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Who were the Buffalo Soldiers? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of five
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w. Action, Jackson Bryant, right, sure,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and then there's Jerry over there, the flash that makes
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: this stuff. You shure, that's right. If there's one thing
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: people say to me is how much I'm like Carl
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Weathers and how speedy Jerry is. Why why do I
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: want to say that Carl Weathers had one arm in Action? Jackson?
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I don't think that was the case. Has he ever
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: had one arm in any of his Oh? I think
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: his arm gets pulled off in Predator? Okay, then I'm
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: complaining the two. It sounds about right. I saw Predator,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: but just once, like you know, when it came out.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: I saw it within the last twelve months. Yeah, I
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: think it's even better now has a grown up. Oh yeah, yeah,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I can really feel the tension like you're in the
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: jungle there with everybody. It's amazing. Have you been singing
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the Buffalo Soldier song like constantly in her head? Despite
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: my best efforts, I can't stop. Well, I looked up
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: the lyrics because I was just you know, I know
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: some of them, Uh, but I wanted to kind of
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: see where exactly he was probably talking about the soldiers,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: and there were some kind of on the nose references.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Jerry mentioned San Juan mentioned San Juan. What else you know?
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Fighting for America, fighting on arrival, fighting for survival. Always
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I always got it wrong though. I thought he said
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: dreadlock rock star. No, he says dreadlock Rosta. I know.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: I learned that today, Dreadlock rock star. I've been seeing well.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I thought he was talking about himself. That's hilarious. I
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: was singing it wrong. I mean he was singing about himself. No,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: he's singing about the Buffalo soldiers. They weren't Rosta's. I
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: guess some of them could have been. Maybe we'll find out. Anyway.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I've been singing for forty years, Dreadlock rock star. That's
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: pretty good, like a dumb dumb Oh, that's all right.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: It's pretty close, man, And it still makes sense. The
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: ones that don't make sense are the hilarious ones that
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: just seems like a very like, I don't know, white
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: college kid thing to sing dread like rock star, dreadlock. Yeah,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: when you first started listening to Bob Marley. Okay, you're ready,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I'm ready. So we're talking Buffalo Soldiers. And then it
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: is not just a Bob Marley song. It's if anything,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: that Bob Marley song is kind of like a his
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: story history lesson, which is kind of interesting. Um, but
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the Buffalo Soldiers was the name of some all black
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: regiments and then eventually all black soldiers in the United
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: States fighting in the United States military. That's right from
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: right after the Civil War all the way up until
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I think nineteen fifty one, when the last all black
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: regiment was disbanded and the military was impracticed desegregated. Yeah,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: but when did you say that happen? I think nineteen
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: fifty one. Um, But they did not take on that
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: natal post Civil Civil War, right, And at first it
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: wasn't a name that they took on themselves. It was
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: a name that was given to them. And there's a
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: lot of dispute over where it came from, who's the
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: first to use it, that kind of stuff. But it's
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: a really interesting history and it's not just an interesting
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: like military history. There's a lot of like terrible tragic
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: irony involved. There's, um, there's this kind of overarching theme
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: where you can make a case that the Buffalo Soldiers
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: are the ones who actually paved the way for desegregation
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: throughout the entire United States. You can trace a direct
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: line from their service to desegregation. It's pretty pretty amazing stuff.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: And yet there's still this kind of um cloud that
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: hangs over them historically because of one of the things
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: that they participated in, which was the genocide of Native
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Americans at the behest of the white US government, right
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: because they were trying to earn a place in white
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: America and gained some status and prestige, and white America
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: was like, we want you to do something for us first,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: and we'll still probably not grant you that respect. Yeah,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: which is kind of par for the course from what
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I understand as far as military service and being black
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: in America goes UM. In the Battle of New Orleans,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: the Black Phalanx, this black regiment ended up pretty cool name. Yeah,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: it really is. Um. They ended up basically winning the
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: battle UM against the British at the Battle of New Orleans,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: which actually came ironically after the end of the War
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: of eighteen twelve, but it was still a decisive battle
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: UM and they had been Mustard, a lot of them
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: from local plantations by Andrew Jackson, and Jackson had promised
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: them their freedom if they came and fought in one.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: And they came and fought in one and Jackson said, yes,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: are you have to go back to your plantations? I
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: was lying, yeah, and that's not a surprise. Yeah, but um,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: imagine that And that was not the first time that
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: that had happened to him. That was pretty much par
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: for the course. While they were enslaved. They would be
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: promised freedom for fighting and then no, after the fact,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: that's just not that's not gonna happen. Yeah. And you know,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: like we said, the Buffalo soldiers post Civil War were
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: and we'll we'll get to um like their formal designation
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: and their regiments and stuff like that. But there had
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: been uh individuals enlisted in all the way back to
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: the Revolutionary War. There were you know, black individuals that
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: would go and fight, but they just weren't grouped in
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: their own regiments. The first one was the Black Regiment
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: in Rhode Island. I think. Yeah, in the Revolutionary War,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: didn't we talk about them in a short stuff about
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: um the Black Revolutionary war fighters? And they moved up
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: to Nova Scotia. We definitely did. So the Grabster put
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: this a lot of this together for us, which was
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: a big help. And it's important to look at what
