gear,

they're just blown away.

Lotta times they don't even recognize me.

One of the messages that I share with youth

is that you have to figure out and learn where you come from.

Once I figured out and realized who my lineage was,

it helped me to start to understand

how I need to present myself and who I am as a man.

POWELL: The average American

doesn't know much about the history

of the African American soldier because they were left out.

♪ ♪

JOHNSON: Telling the story of the Buffalo Soldiers

is a means of re-establishing that which was already there.

It's making history ring true.

MILLNER: When we tell the whole story,

we see the ways in which Blacks in every generation,

in every period of American history,

have been intimate and important parts of American development.

SHELLUM: The Buffalo Soldiers paid the price

for another generation of

Black enlisted men and Black officers

to serve in World War I and World War II.

We had the first Black brigadier general

in Benjamin O. Davis, Sr.

We have a Black secretary of defense today.

NARRATOR: In 1991, in Moses Williams' final resting place

of Vancouver, Washington,

General Colin Powell dedicated a monument to Williams

and three other Medal of Honor recipients.

I have been fortunate in that

for the entire time that I have been in the Army,

the Army has been committed to equal opportunity,

and the very serious racial barriers had been knocked down

by people who came along before me.

JOHNSON: The Buffalo Soldiers had the challenge

of always fighting on two fronts:

fighting the enemy

that the commanding officers said you're fighting,

and then fighting the commanding officers,

who didn't think that they were even worthy

of wearing the uniform.

TAYLOR: They are very much part of

what we would now call the struggle for rights.

Their very being,

and sometimes their challenging of racial injustice,

is reflective of their being part of that larger struggle.

NARRATOR: And that struggle continues today.

♪ ♪

GEORDAN NEWBILL: We say African American history,

but we gotta get out of that-- it's American history.

You know? It is.

(crowd cheering and applauding)

♪ ♪

MAN: ♪ Left, right, left, right ♪

♪ Left, right, left, right ♪

♪ Buffalo soldiers ♪ ♪ Left, right, left, right ♪

♪ Buffalo soldiers ♪

♪ Left, right, left, right ♪ ♪ Buffalo soldiers ♪

♪ Buffalo soldiers ♪ ♪ Left, right, left, right ♪

♪ Buffalo soldiers ♪

♪ Right, left, right ♪ ♪ Explorers and mountaineers ♪

♪ Have you been praised for your bravery ♪

♪ As you gallantly rode your steed? ♪

♪ Caravaning sanctuaries with your bodies ♪

♪ There's no fear from the fire within ♪

♪ Building trails with the rest of us to follow ♪

♪ ♪