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Selects: Who were the Buffalo Soldiers? · Stuff You Should Know

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