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: was going on after the Civil War and this unique
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: set of circumstances that were created that kind of led
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: to these regiments being formed, which was about twelve thousand
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: maybe a little bit more black veteran soldiers from the
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Civil War all of a sudden needed jobs and they
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: were soldiers at this point, so they were like, you know,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I'll keep doing this. This could be my career. Like
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: give us a job in reconstruction in the South, they
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: needed federal troops. Federal troops, well, yes, it was probably
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: not a good idea to send black troops for to
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: oversee reconstruction, so to occupy the South, can you imagine
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: it would not have been So they sent white troops
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: of course, but that created a vacuum elsewhere where they
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: could use and utilize these black troops. Um, there were
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: four million slaves that were now free and uh ed
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: hazard a guess that you know, let's say a million
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: one and a half million of these were adult males
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: that were ready to go and serve and fight. If
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: need be. And then we were going west, and we
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: knew that there were Native Americans out there that we're
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: not going to go easily. There was Mexico looming on
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: the horizon as potential conflict. And because they were sending
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: white soldiers to the south, Uh, they needed people to
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: go out west and kind of you know, keep the
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: peace in a way and take care of business in
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: another way, or to remove Native Americans forcibly from their
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: ancestral lands. That's right. So um on July sixty six,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Congress did something really surprising. They said, we've got all
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: these kind of expansionist ideas. We've got the South that
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: we need to occupy. We need a bigger army. We're
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: going to raise a huge peace time army. And not
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: only that, we're going to form some all black regiments.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Were going to let black people um enlist for the
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: first time ever as peace time soldiers. Yeah, and partially
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: because they just needed people, and partially because they thought
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: these black veterans that fought in the Civil War for
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: the Union they should be rewarded with jobs. Exactly. So,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: for the first time, the federal government didn't reneg on
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: the offer of something better. After having served and fought
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: as a soldier. So there's a big deal and just
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: having you know, allowing soldiers, black soldiers to enlist during
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: peace time, but the fact that they could enlistment that
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: they could become officers as well, which meant West Point
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: was open to black UM soldiers for the first time,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: which was a huge deal UM in eighteen So in
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six is when they expanded the army. Just
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: a few years later they wanted to shrink the army
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: a little bit, so they consolidated a bunch of regiments
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: down to five and the original I think it was
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: six uh for infantry and to cavalry were now shrunk
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: down and combined into the ninth Cavalry, the tenth Cavalry.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I'm saying both cavalry and cavalry, just covering all your bases,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: even though only one of them is correct in this cavalry, uh,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: the infantry in the infantry right. And the fact that
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: they survived this downsizing of the army because Congress want
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: we need a big army. It's too big, let's get
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: rid of some some soldiers. The fact that all black
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: regiments survived is really miraculous because in that downsizing decree
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: a few years later. It wasn't um. It wasn't included,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: like and we still need to keep black regiments in
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: intact um And William two comes to Sherman was no
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: great friend to the black man by any stretch of
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: the imagination. And he was in charge of downsizing these troops.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: And yet he knew enough that there were still congress people,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: congressmen in Congress who had created the black regiments in
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: the first place. They would not be very happy if
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: he just dissolved them, so he kept him in tech
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: and actually just went from six to four. Yeah, and
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: but it's interesting because it was peacetime. You know. During wartime,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: especially back then, it was really pretty easy to get
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: people to sign up and volunteer and fight for whatever
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: side they were on. But in peace time they found
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: that they could get the cream of the crop of
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: black soldiers because they didn't have as much opportunity, so
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: they could really be picky and get these really like
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: super capable fighters, whereas on the other side, uh, during
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: peace time, it was harder to get white soldiers that
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: were as capable because they had much more opportunities to
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: do other things beyond like hey, I got nothing going
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: on outside up for the army, right exactly. And in
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: the army to um, there's a lot of mythologizing about, um,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: you know, how the black regiments were treated. It related
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: to white regiments as well, and it seems like, um,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: some historians have shown if you trace the supply lines,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the black bagment's got the same shoddy and then increasingly
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: better supplies as the white regiments at the same time.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: And in the army you had just opportunities, um that
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: just weren't afforded to you outside, like the opportunity to
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: make money, you know, and have savings and a pension, um,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: things that you could you could kind of bank on
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: the future with that. That was just not part of
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: of the black experience of black men back then. You know.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I think that's a very robust set up in more, Oh,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: we're still doing set up. No, let's beyond like That's
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: why I said and more. But I think what I'm
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: trying to say is it's a great time for a break. Okay, yeah, yeah,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: all right, we'll be right back and we'll talk a
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: little bit about how this name came to be right
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: after this. So there's a lot in here about how
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: this name came to be, right, But I think we
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: condense it um. We can condense it to just a
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: couple of versions, one of which was that the name
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: may have come from the Native Americans as sort of
