 up the webinar and we'll be live. Here we go. And we're live. Welcome everyone. Hello. Welcome. Hello. Hello. We're gonna get started in just a moment. Let some more folks fill up the room. It's nice to be here. This is my first zoom since the new year it feels like and I had been doing them pretty nightly. I'm an ESA by the way. I'm putting in the link to tonight's document which will have links to our presenters, to our partners, to library news and information and anything comes up. We can add that. All right. We're gonna fill it up. Fill it at seven o'clock. And yes, you can let us know where you're joining us from. We always like that. And if you know what territory you're joining us from, you can tell us about that as well. And I'll add a link to a great map you can use to find out. So, tonight we are here for part of our more than a month celebration. More than a month, San Francisco Public Library is our Black History Month celebration and we started in mid-January and run it through February but we are also now doing programming all year round really thoughtfully and with effort. So, while we do celebrate Black History Month during Black History Month, we're gonna really be trying to program all year round celebrating all of our heritage in San Francisco in the Bay Area. So, please look forward for more than a month all year round. And tonight we have our soulmates of the natural world, NPS joining us today for A Nature Boost, which is a continued series and they're gonna be talking to us tonight about the Buffalo Soldiers. But first, I'm gonna give you a bunch of library news and I'm gonna try and make it fast. Except for this part, not fast. The San Francisco Public Library acknowledges that we occupy the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramya Tushaloni tribal people. We're the original inhabitants of our peninsula. We recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland and as uninvited guests we affirm their sovereign rights as First Peoples and wish to pair respects to the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramya Tushaloni community. I really like to shout out the Sigourtae Lion Trust when I bring this up. They're a great women-led organization out of the East Bay and they're gonna actually be joining us in April for an in-person hybrid Zoom program. So please look forward to that and later on, I'll also put in a link to a great reading list about Elonis and about other Indigenous culture and here in the Bay Area. So like I said, you can list what territory you're joining us from today. You can check us out for all the rest of the more than a month events we have going on. We also have a reading campaign called On The Same Page. This Thursday, Elisa Cole will be in person at the main library in the African-American Center. We haven't had too many in-person events but we are starting and we're so excited that Elisa is joining us all the way from Florida to do this. So come out and be there but we understand if you can't it's also going to be streaming. And then I'm just going to tell you about some other nature type stuff going on but we do have a lot so always check us out as pl.org slash events. Our next nature boost is for Climate Action Month in April, Forest Health and Resilience in Moran and we have a Earth Day special with the amazing Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stevens who will be doing an Earth Day EcoSex Walk for the second year in a row starting at the Brno Heights branch and going up to Holly Park. It is fun, it's performance, it's outside and it's fun. Night of Ideas, March 4th, if you haven't heard of it, check it out to come. After hours event at the library, 7 to 1 a.m. so many different things happening on every single floor. Food, drinks, dancing, flying people really it's insane and amazing. Night of Ideas, coming up. All right that's all I'm going to talk about but I do want to thank again our presenters tonight. We have Golden Gate National Recreation Area Park rangers Adrian, Christina and Sherry and they're going to tell us about the Buffalo Soldiers and they always come with the best most informational info and there will be time for Q&A. You can either put in the question answer or the chat is open and that's it I'm going to stop sharing and turn it over. Sherry take it away. Hi everyone I just want to thank you all so much for joining us this evening. I want to thank Anissa and all the folks at the San Francisco Public Library for allowing us to you know share a little presentation today on the Buffalo Soldiers before I get started so I'll just quickly introduce myself. So I'm Sherry Guillen. I use she, her, a pronouns and I am the four-point education program manager. Hi there and I'm Adrian Boone. I work at Mirwood's National Monument. I work as a park ranger and I work as the volunteer coordinator. Good evening everyone. My name is Christina Martinez. I use she, her a pronouns as well and I am the education programs manager for the Presidio and Christyfield area of Golden Gate National Recreation Area. And so I'm just going to pull up my screen very quickly and as I mentioned today we're going to be talking about the Buffalo Soldiers and so with this being Black History Month we really thought it was important to highlight the story of African-Americans at Golden Gate National Recreation Area and so we decided to do this kind of looking through the lens of the theme of Black History Month this year which is Black Resistance and so what we're going to be looking at today is the ways in which African-Americans have resisted historic and ongoing oppression and have advocated for sort of a dignified and self-determined life for themselves. And so with that just a little bit about us and so we all work at Golden Gate National Recreation Area which hopefully many of you have been to but if not just a little background is you know the park welcomes over 15 million visitors a year across more than 82,000 acres of coastal and urban lands and this is north and south of the Golden Gate Bridge and so it includes sites such as Alcatraz Island, Christyfield, the Marin Headlands, the Presidio of San Francisco, Rancho Corral de Tierra and Muir Woods