All language subtitles for Buffalo.Soldiers.Fighting.On.Two.Fronts.2022.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-done

(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 ♪

♪ ♪