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: an honor, like they're brave and they fight, They're like fierce,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: like the buffalo and like Sasha fierce. I don't know
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: what that is. That's like Beyonce's weird alias. Why do stars,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: when you get to this enormous, huge point, decided to
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: create an alter ego? That's always not good? Chris Gaines, Yes,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: learn the lesson from Chris Gaines. Yeah, who else has
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: done that? It doesn't matter, Chris, Some of them have worked.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Zikky Starda certainly worked. Captain Fantastic worked fine. Chris Gaines,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: N it's all though, No, I agree, I didn't know
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: that very short lived really and what was the persona
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: was it? I guess she was fierce, so I don't know.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I just heard her name a couple of times. Beyonce's
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: fear though, right right, you don't need an alter ego, Beyonce.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: You're fierce enough. You don't want to go too much fiercer.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: You should be her manager should you know all the
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: right moves. So that is that is one of the
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: stories was that it was honor, a name of honor
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: from the Native Americans. But this to me sounds like
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: it might have been just something kind of cooked up
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: in history books or it just kind of converted into that.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Maybe the Smithsonian Museum of African American History says, yeah,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: that stands as popular lore. That's one um example. Another
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: is basically there's two competing ones, and that is that
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: the Native Americans did give this name to the black soldiers,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: but that they were referring to the woolyness of the
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: black soldiers hair compared to white soldier's hair, and that
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: if you look between the horns of a buffalo, that
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: kind of like to pay almost that the buffalo is
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: wearing bears of vague resemblance to it, and that that's
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: where it initially came from. Yeah, and there's like direct
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: evidence from letters and stuff of the time of this
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: um whether or not it was true or not. It
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: was it was at least down in print as being
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: the reason, but we don't know for sure, uh, And
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: we don't know for sure how they felt about the
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: name other than it seems like as time went on,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: they kind of embraced the name as a designation UM.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: And in one case there was one troop that did
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: use a bison on a patch on their uniform, but
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: then bison were used on other patches on uniforms of
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: white soldiers too. I think it was strictly Black regiments really,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: just later ones that weren't the ninth That that was
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: my interpretation, okay, but but yeah, by the time I
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: think nineteen eleven is when that first patch appears. But
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: so by the time teen eleven rolls around, the Black
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: regiments had UM had totally like taken on Buffalo soldiers
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: a name of honor. Yeah, and and Ed points out,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: I think it's fair. It's easy now in to look
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: back at UM two uh, two ethnic groups that were
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: you know, kept under the thumb of the white man
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: and say that, oh, you know, the Native Americans respected
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: them as fierce fighters, and the Black soldiers respected the
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Native Americans. But that's probably retroactive revisionist history, because you know,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: there were plenty of cases where the Buffalo soldiers referred
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: to them as you know, savages, and one case of
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: one soldier you know, going as a costume party, dressed
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: up and I guess what you would call red face,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and uh so, yeah, it seems like that's
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: sort of cooked up these days, like they really had
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: much respect for one another during their battles. But I
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: don't know if that's a case. No, but you can
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: understand how that would how people would want to do that,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: you know, because I mean, the sending African American soldiers
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: out to remove Native Americans from their land with violence
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: at the behest of white people. It's not a good story. No,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: it's a terrible story. Yeah, it takes a bad story
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: makes it worse, and then at the same time, um,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: there's a real silver lining to it. There's that good
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: story that like black soldiers served as heroes for the
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: black community in America as a whole at a time
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: when they really needed some black heroes, you know, and
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the Jim Crow South was really starting to to solidify. Um,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: So it's not like an all bad story, but it's
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: definitely not an all good story either. So people want
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: like a nice storybook ending for sure, which is surely
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: where that came from. I think. So, so should we
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit about, um what they did? Yeah, yeah,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: when they were um first assembled in I think that
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: late to mid eighteen sixties. Um, they were almost immediately
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: moved out to the frontier Kansas and Texas, New Mexico, UM,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: and pushing further and further west as their work was
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: increasingly successful. Yeah, and usually under the command of white officers. UM.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: It was not looked at as some great assignment if
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: you were a white officer, uh, to go west and
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: command one of the Buffalo Soldier regiments. Yeah, it would
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: have been like being stationed in Alaska or something like that.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Alaska is great. Although some some white commanding officers did
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: rise to the occasion, yeah, and had a lot of
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: great things to say about the soldiers too. Some of
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: them definitely did not rise to the occasion and actually
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: went the other way, right, you know. Yeah, and you
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: mentioned West Point. This was a huge deal because, like
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: you said, now, these young men could go attend West
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Point and come out officers upon entry into the army. Uh.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: There were quite a few cases. One was a man
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: named Henry Flipper. He was the first black graduate of
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: West Point in eighteen seventy seven, came out as second
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: lieutenant in the tenth Cavy Cavalry and was basically set
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: up with a court martial. There was a case where
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: there was some He was put in charge of a
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: quartermaster safe to like guard it basically and take charge
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: of it. Money becomes missing, he uh kind of freaks
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: out and lies about it. It's kind of all evidence