National Monument and so those are just some of the sites that are kind of under the Golden Gate National Recreation Area umbrella. And so we do also want to acknowledge that we are on the traditional lands of the Coast Miwok and the Ramatish Ohlone and so the Presidio, Christyfield and other sites of Golden Gate National Recreation Area within the city of San Francisco lie in the ancestral homeland of the Coast Miwok and Ramatish Ohlone the original caretakers of this land. The Ramatish and the Coast Miwok they live in harmony with this special place for thousands of years managing its natural bounty for food, medicine and other resources until we pay our respect to indigenous elders past, present and future and we aspire to uphold our responsibility to steward this land as the Coast Miwok and Ramatish have done for centuries. And so with that we kind of want to start off before diving into the Buffalo Soldiers history and talk about the sort of the past of African-Americans participation in early American history. And so I would like to just take a second for everyone to maybe take a look at this painting and maybe share in the chat what you see here you know does anything stand out to you what are some thoughts that you have when you see this painting. And Adrienne if you don't mind sharing anything that comes through in the chat. Sure and somebody asked if we could speak a little slower to all of us so I'll try to speak a little slower myself. Someone says all white men that's what I said when we practiced earlier that's the first thing I said. So somebody got it Patricia oh louder hey Patricia Patricia I know you 10 points oh someone saw the black soldier behind I still haven't found that black soldier Patricia you get another 10 points oh wait I don't know if that was yeah that's Zane L Zane sorry take those 10 points away someone said looks either French and Indian war somebody else saw the black man behind with the musket someone said revolution war scene. Exactly thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts and so what you see being depicted here is actually the Battle of Bunker Hill and so for those of you who might not be familiar the Battle of Bunker Hill this is one of the first major battles of the American Revolution and to me this painting really kind of you know illustrates sort of the image that most people have when they think of the American Revolution they think of you know white men fighting and you don't really really hear about the participation of people of color who were also in the military at the time and so in the corner as someone pointed out there is a person of color and so just to you know shed some light on that there were about 5000 estimated 5000 African Americans who fought on the side of the Patriots and there were also people who fought on the side of the loyalists or those who were fighting for the British. Now everyone's had maybe different motivations for joining so some people they may have joined to sort of pursue their own freedom so many people who actually joined the British side of fighting they were promised their freedom in exchange for their service and it also kind of happened on the other side so many people in the north they had enslaved people and so some people were actually forced into service or they were promised by their enslavers that they would be that they would receive freedom in return for their service and so this is kind of one of the places where we start to see you know again the military being used as a form of resistance by not only African Americans but also indigenous people as well but also like you see in this painting those their participation in our early military history is often overlooked and so I just wanted to highlight the story of one soldier that we know of him who is Salem poor and he was present at the battle of Bunker Hill and he was actually singled out for his service specifically because he had fought with honor and with courage and bravery and he was actually one of the only people to be singled out but again this is something that you know isn't really taught in the dominant narrative and so we you know thought it was important to share that that this participation of Africans in the military is not anything new it goes back to you know the founding of our country and so African Americans they are going to continue to serve in the military they're going to serve in the war of 1812 and again in the American Revolution but once you get to the civil war initially only white men are allowed to enlist and that's going to be the case up until 1863 when you have the Emancipation Proclamation that is signed by President Lincoln and so what this document is going to do is it is going to not only free the enslaved people who are living in the rebelling states but it is also going to allow to it's going to open the doors of the military to African American men which again at the start of the war they had not been allowed to do so they are allowed to enlist but they are going to have to serve in segregated units and so there's a few reasons for that mainly there's a lot of sort of racist ideas of the time sort of doubting the abilities of black men to serve as soldiers and so there sometimes are you know fears by people that are thinking what's going to happen if we give African American men weapons or are they actually going to be courageous enough to fight in these battles or are they going to run away on the battlefield even though as you know as you look at history you know that black men have been proving themselves as soldiers since the beginning but again these are ideas that are going on at the time and so they're going to face a lot of challenges along with this sort of general sense of doubt that is doubting the abilities of black men to serve as soldiers but despite of that they are going to still join the military and so here I just kind of want to open it up and see if anyone has any thoughts or ideas on why these men might have joined the military despite all these obstacles and challenges okay I got a hope for their freedom and someone else said freedom yes absolutely so there were people who were fighting not just for maybe their