Exhibit feedback is welcome via the exhibit survey.
This page is for Black History Month Feb. 2024.
Colonel Young’s Letters Home is a banner poster exhibit of images and narrative text documenting Colonel Young's experiences as a Buffalo Soldier. The exhibit will be on display February 2-29, 2024. This exhibit was made possible through the generosity of the National Park Service - Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument.
This exhibit was made possible through the generosity of the National Park Service - Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument.
Video provided from the National Park Service.
Black Soldiers in Jim Crow Texas, 1899-1917 by
In Jim Crow Texas, black Regular Army units returning victoriously from Cuba and the Philippines collided head-on with local segregation and bigotry. As the soldiers' expectations of dignity and respect met with racial restrictions and indignities from civilian communities, a series of violent episodes erupted. Although confrontations also occurred elsewhere, the most notorious were in Texas, beginning with an 1899 clash between white lawmen in Texarkana and black soldiers riding a troop train west after returning from Cuba. The first truly violent episode came in 1906, when troops were accused of attacking Brownsville after civilian provocations. In 1917 a full-scale battle in Houston resulted in fifteen dead and twenty-one injured. Between 1899 and 1917, a series of other face-offs--some involving the complex relationships of blacks with local Hispanic populations--occurred when black soldiers stood up for their rights or their lives in San Antonio, Laredo, El Paso, Rio Grande City, Del Rio, and Waco. This little-known story, never before told in full, illuminates the collision of racial discrimination with racial pride and reveals once again the petty biases, institutionalized racism, and mutual suspicions that have divided American society. But it is also a story of lofty aspirations too long delayed, of the transformation of a downtrodden race into a self-confident people, and of the noble attempt, however dangerous its means, to realize full citizenship. Clearly written and impressively researched, "Black Soldiers in Jim Crow Texas" traces the relationship of the four black military regiments--the 24th and 25th Infantries and the 9th and 10th Cavalries--with white civilian communities in the period between the Spanish-American War and World War I. Drawn from previously unexploited sources, it fills a void in the increasing body of research on the black military and illuminates the magnitude of racial intolerance in early twentieth-century America. No other work has explored these issues in such depth and with such skill.
The Buffalo Soldier Tragedy Of 1877 by
In the middle of the arid summer of 1877, a drought year in West Texas, a troop of some forty buffalo soldiers (African American cavalry led by white officers) struck out into the Llano Estacado from Double Lakes, south of modern Lubbock, pursuing a band of Kwahada Comanches who had been raiding homesteads and hunting parties. A group of twenty-two buffalo hunters accompanied the soldiers as guides and allies.Several days later three black soldiers rode into Fort Concho at modern San Angelo and reported that the men and officers of Troop A were missing and presumed dead from thirst. The “Staked Plains Horror,” as the Galveston Daily News called it, quickly captured national attention. Although most of the soldiers eventually straggled back into camp, four had died, and others eventually faced court-martial for desertion. The buffalo hunters had ridden off on their own to find water, and the surviving soldiers had lived by drinking the blood of their dead horses and their own urine. A routine army scout had turned into disaster of the worst kind.Although the failed expedition was widely reported at the time, its sparse treatments since then have relied exclusively on the white officers'accounts. Paul Carlson has mined the courts-martial records for testimony of the enlisted men, memories of a white boy who rode with the Indians, and other buried sources to provide the first multifaceted narrative ever published.
Soldier, Sister, Spy, Scout by
From the earliest days of the western frontier, women heeded the call to go west along with their husbands, sweethearts, and parents. Many of these women were attached to the army camps and outposts that dotted the prairies. Some were active participants in the skirmishes and battles that took place in the western territories. Each of these women-wives, mothers, daughters, laundresses, soldiers, and shamans-risked their lives in unsettled lands, facing such challenges as bearing children in primitive conditions and defying military orders in an effort to save innocent people. Soldier, Sister, Spy, Scout tells the story of twelve such brave women-Buffalo Soldiers, scouts, interpreters, nurses, and others-who served their country in the early frontier. Includes the story of Cathy Williams, a Buffalo Soldier.
Freedom Flyers by
As the country's first African American military pilots, the Tuskegee Airmen fought in World War II on two fronts: against the Axis powers in the skies over Europe and against Jim Crow racism and segregation at home. Although the pilots flew more than 15,000 sorties and destroyed more than 200 German aircraft, their most far-reaching achievement defies quantification: delivering a powerful blow to racial inequality and discrimination in American life. In this inspiring account of the Tuskegee Airmen, historian J. Todd Moye captures the challenges and triumphs of these brave pilots in their own words, drawing on more than 800 interviews recorded for the National Park Service's Tuskegee Airmen Oral History Project.
Child of the Fighting Tenth by
This memoir by Forrestine Cooper Hooker details her childhood and young adulthood in the midst of the frontier cavalry. Hooker's father, Charles Cooper, was an officer in the Tenth U.S. Cavalry, one of two regiments with black troops, known as the Buffalo Soldiers, commanded by white officers. Hooker's stories capture the drama of growing up in the frontier army, the Indian wars on the plains, the Geronimo campaign in the Southwest and Mexico, her love for the regiment and the Buffalo Soldiers, their admiration for her, and even her lost love for a dashing young cavalry officer.
Buffalo Soldiers Lecture Presentation
Monday, February 19
2:30 p.m.
Ozuna Library and Learning Center, room 217
Join Ozuna Library and Assistant Professor Oliver Jones for a Buffalo Soldiers lecture presentation in collaboration with the library exhibit.
Colonel Young's Letters Home.
Light refreshments will be provided.
Contact Cynthia Sanchez at csanchez@alamo.edu for more information.
Wednesday, February 2812-1:30 p.m. |
Ozuna Library & Learning Center- Room 217 |
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Join us for Palo Alto College's 2024 Black History Month book discussion, open to students, employees, and the community. The book discussed is Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment : The Military Career of Charles Young by Brian Shellum. Current PAC students and employees can access the eBook at the book link or QR code below. Register here to participate in the book discussion.
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Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment by 