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: pointing to the fact that he didn't take the money,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: but he did lie about. How did he went? What
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: did he lie about? Thinks I couldn't I think that
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: the initial money was missing at all. Maybe I'm not
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: really sure, but it looks like it was a set up.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: He was acquitted of the main charge even back then,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and was found guilty of an added charge of conduct
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: unbecoming of an officer right uh and was dismissed from
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: the army, which even back then was an overblown sentence
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: compared to the similar charges of white officers right into
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the army at the time. He could have gotten his
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: discharge changed to honorable discharge, but the Army apparently didn't
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: have any procedure to do that, so it was up
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: to the commander in chief, Chester A. Arthur Uh to
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: decide yea or nay, And he just for he just
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: let it pass by. But he so um lieutenant. Was
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: he a lieutenant second lieutenant second lieutenant Flipper went to
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: his grave saying that he was innocent, and um he
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: In the nineties, Bill Clinton finally pardoned him. He did,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: and Clinton that ghoul ordered him exhumed and reburied with
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: full military honors. But they suspect that Clinton just wanted
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: to see what the body looked like. Come on, he said,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: let's do this, right. Yeah, he probably did say that.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: So there were another couple of cases, John Hanks, Alexander
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: and Charles Young. Uh, they were West Point grads early on.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: They went on to lead these regiments. And uh, that's
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: not to say that at West Point it was smooth Salem.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Of course. You know, they had a very hard time
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: there and still persevered extraordinarily. Um points out that in
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: the Tuskegee Airman Episode two, I think we talked about
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: how the um, those guys who went through West Point
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: had or the military academies had just an awful time
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: of it too. I mean that happened. I mean it
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: probably still happens to some degree. But I mean I
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: read The Lords of Discipline. I did too, and saw
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the movie. I don't know if I saw the movie
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: or not, and that was what year was that set
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: that was? It's probably sixties, wasn't. I don't know what
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: was the problem with that guy. He just was soft
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: or something, wouldn't it he like was was um ah,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: he had feelings, you know, I don't remember. I haven't
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: seen it in a long time. But um, that was
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: the Citadel, not West Point, which is Navy, I think, right,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Air Force Marines. The Citadel is National Guard. No cub Scouts, Yes,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: it was cub Scouts. Citadel was cub Scouts where the break.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: So uh, these regiments had about a thousand troops and officers.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: But um, they were constantly under supplied. And like you
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: said earlier, it's there's no evidence that they were intentionally undersupplied. No,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: but it's a myth that they were. Yeah, but kind
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: of everyone out west was because it takes a long
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: time to get stuff out there, and a lot of
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: those old Civil War weapons and equipment were pretty shoddy anyway. Yeah. Plus,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: I mean it's not really easy to come by water
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: in the New Mexico desert or you're fighting the Cheyenne
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: or the Apache, um like, so you have horses that
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: need water too, because you're a cavalry unit. Um, and
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: the horses were breaking down. It was a really bad
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: time as they were moving further and further west. Because
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: we tend to think of the United States military like
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: in the terms of today, this just incredibly well oiled,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: logistical juggernaut. That was not the case after the Civil War.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, until I believe the Spanish
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: American War, the United States military was looked upon internationally
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: is kind of like a not not the best around,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: certainly not the best equipped the logistics. We didn't have
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff down. You didn't hear it from me,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: but right exactly. But um, and this was you know,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: the army that these guys were enlisted in, So they
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: were dealing with an army that was not was finding
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: its feet and then also on the frontier of the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: United States at a time when they're protecting the people
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: building the railroads. So there's not even the railroads out
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: there yet. One of their jobs was to protect railroad workers,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: mail carriers, people who were on trattle drives. Yeah, um,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: these were the jobs they were asked with. Uh. Well,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: they were also fighting, like we said, in what was
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: known as the Indian Wars, uh, including some of the
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: some of the big ones. I think we need to
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: do a big old episode on the any wars. Yeah,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: let's do it. Wounded Knee, the White River War. Yeah,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: I've never heard of that one. I looked it up.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: The war is not a term for most of these.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Should be massacre now, it should be straight up massacres. Yeah.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Although here's the other thing too, This is really easy
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: for guys like us to do, especially in retrospect, is
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: um what's called like mythologizing the noble savage right where
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: the where we kind of make it seem like the
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: Indians were just the people who, you know, kind of
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: meekly accepted their fate and we're just rolled over by
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: the US government through this westward expansion. That's not the case.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: In almost every case, the further west we got, the
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: fears of the fighting got, they pushed back. For sure.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: They engaged in massacres that included killing women and children
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: and non combatants on both sides did so. It's not
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: like the Native Americans were just innocent of of bloodshed.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: But it's important to remember that they were. They were
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: defending their lands from invaders. They were the insurgents, and
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: that so there's like a certain amount of um moral
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: higher ground that they afforded just for being in that position,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: you know. But it's just that's the thing. That's why
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: I've always been fascinated about histories, Like it's never just
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: you know, black and white. Yeah, there's so much nuance
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: that gets overlooked, especially if you were raised in like