own freedom but the freedom of all people who were enslaved and so you're going to see that there were also a lot of free black men who decided to join the military and so they were already free but again you know wanting to expand that idea of freedom to other people and not just themselves and so another big motivator on top of you know on top of the pay and on top of possibly other opportunities one big factor that's going to come in for people is that this is possibly a path to full citizenship and so you see this echoed by Frederick Douglass who actually served as a recruiter and enlisted two of his own sons into the military and so what he says is once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter us let him get an eagle on his button and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship and so even though there are a lot of black people who are living free that does not mean that they are being treated as equal citizens in fact they are really sort of given kind of a second class citizenship and so a lot of people also see this possibly as an opportunity to again you know earn equal citizenship and so one of the first units that's going to be recruited and organized is going to be one in the north which is the 54th massachusetts regiment and so this is actually going to be made up of mostly freed black men who are coming from all over the country to form this regiment and the recruitments are going to be so successful that they are actually able to form another regiment so they form the 55th regiment and as well as a cavalry regiment as well and so I just want to point out this recruitment poster that you see here and so you see that they are being offered a bounty of a hundred dollars they're being offered the pay of thirteen dollars a month which was the same that white soldiers were receiving at the time they're also being promised good food and clothing and state aid to their families however even though they are being promised the pay of thirteen dollars a month what is actually going to happen is when it comes time to being paid there instead only going to be paid ten dollars a month and on top of that they also have to pay for their uniforms which is something that white soldiers did not have to do and so rather than just accept this lesser pay but the men of the 54th decide to do is they're actually going to boycott and so they go without any pay for 18 months because again they want what was promised to them and in that time the governor of massachusetts actually offers to make up the difference and you know to pay them but they refuse because they again it was the federal government that promised them that pay of thirteen dollars a month and so it's not until June of 1864 when congress finally authorizes that equal pay but again this was another form of resistance that you see within the military and so then here on the right you see a picture of a camp and so the men of the 54th they had to again knowing that all eyes are kind of on them and there is so much doubt on this regiment they're really seen as sort of a trial experiment and so because of this the men know that they really have to sort of set themselves to a higher standard and so they are going to drill harder they're going to march harder than any other regiments at the time just because they know that they have to be you know in a sense perfect and so that is what they're going to be doing and when they finally get their opportunity to when they are actually deployed south they're going to find themselves mostly tasked with manual labor initially and so when they first arrive in South Carolina they are mostly going to be digging trenches they're going to be building fortifications they're not actually getting an opportunity to prove themselves as soldiers but that is going to change with one of their most famous battles which is the Battle of Fort Wagner and so this is going to take place in July 18th of 1863 and this was a frontal attack that was part of a strategy to try and take Fort Wagner which was a fortification a Confederate fortification that was protecting the city of Charleston and was seen as a really strategic place to try and take for the Union but unfortunately this is something that is not going to be successful and out of the 600 men that take part in this battle over 200 are going to end up killed wounded missing or captured and so they they do end up losing this battle but with a bravery and the courage they display here is really going to help shift public opinion on the values of Black soldiers and so this is really going to help inspire the enlistment of over 180 000 Black soldiers by the end of the Civil War and is really going to sort of mark like a turning point in the war and so after the war you see that the memory of the 54th is not forgotten and so there's going to be efforts to create a memorial to them and so this memorial is one in Boston it is also actually a national historic site so this is Boston African American National Historic Site and this memorial is seen really as sort of a kind of a groundbreaking moment because this was unveiled in 1897 this was a time when you know minstrel shows were popular on racist sort of caricatures were prevalent at the time and so this was really one of the first times that you see African Americans being depicted in a respectful realistic and honorable way and so the 54th definitely kind of set the precedent for for Black soldiers in the future and so this brings us to the Buffalo soldiers and so I found like an interesting little connection on the left here you see a drummer and so that was a drummer of the 54th Massachusetts whose name was Miles Moore he's about 15 years old when he joins the 54th and he is actually going to go on to become a Buffalo soldier and so who were the Buffalo soldiers well in 1866 after the war the army is going to be more focused on sort of rebuilding the country after the war and they're also going to be focused on expanding that western frontier and so they need people out there to participate in what they call the Indian wars and so they are going to form six Black regiments two cavalry regiments and four infantry regiments and in 1869 they're