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: you know, public schools in America. Exactly, not a lot
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: of nuance going up right, and white people swooped in
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: and everything was great, exactly. So by the eight nineties,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the Indian Wars ended, um, the reservations popped up, or
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: they were just flat out massacred, like you said, or imprisoned.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: And this is when the Buffalo Soldiers ar died, uh
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: taking part in some of the land disputes out west
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: with white settlers. Yeah, the removal of the Sooners in Oklahoma,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: that's huge, huge, because all of a sudden, black regiments
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: show up and they're like you, you might be white,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: but you need to get out of here because you
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: didn't follow the rules. That's a huge change from a
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: decade or so before, when like those people would have
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: been enslaved in the South. It's it's a big deal.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: What else. You mentioned San Juan from the Bob Marley song. Yeah,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: that's that was when they entered the national stage for
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: the first time. Yeah, fighting in Cuba in Puerto Rico. Yeah,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: it's very confusing. They fought at the Battle of San
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Juan Hill in Cuba and the Battle for San Juan
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: in Puerto Rico. That's right under the tenth Regiment under
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: the command of a guy named General John Pershing, who
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: you might be familiar with, is known as Blackjack Pershing,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: the famous World War One general. Yeah, I had heard,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: I knew, I had heard of him. He was named
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: black Jack because he was in command of the Black
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Red amainst the tenth Cavalry, And I mean I think
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: in the First World War he was a little less
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: um willing to stand up and like advocate for them,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: but by the time World War Two came around, he
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: was okay. So I didn't hear about the World War
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Two part. But that was a pretty big betrayal in
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: World War One because he led the tenth Cavalry up
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: San Juan Hill in Cuba, um along with the rough Riders,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: along with White infantry. The This battle was one of
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: the first ones right before the turn of the twentieth century.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Um where there were if you were standing back, like
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: looking at this battle, there's black guys, there's white guys.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: There's black guys on horses, there's Spanish people coming down here,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: like there's all these people. But the black um soldiers
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: and the white soldiers were intermingling, fighting together, side by side,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: and they won. And Teddy Roosevelt said it was all me.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: I I won the Battle of Cuba San Juan in Cuba.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: But historians say, actually, no, these black regiments, specifically the
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: tenth Cavalry, really won this battle in the Spanish American
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: War down in Cuba, and it was huge. It put
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: the Buffalo Soldiers on the map for really the first
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: time ever in the American popular consciousness, and like um,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: black families around America, like you could go into their
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: dining room and there'll be a print of like a
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: painting of the Battle of San Juan with the Buffalo
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: soldiers storming the hill like um. One historian put it
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: that they were there that generation's Jackie Robinson and Joe Lewis,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: like they were the heroes, Like I was saying they
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: were the heroes at a time when Jim Crow Laws
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: were really coming into into force and have really really
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: bleak time for Black America. All of a sudden, there's
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: these buffalo soldiers that basically helped win the Spanish American War,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: fighting alongside white soldiers too and being equal in that respect.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: And that's why you'll see all those statues right next
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: to Teddy Roosevelt exactly exactly. And you know what, I
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: may have made up that part about General Pershing advocating
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: wor wor World War two, now that I think about it,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Oh well, that was I didn't get to the betrayal thing, chuck.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: So when World War One roll rolled around, he was
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: in charge of I think basically everybody in Europe, and
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: he turned his back on his black regiment and all
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: black soldiers and basically said, no, you guys fighting your
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: own regiments. So I don't want you fighting side by side.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: And but the French were like, hey, come fight with us,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: we'll we'll command you. And that happened. That reminded me.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: The French were also the first ones to recognize officially
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: the Native American code talkers, even before the United States did.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Remember that, and they also used black aviators in World
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: War One two, So up with the French historically speaking,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: there's a teacher that gave us those fries and that bread.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: You mean, freedom fries, freedom bread. I feel like I'm
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: talking a lot, am I I mean, no more than usual, Okay,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: read them. So in World War Two, the Buffalo Soldier
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: units were used a lot um a lot of times.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Though they were not on the front lines. They were
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: stuck to administrative and support duties. Um. But they did
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: join in combat here and there, uh and on both
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: the theaters in the war. Um, mostly towards towards the
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: end of World War two. Um. But it was you know,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of this, A lot of the good that
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: you see coming out of what the Buffalo Soldiers did
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: was foundation work and groundwork for desegregating the military, for
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: showing that these guys are just the same as white soldiers.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: They're just as capable, they fight just as bravely. Um.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: And it really kind of laid that groundwork for the
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: desegregation after the war. Yes, like a direct line for it.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: It's weird, but they basically a way to put it
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: is that the white America said, okay, all right, if
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: you will, we'll give you a shot. You go out
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: and serve in battle, and let's see what you what
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: you can do, and then maybe we'll see what we'll
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: see from there. And just by being given that one
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: opportunity two to show that they could do things that
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: were presumed they couldn't, like act bravely and fight um
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: and be a good soldier, that was like, you know,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: good at being a soldier. They proved that all of
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: these myths about how black people couldn't do these things
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: were wrong. And that kind of thing opens up some
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: people's eyes too. Okay, well, what else do I think
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: about black people that are wrong? And it's weird to
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: think about because on a on a um, on a
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: social level, that that's what it takes, that that people's
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: minds can be changed like that. But historically, speaking in retrospect,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: like that's how it happens, you know, like one prejudice
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: is tested and then all of a sudden, other prejudices
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: start lowly, yeah, kind of kind of falling over like dominoes, totally,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: very very slowly. Though unfortunately, like dominoes, you can only
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: picture falling fast. I know, do that in SloMo. It's
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: almost a terrible analogy almost, so it's crazy to think,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: but um. Even though desegregation happened long before this, it
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: takes a while for that to fully happen. And they
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: were Buffalo soldier units in the Korean War, all black
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: units in the Korean War. There was but it was
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: I think that Truman signed this act disagregating the military. Yeah,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: and I think it was took three more years. Nineteen
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: fifty one was when the final the final one was disbanded. Right.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: But that's why I was saying you could trace a
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: direct line of disaggregation from the military, because that was
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: the first chance that Black America had to show that
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: it could be treated equally and that it could act equally. Um.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: And they showed that, and it led to disagregation in
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: the military. And then three years after the actual in
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: practice disegregation of military regiments, there was the Brown Versus
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Board of Education ruling, which not in practice but in
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: theory disegregated schools. So it went army schools and then
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: eventually socially it just kept going. Yeah, but it was
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: because of the Buffalo soldiers and in their service directly, undisputedly.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean that's crazy to think. As late
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: as the Korean War, though some of those units were
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: still fighting. Ye, it is because when I think of Match,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: it doesn't feel modern, but it doesn't feel like Buffalo
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Soldier territory. Right, Yeah, the Buffalo Soldiers you think of
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: like nineteenth century American West, nine fifties Korea. No, you
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: don't think of Hawkeye and his jen Still. I guess
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: there was one black character on Match with a very
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: unfortunate name, but we won't talk about that. I'm not familiar.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, I think we should take a break
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: and come back and talk about what is to me
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: one of the cooler aspects of this whole story, the
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Bob Marley song. No, we'll be right, all right, We're back,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about what I think is
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: one of the coolest little parts here of this whole story,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: which I never knew. If you've ever been to Sequoia
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: National Park or Yosemite National Park or some other national
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: parks out west, and you're hiking a trail or driving
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: down a road, you might have the Buffalo Soldiers to
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: thank for that trail in those roads. Uh. They and
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: it's one of their their highlight achievements to me is
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: once we established the national parks Teddy Roosevelt again build
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: statues of him. Right. Um, you had to enforce this
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: stuff because this was the first time we were like,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, this is protected land. You can't just
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: come in here and take the timber or hunt, you know,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: the animals. Like, there are rules now, you set up
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: like you set aside grazing lands, set aside national parks.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Libertarians they take issue with that kind of thing, and
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: you need to have buffalo soldiers to fight them off.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: That's right. So from to nineteen thirteen, about twenty five
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: years or so, these some of these black regiments were
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: essentially the first park rangers. They didn't have that name
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: at the time. Um, but they kept the poachers at
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: bay and stopped the illegal grazing and the timber thieves.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Uh they fault wildfires. Yeah. I didn't get a chance
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: to really look into this, but I wonder what nineteen
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: thirteen wildfire fighting was. Like, I'll bet it was real
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: dicey bucket brigade stuff. Probably like firefighting is dicey wildfire fighting,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: but a hundred years ago, man, I hopet it was.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine. God, but like I said, with the
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: trails and stuff, a lot of some of the more
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: significant trails and roads. Some of the buildings, yeah, some
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: of the older cabins, they were built and constructed by
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Buffalo soldiers, which is just super cool. Yeah. So if
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: you find a building in Yosemite or Sequoia National Parks,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: that's yes, then it was probably built by Buffalo soldiers
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: or hiking a trail. Yeah, this is all just super cool. Yeah,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. They also rode bicycles around the place too,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: which is kind of neat. Yeah. Um, so, Chuck. The
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: last Buffalo soldier, and I mean, like original Buffalo soldier,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Mark Matthews. He died on September six, two thousand five.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: He was interred at Arlington National Cemetery. He was a
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: hundred and eleven years old, and he actually fought under
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: General Pershing in the tenth Cavalry on the hunt for Chovia.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I think I don't know if we
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: mentioned that. How many medals of honor were there? Twenty three?
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: I saw three. The National Museum of African American History
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: says eighteen. I'm gonna go with them all right, somewhere
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: between eighteen and twenty three, let's saying that. Yeah, So
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: you know, the I guess the moral of the story
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: is that they did provide this um direct line to desegregation,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: not only through the army, but, like you're saying, all
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: through America. But sadly, a lot of them did exit
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: the military. Um. Some of them did have a little
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: uh higher status and a leg to stand on. Many
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: of them didn't. Uh they were There was a study
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: of lynchings in the US that found that black military
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: veterans were targeted uh and lynched more the non veteran
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: black people, with the idea that it was a real
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: threat in uh, the racist white South for a black
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: man to leave the army with some rank and some