going to merge a few of those and so the ninth and the tenth cavalry those are going to stay the same the 38th and the 41st are going to be merged into the 24th infantry and the 39th and 40th are going to be merged into the 25th infantry and so just a little background about like where the name comes from well there's a few different theories on why they were called the Buffalo soldiers so one of the theories is that when indigenous people saw the the Buffalo soldiers that they thought that their dark curly hair reminded them of you know the fur of a buffalo there's also a belief that because some of the men wore buffalo robes which you can see in this photo here that maybe that's why they were called the Buffalo soldiers and then there's also another theory that believes that the fighting spirit of the of these men reminded indigenous people of the buffalo and so it was sort of like a warrior kind of spirit and so those are again just some of the ideas that of where the nickname came from and it was something that the the buffalo soldiers really sort of embraced and kind of became a name for for all of them so I'm going to pass it over to oh sorry and then just to give you a scope of where the Buffalo soldiers were so as I mentioned you know they were tasked really with sort of working out on that western frontier and so these are all sites that are associated with the Buffalo soldiers and it really kind of goes beyond this as well outside of the country but these are some of the sites that are associated with them and so we're going to be talking a little bit about some of those sites and I'm going to pass it over to Ranger Christina to talk a little bit more about that. Thank you Sherry so as you notice on that map which shows the National and Park service sites that have history associated with the Buffalo soldiers a lot of those sites are concentrated on the western United States and that is for a really good reason and that is because after the civil war that was considered a quote-unquote peacetime period so the US army had different priorities during this time the Buffalo soldiers took on a variety of duties they're participating different operations they really were reflecting the different parties of the US army post-civil war and although the US army and post-civil war was considered peacetime period it definitely was very much the opposite of that especially for indigenous americans as during this time manifest destiny ideology and westward expansion was resulting in their movable and violent genocide of indigenous peoples and as for that the for Buffalo soldiers were part of the Indian wars and other another tasks that were quote-unquote made to control a Native American population especially in the plains for instance they were assigned to maintain order in El Paso Tejas where indigenous peoples were not content with living on reservations and were wanting to hold the government accountable for many failed promises after they were put on the reservation system and like Sherry mentioned right their name Buffalo soldier stands from their interactions with indigenous peoples in the plains especially speaks to their participation in the Indian wars kind of a little bit about that some sources you know state that the black regiments were assigned in the west to shield them from possible racial abuse as a result of the civil war however many did believe that the fundamental reason was to sacrifice black troops rather than white troops in the Indian wars and of course the involvement in military actions against indigenous people created a moral dilemma for these soldiers pursuing one of the very few honorable careers available to them at this time when they were also fighting for their own freedom meant fighting other people of color at the hands of the US army I recommend you all to check out the website for the national museum of african-american history they have a great page on the Buffalo soldiers that also highlights this moral dilemma about the soldiers and poses a question we honor those warriors but what of the wars in addition to participating in the Indian wars and other actions against indigenous peoples Buffalo soldiers also captured cattle wrestlers thieves they protected settlers mostly white settlers that were going out on to towards the west westward expansion protected stagecoaches other property like wagon trains trail wagon trains and also railroad crews along the western front they also partook in military operations abroad and I'll be highlighting two of those in just a moment but last but not least they protected the country's first national parks so we do like to call them the original park rangers and in fact the uniform that they wore that four pinch hats it's actually was inspiration to create the present day national park ranger uniform next slide and so with all of these tasks all of these duties of course no matter where these soldiers went they still had to deal with discrimination challenges based on the color of their skin I'm going to read this quote from David Nevin author of the old west the soldiers they fought frequently and hard discerning far less often than whites and holding on to both discipline and morale during winter marches when white soldiers faltered yet they remained cordoned off in their own units segregated from the rest of the army and when they went into action field dispatches mentioned them as having been merely engaged white officers shun duty with the black regiments regarding it as the form of exile this quote just touches the surface on what the challenges and what these soldiers had to face especially on the western frontier they had to deal with white officers that did not want to work with them because at this time period black men were not officers in the us army they were still segregated even though they were accomplishing so many things in the name of the us army and of course they had to face a lot of challenges next slide some of these other challenges of course consisted of receiving inferior supplies food and shelter compared to the white counterparts they of course had to deal with derogatory names from their white fellow white soldiers and you know especially