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: status and feeling good guns, feeling good about himself. Don't
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: forgetting the Tulsa Maskre episode. It was the World War
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: One bets who are like, uh, no, we're gonna go
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: defend this boy from being winched with guns. They showed
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: up with guns. I think, um, there, I remember in
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: the Black Panther episode two. Um, they traced a direct
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: line of this um the sense of like you need
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: to defend yourself and protect yourself with firearms. They traced
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: that directly to World War One veterans. Yeah, yeah, so
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: there is a terrible logic to that, I guess. Yeah,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: for sure. There was also a terrible um senator and
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: governor of Mississippi named James Vardaman who was just straight
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: up white supremacist. Like, no matter how you slice it,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: you could have just said senator from Mississippi in seventeen Uh,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: he's He spoke to the U Senate and he really
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: kind of crystallizes how they felt about black veterans. In
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: nineteen seven on the Senate floor, he said, once you
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: impress the Negro with the fact that he is defending
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: the flag and inflate his untortured soul with military airs,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: his political rights must be respected. Um. And he wasn't
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: saying like and that's great, Yeah, so let's respect that. Yeah,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: this was a warning basically, and he was over over looked.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: He didn't listen to him ultimately, because they did continue
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: having black soldiers as soldiers and eventually desegregated, which led
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: to de segregation in America, which is pretty great. That's right.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: I would love to hear from some current African American
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: military personnel because I want to know what the current
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: sort of temperature is as an active service person. Oh
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: what the racism is like in the military. Yeah, sure,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you know that there will be different versions
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: of that story depending on who you're in contact with
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: and what your particular like platoon is like. Yeah. I
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: wonder though, because the military is like some kind of
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: weird similar acre of American society, and I wonder if
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: it's more racist or less racist. I think there's a
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: chance to go either way. I mean, my guess is
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: less you know my uh, like I said, my brother
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: in law before and is a marine and it's pretty
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: high up, you could say. And every time I've been
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: on these marine bases a lot, and it all seems
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: like they're all sort of you know, got that thinking
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: that group think going on, like we're just marines, like
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: none of us are a color, we're green. Well I've
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: seen full metal jacket, right, and there are a lot
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: of racist stuff in there. I'm sure. Okay, Yeah, I
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: could go either way. It could go either way. I
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: would like to hear um that as well. I'd also
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: like to hear from any Native American listeners to know
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: what what they were taught about Buffalo soldiers to what
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: was pushed down within the different tribes because they contacted
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: all sorts of different tribes from the Lakota Sioux up
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: in the north down to the Apaches in New Mexico
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: and Mexico. Um, yeah, teach us everyone. Yeah, well we'll
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: read them on listener mail. Uh. If you want to
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: know more about Buffalo soldiers, there's a lot of really
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: great stuff to read. Uh. And you can't really go
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: wrong with a guy named Frank Schubert who is a
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: scholar of them of Buffalo Soldiers, and he's got a
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: lot of articles on the web and I believe some
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: books too. Um. And since I said Frank Schubert, it's
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: time for listener mail. Oh no, it's not. Oh, that's right.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: You know what it's time for hit him, Chuck. It
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: is time for administrative details. So we haven't done this
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: in a little while. If you're new to the show,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: administrative details is where we take a couple of minutes.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: We're gonna do this on this episode in the next
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: you got that straight to read out some thank yous.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Tell him Chuck for some of the kindnesses that people
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: throw our way, that's right, whether they be uh, physical
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: totems like T shirts and buttons and to confectioneries like
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: cookies and pastries and Jesus that what I did not
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: do on this one, and I feel bad because you
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: probably did is write down all the names of all
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: the postcards and letters I wrote down the ones that
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I I. Yeah, I think I've got basically everybody, And
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: we should say we almost always miss somebody or a few.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: So if we don't say your name and you have
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: not been thanked on a previous administrative detail, please get
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: in touch with us so we can correct that. That's right.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: And if you have a letter or a postcard that
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: is on my desk, I'll include those in the next
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: batch because now I feel bad. Bam, All right, let's
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: go through these. Oh and there's also some people who
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: I don't have names for, but we do have the items,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: so you can also write in and be like that
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: was me. That's right. For example, the very nice person
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: who gave us aman cookies and whiskey cake at our
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Orlando show, our live show in Orlando. Don't remember or
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: don't have the name of who gave us that, but
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: thank you for him. Katie from Davis, California. Sinis some
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: cool little notebooks. They were little notebooks like um schemes
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: was like the title of one of them. We can
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: write schemes, band names, just sort of fun names on
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: the covers of these notebooks. Thanks a lot, huge, huge,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: thanks as always to our good friends Hillary and michaelows
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Are and they're good friends. The people at Flathead Like
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: Cheese for all the cheese. That's right. Flathead Like Cheese
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: is far and away my favorite cheese in the world.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: It's good cheese. They make very good cheese. You guys
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: cannot go wrong. Just go get some Flathead Like cheese
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: and you'll love it. Yeah, a lot of the I
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: don't know if they specialize in Gouda, but we seem
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: to be on the Gouda mailing list. They make a
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: hopped gooda that is my favorite. Have you had it?
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Oh my gosh, it has hops in it.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: It's like it's a beer, but it's cheese. Uh. And
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: while we're on the lows R's Hilary and Mike and
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Coop Um. I just got this today. They sent us
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: Apron's word butcher an appropriate. So it's a knife going
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: into the lettering of a word butcher. Because I don't
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: know if you guys know this, but we are well
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: known to mispronounce everything to butcher words and you're going
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: to do that. So uh Smarty from France sent us
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: a tea card with some lady to Marmott's tea attached.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Smarty. Jess Vow send us his game that
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: he designed, Philosophy The Game or better yet, Drunk Philosophy.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: It's a great name. Katie Barnes from the Barns Made
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Soap Company for the Wonderful Soap. All of them are
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: really good, but I strongly recommend the Autumn fig and
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: the Mariner Brian Barr good stuff. Oh, you can head
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: over to Barnes Made b A r n E S
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: M A d E dot com for some of Katie soaps.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Becky in France sent us planetary coasters that she made
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: in her studio is uh seafed studio dot com. That
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: is c E P h e I D studio dot
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: com if you want some planetary coasters. They are pretty
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: spacey and awesome. Kevin Reuter gave us Basil Hayden and
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: bullet rye you remember that at our show at the
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: Bellhouse and even wrapped them up as Christmas presents. It's right,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: which is just lovely. Thanks a lot, Kevin and funny enough.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: At the show, somebody asked us like, what are what
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: like drink we would want to have on a desert
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: island if we could only have one, and both of
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: us were saying jin drinks, and he was like, well,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: I guess I guessed wrong with the basil. Haydoulle's like, no, dude,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: you you nailed it all inclusive. Our buddy van Nostri
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: and I feel like he sent us more than this,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: So if you something else, let us know. We just
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: hung out with him and his wonderful wife, Leah Uh
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: in Seattle. They sent us. He sent us some records,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: some awesome record Smurfs, Disco Duck, Lawrence Welkin, Uh, John Denver,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: the John Denver Muppets, Christmas and you know what, um
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Van Nostrin gave us books before, and one of them
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: was about Oh, I can't say yeah because that because
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: the live show is not out. But he gave us
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: a book about the live show years ago and I
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: never got around to reading him. They reminded me after
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: the show, They're like, you know that we send you
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: that book. Your dummy said, I'll have to read it now.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: Will and Katie lin Lee send us coffee from Coffee
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: by Design, So nice dee lish Uh, let's see. Nicole Collins,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: d O dr Osteopathy sent us a copy of her
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: book Insight, which is on vision like real vision and
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: the miracle that is vision. So check it out, Insight,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Doctor of Metal. I was I was delivered by a
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: dal and one of the things they do is they
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: adjust you like your baby, and they adjust you like
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: a chiropractor when you're born. I was born breach, so
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: the deo adjusted me in reverse order. Apparently everyone delivery
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: room game a golf clap afterward, and you waved your hands.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you every much. Yeah, thank you. I have a
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: taste for this applause. Uh. Indigo Proof from Portland's Uh
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: sent me a gift certificate for one free dinnom repair
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: NI because I complained about my Levi's blowing out, so
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: they said, send me those jeans and we'll fix them
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: for you. It's Indigo Proof in worlds. Did they fix
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Jens Portland organ? Uh? That is a gene fix in town.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: I've got a super old one from not this past October,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: but the October before last. Chuck. Wow, do you remember
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Kathy with a kay Tosh and believe our Phoenix show
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: or Salt Lake City Show, one of the two we're
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: talking about, gave us lasso, real live lass, rope and rope,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: and she said, go on to YouTube and learn how
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: to lasso. Now. Yeah, and I have yet to do that,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: but I still have my lasso, So thanks a lot,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Kathy too. Yeah it's not only cool too, because I
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: will try and learn that one day, but it looks
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: cool hanging on the wall for sure, you know. And
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: also I think Kathy is a postal worker, so hopefully
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: she dug our our going postal episode. I haven't heard
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: from her, that's right. Email is Kathy and let us
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: know how we did the correction to read. But I'm
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: just wait for a listener mail for that one. Oh yeah,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: that was that was me? That was my bad? Was
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: it just you? I think so somebody else made it
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: seem like it was meant Um, how many more should
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: we do for this one? Listen to do three more? Okay?
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Anna Parker she is a painter and muralist who did
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: this lovely painting of uh my three dogs, two of
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: which are now dearly departed. But it's very very sweet
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: and speaking of which you can find those her work
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: at sweet ta Murals dot com. Oh yes, very nice. Uh,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: let's see um, Lance Roper, who's my boy from Toledo,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: who is from Actual Coffee and Toledo sent me some
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: really good coffee, so check out Actual Coffee Intellectual Coffee.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Betty epper Lesen a Svoodoo dolls of us. Oh, I
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: want to know who made that? Those are so cool.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: They're like really cute and they're laden with little Easter
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: eggs like I'm holding all kinds of crazy things that
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: all relate to shows. I'm holding a magic mushroom. Really yeah,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: well that's from a show. But they had no pins,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: we should point out, so they weren't voodoo dolls that
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: were out to harm us. Her son Josh introduced her
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: to the show and her husband. Thanks Betty momos riding
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: my foot online too. Really yeah, that's very cute. Let's
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: see um the wooden egg and special egg coasters s
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: y s K egg coasters from the very kind people
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: at good egg World. Yeah yeah, all right, I got
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: one more for this a dish Adam Peterson. This was
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: a really cool gift. He sent us two bottles of
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Coca Cola from the very last run of return herble
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: bottles that Coca Cola ever did. Uh. They were small
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: family run bottler in Winona, Minnesota, and he said his
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: in laws had run it since two So these were
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: the last run of returnables that came off the line.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: And they're even stamped with their little family bottler name
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: and everything. Oh that's really very cool. Uh all right,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: last one, this one came from the Toronto show guy
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: named Phil Bowen gave us each a prosthetic eye. Oh man,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: that's one of the best ever, one of the best
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: gifts either one of us has ever got. So cool.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: So thanks a lot for our prosthetic eyes. Phil. We
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: still have them. I think it's a picture of us
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: wearing them too. Yeah, okay. Uh. If you want to
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: get in touch with us, just to say hi or
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: to send us something, it doesn't matter. You can go
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: onto stuff you should Know dot com and follow our
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: social links there I think, and uh, as always, you
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: can send us an email, wrap it up, spank it
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: on the bottom, and send it off to stuff Podcasts
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: at iHeart Radio dot Stuff you Should Know is a
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radios. How Stuff Works For more podcasts
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: for my Heart radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts,
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.