in certain western states like texas they suffered very severe prejudice in fact some of the regiments were repeatedly attacked in real grand day city brownsville and even houston next slide and so the buffalo soldiers are having a lot of duties within continental united states and during this quote-unquote peacetime period the us army is not only focusing on aiding westward expansion but they're also aiding us expansion abroad so this painting here depicts buffalo soldier regiments charge up san juan san juan hill cuba on july 1st 1898 and this this painting kind of highlights the part of the you know spanish-american war that occurred the war with spain began in april of 1898 when major general william shaftor a former commander of the 24th infantry led an expedition force into cuba the spanish-american war was actually the very first time buffalo soldiers were sent overseas and although the spanish-american war was fought to quote-unquote liberate the caribbean and philippines from spanish colonial rule the participation of african-american troops was actually pretty controversial in the african-american community next slide diverse opinions were shared in many black editorials all over the country highlighting how some troops and many citizens citizens openly questioned whether african-americans should fight for a country where african-americans experienced institutionalized racism and terror primarily in the southern states it is also very important to note that at this by this time by 1898 by the time this spanish-american war began black troops made up about 20 percent of the united states calvary but yet like i mentioned it's still at this time period that us army did not want any black officers during this war so i kind of want to just highlight some of the editorials uh that were for or against the buffalo soldiers participating in this in these overseas operations uh then the anepolize freeman published in 1898 against fighting if the government wants their support and services let us demand and get a guarantee for our safety and protection at home when we are guaranteed freedom and equality before the law as other american citizens then we will have the right to such take up arms and defense of our country now editorials we're fighting such a scene here on the cleveland gazette published in march of uh 1898 of all citizens the afro-american has a mighty interest at stake since our fondest and most cherished hopes for liberty and happiness are all centered in institutions of our country let us be ready and willing to do even more than others in the hour of our nation's peril thus shall be reaffirmed our claims to equal liberty and protection and so you can see just from these two editorials with very different opinions all of the conflict that was happening not only within the larger african-american community but also probably within the soldiers themselves um other things that are notable about the spanish-american war and the buffalo soldiers involvement in this war is in order to prepare for the invasion in cuba these soldiers had to be sent to the southeastern united states where overt discrimination was the norm the troops also had to deal with challenging tropical climate muddy terrain and yellow fever in fact during an outbreak of yellow fever uh 24th infantry soldiers served as nurses by orders of the us army also you know these soldiers should not just be a knowledge for what they were ordered to do but the us army but also but what they were not ordered to do william h thomkins who is who was a tenth calvary private along with three others volunteered they were not ordered but they volunteered to go ashore to rescue fellow u.s soldiers and cuban allies under the line of fire due to their actions they were actually given an awarded the medal of honor um and this is one of the highest you know honors that you can receive as a military person um and in fact you can still honor william h thomkins um today in the san francisco national cemetery and you can actually see that on his grave he will have engraved uh the medal of honor symbol uh which tells us you know that he's a medal of honor recipient and that he's definitely should be honored for that by you know towards the end of the spanish american war which is by 1899 about 18 black soldiers had been awarded this very same medal of honor which like i mentioned it is the nation's highest award for bravery and gallantry above and beyond the call of duty um next slide until i can mention you know the spanish american war was the very first time buffalo soldiers were going abroad um but that was in the the last time um so after you know uh spanish colonial rule was defeated uh through the treaty of paris which ended the spanish american war in 1898 um the buffalo soldiers were also dispatched out to the philippines and this is a great photograph of some of the troops uh here in san francisco in the year 1900 right before they went to the philippines so troops of all four regiments that were assigned to pacific commands so whether it was during the spanish american war or the philippine american war they actually departed and returned through san francisco however the army didn't station any of these units at the presidio of san francisco until 1899 that was in part because the presidio was primarily a post-war artillery units but it was also because of the army's reluctance to place black soldiers in major cities where white citizens could cause friction what ultimately brought these soldiers to the presidio was this war the philippine american war as well and you know even with this other operation uh there were very similar sentiments within the black community as to whether or not these soldiers should still be fighting wars abroad um many of these sentiments you know guided around whether you know they should still be fighting a country like the united states or whether they should even be fighting other people of color abroad um and even some of these quotes highlighted here on the screen highlights what some of the soldiers even felt that inner conflict um which i can see as a form of persistence right you have an inner conflict of having these duties that you have to do as a soldier about recognizing um how this expansion into other countries like the philippines is probably something that you wouldn't agree with commissary sergeant middleton w saddler of the 25th infantry wrote this quote in the letter we are now arrayed to meet a common foe many of our own hue and color whether it is right to reduce these people's submission is not a question for soldiers to decide our oaths of allegiance knows neither neither race color nor nation another uh soldier wrote our racial sympathies will naturally be with the philippines they are fighting manfully for what they conceive to be their best interests but we cannot for the sake of sentiment turn our back upon our own country and so again considerable opposite there was considerable opposition uh to use intervention in the philippines in fact many black leaders and editorials express support for philippine independence um so for during the philippine american war one of the biggest challenges that the 24th and 25th regiment initially encountered were the insurrect those who were the philippine nationalists who resisted the idea of american control over their you know after spanish colonial rule so these insurrect start attacking the 24th and 25th regiments so shortly after the 9th and 10th calvary were sent so this meant all four black regiments were involved in the philippine american war something really interesting to note about the buffalo soldiers experience in the philippine american war is that actually the insurrect those in their propaganda war they actually use posters addressed to the colored american soldier and in this propaganda in these flyers they reminded black soldiers about the lynchings that were happening back in the united states and they've inevitably asked them to not serve the white imperialists against other people of color and in fact there were actually a couple a few handful of buffalo soldiers that did desert during this war and there was one soldier in particular that defected to the other side and fought with the insurrect those in the name of freedom and true independence for the philippinos against american rule and so the fact that some of these soldiers deserted i consider that also a form of resistance and even though they may have taken an oath as a soldier had to he had to remember probably the moral the dilemma they were facing during this time period at a time period when they were facing all the challenges back home they were facing over discrimination back in the united states and they were fighting people that looked very much like them in this color of their skin next slide and so with that been said you know i kind of wanted to highlight you know some of their involvement in the spanish and philippine american war however the buffalo soldiers did other other things in the pacific that did not necessarily have to do with battle and with that i will hand that over to ranger adrian all right thanks christina well the buffalo soldiers a legacy continues and they also i they worked in hawaii volcanoes national park and we didn't mention earlier maybe we did but a lot of these parks that we're talking about we've worked in as park rangers so this is a park i've worked at um so uh but before that there were about 20 the 25th infantry comprised of about 850 enlisted men and officers they arrived in honolulu in january 14th of 1913 um they went to schoolfold barracks on oahu uh and the morning after their arrival they began a two-day 23 mile to schoolfold barracks where they were stationed until 1917 they marched in downtown honolulu they competed in track and field and they played in baseball games uh their team the records were winning baseball team and were later published in the honolulu newspaper they later played in the negro league and one player wilbur bullet ellis was inducted into the baseball hall of fame next slide so here's a picture of their baseball team and um they were perhaps best known for their baseball prowess uh stories about their winning baseball team the records were published in the honolulu newspapers several team members i've mentioned later joined the negro league um but just despite you know they were able to play in baseball they they still faced some discrimination there were some newspaper articles that describe how the soldiers were viewed by hawaii's multicultural society although they did not encounter the racial hatred they had from the communities on the mainland they did not entirely escape prejudice here the black troops remain segregated from their white counterparts um next slide please so they were there were summoned to help they were on the island of oahu uh their training at schoolfold barracks was spent marching and drilling and it was both arduous and tedious so when a chance for an assignment on hawaii island presented itself which is also known as the big island the company commanders jumped at it they took a steamship over to the island of hawaii and helped at the newly created hawaiian volcano observatory uh on the uh kilauea volcano dr jagger who is the scientist in charge and wanted to trail up the largest volcano in the world mauna loa so he could take scientific measurements next slide please so here's a picture of company b marching in uh hilo uh in the downtown hilo and between 1915 and 1917 six companies of the 25th infantry were present in what is now hawaii volcano's national park in that time they assisted in investigations of alava lake at halema umau crater on kilauea they're among the first soldiers to visit the kilauea military camp and constructed the precursor to the modern day mauna loa trail which still exists today so that's what i'm going to talk about a little bit in this section next slide so they built a path up uh one of the up the largest volcano of in the world which is called mauna loa um the path to mauna loa explained by dr jagger was a vast desert waste without water and rising to an immense height and every expedition to the summit exhaust the energies of the men and animals and employed and the animals are frequently crippled and have their legs cut through by the rough black lava consequently the ranchers will not rent good animals at any price and as there is no shelter on the summit little water no feed violent winds and low temperatures the men who can with difficulty be induced to go and act as guides or packers object to remaining overnight so the buffalo soldiers once again rose to the call of action when no other workers would ascend the mountain to build a trail uh in these difficult conditions next slide so here's a picture of mauna loa volcano it's the largest active volcano in the world uh dr jagger his observatory was on the rim of the crater in the picture here uh that's holly maumau crater uh at kilauea is the volcano in the foreground which is hard to tell to volcano um but he wanted an easier route to get up to the top of that trail and there was a trail up to that that mountain volcano there's a trail called ainapo but it was a long trail and it uh it took too long to get up so um there was also another man named lauren thurston who is a businessman on a walk on a walk who in honolulu so he was the promoting of an idea of a national park at kilauea volcano uh and he saw a trail to mauna loa summit as an opportunity for expanded tourism so the idea for mauna loa trail was born and this is the trail the buffalo soldiers built from kilauea on the rim all the way to the summit of the volcano next slide so under the headline soldier is building mountain trail the mali news reported negro soldiers of the 25th infantry to the number of 150 are at work constructing a trail from near the volcano house to the summit of mauna loa it is estimated that three or four weeks will be devoted to this work the soldiers are doing the work as a part of their vacation exercise so once again the soldiers aren't getting necessarily paid they're on vacation leave they took this steamership over to the big island and they're they're basically volunteering to build this trail the building the trail was incredibly hard work um they uh the conditions were primitive to say the least um their only tools were 12 pound sledgehammers and gunny sacks they worked in record breaking rain and cold weather with very thin air and on difficult terrain over which is sharp and lava rock and pohoihoi which is the smooth rock uh they camped in canvas tents which did not which did not offer much protection during the cold they had rainy nights and they did not have mules or horses to help with carrying heavy loads um so next slide please so here's a picture of one of where it's thought their camps was up on mauna loa it's a picture of a uh so captain baits is one of the soldiers and so it's called camp baits um and it uh camp baits this is just a picture there's no pictures of the buffalo soldiers building the trail uh but this is an area where it's believed that camp baits was this is an area that or it's believed they they they camped up there and looking down below you can see the steaming uh the the steam coming out of the crater of hollyama umau down below uh next slide please so here's a picture of a mauna loa trail uh built by the buffalo soldiers and this trail to this day uh leads hikers up to two back country cabins so you can see the type of terrain you have to hike through it's pretty devoid of of plants and animals uh next slide and the trail leads up it's it's they built 30 miles total uh but the first 10 miles takes you to this is red hill cabin so after making it up to the trail uh you get to there's a cabin uh during the time um of uh the building this there wasn't a cabin uh at this place there was a cave and there there's a cave that has a water tank so they probably used the cave to get water and they probably slept in tents but they're what this cabin was built by the civilian conservation corps in the 1930s uh next slide some of you may have heard of mauna loa in the news it was in the news just last year it erupted for the first time since 1984 and big eruptions and lots of lava comes out of this volcano so once again you know the buffalo soldiers um fighting you know for survival uh resisting segregation volunteered to build a trail on the world's largest active volcano it didn't erupt while they were there but they were building a trail on an active volcano it was pretty amazing too um so yeah it would have been neat to see this lava flow if they were there but as long as not heading towards them right but the trail didn't get covered by this lava flow which is a good thing you know so uh one question I guess is could you guess why they volunteer to go to build the trail that's kind of a fun question I'll throw at you guys next slide so the soldiers help Dr. Jagger take scientific measurements inside Kilauea is also a Halema'uma crater and this talks about a half dozen of us dared the descent into Halema'uma crater and stood a few feet from the boiling torrent oxidizing nickels in the cracks of the hardened lava and the Hawaiian Gazette quotes Schuyler who had been part of the measuring crew when that pipe came up the lava on the other end of it was thick like glue so here you know they are in the early 1900s they're braving volcanic gases sulfur dioxide not a lot of scientific equipment to protect you back then but here's the Buffalo soldiers calling uh to action getting called into action it is noted that after they went down into this crater this is at the summit of Kilauea a section of where they were standing fell off one of their guides told them that it was time to go and a section of the crater actually fell off into the lava lake uh next slide so they were on Mount Aloha and you know it's still active and here's a picture today of the summit of Kilauea where they took measurements and uh these days you know y'all just do not go into the crater and take samples uh but here's the same crater and you know almost over 100 years later um and they uh they were in this crater amazingly so the summit of Kilauea uh holly moho crater continues today reminder you know of the work the soldiers were sent in to do and no one else would the resisting segregation along the way so while on hawaii island these soldiers built a 30 mile trail under grueling conditions won a baseball game and suffered through record breaking wet rather weather surely it was a one-of-a-kind Hawaiian vacation the early trail ultimately paved the way for the present Mount Aloha trail you can still hike sections of the original path built by these trail blazers in many sense of the word along the northeast rift zone of Mount Aloha today and over a century later their handiwork is still visible and guides park visitors through rugged unforgiving terrain next slide and i'll hand this back over to you Christina sounds good thank you adrian for sharing um you know how the Buffalo soldiers all the way in hawaii were creating trails um and although hawaii may not be super accessible to us all there are still some nearby sites that we can visit you know from here from San Francisco out in the mountains that have really great history about the buffalo soldiers so after you know after they got back from the philippine-american war they were back in the prosidio um so it was very common for buffalo soldiers to be dispatched right to wherever the u.s army intended them for them to do and it was actually in the summer of 1903 where there were a ninth and tenth cavalry regiments um and also the 24th and 25th infantry uh that were dispatched to different national parks in the sierra nevada um so prior to the the existence of the national park service the u.s army took on the role of patrolling and managing those newly created parks and so this map kind of shows you you know kind of the journey that the buffalo soldiers took on their way to either yosemite or to sequoia national park in the summer of 1903 so it took days they were on horseback so it took some time for them to go from here south francisco to yosemite or sequoia which in the present day is probably a four to five hour drive it definitely did not take them four to five hours uh to go from here south francisco to these beautiful places in the sierra nevada until patrolling in the sierra nevada consisted of driving out domestic sheep and cattle suppressing fires and preventing cognitive and logging so one thing to keep in mind about the sierra nevada and land use during this time period was the attitudes were changing post right right after you know the gold rush happened here in california there was a lot of extraction of land a lot of activities that were very damaging to the land for mining from an introduction of invasive species like grasses for cattle cattle themselves domestic sheep uh the beginning of fire suppression began um so there were a lot of ways that the land was not being cared for or tended for just like you know indigenous people have taken care of these places since time immemorial um so once these newly when new parks were created you know there were still people there were still um ranchers other settlers miners that were still utilizing the sierra nevada like they had always done for a couple of decades by this point so those were some of the challenges that the buffalo soldiers had to face they were patrolling newly formed parks uh but they were also coming across you know probably resistance from the other side people that had been doing these activities for so long were was now considered illegal in these newly formed parks as well um next slide and so of course you know the buffalo soldiers uh even though they weren't only in places like yosemite or sequoia for just the summer and that summer of 1903 they did a lot of very significant work and about 500 buffalo soldiers served in both of these parks uh this is a photo and if i'm correct i believe it's from soldiers from the 24th infantry in yosemite national park and i really just enjoyed this photo of them just being in the outdoors um so their work in national parks was kind of very different than what they were do what they had done in in the spanish-american war than what they had done in the philippine-american war a couple years prior to this um so i will focus a little bit on the work that they did in sequoia national park uh since i worked there for a couple of seasons uh next slide so in the summer uh beginning in may of 1903 um there were about 20 96 enlisted men's of the troops i and m of the ninth calvary that were led by carnal charles young uh to begin that journey that very long journey from san francisco to the mountainous areas of what is now sequoia national park um they did a lot they accomplished a lot in just that one summer these soldiers did not return the following summer so whatever they had to do they really had to do it in just the span of a couple of months one thing to consider about being in the sierra novella you had a very short window to accomplish tasks in those higher elevations uh so these soldiers experienced really rugged and very steep terrain uh they came across you know people uh like white settlers ventures and catalysts that were probably you know not following the rules of a newly formed national park but they also had to do a lot of manual labor just like adrian shared about the construction of the trail that happened um in hawaii these soldiers also built a lot of infrastructure to help enhance tourism because like i mentioned before you know attitudes were shifting a lot of people were no longer looking at the sierra novella as a place to profit from the resources but they actually wanted to start preserving those areas visiting those areas especially those beautiful giant sequoia groves uh so the buffalo soldier is one of the biggest accomplishments that they did uh was the completion of the road to what is called ground meadow meadow and moral rock if you've been to sequoia you know moral rock is one of the highlights that all visitors like to check out um and in fact uh this road that they constructed to the giant forest one of the very first uh roads that gave access to tourists to many other people uh to see these beautiful giant sequoia trees so really uh they were in charge of granting access to others uh to see those amazing uh amazing incredible trees um and in order to celebrate you know the completion of the accomplishments uh that they did uh from other hard work uh colonel charles yang who was the acting superintendent of sequoia at the time and the very first black superintendent of any national park he had a picnic to celebrate other uh the project's completion so he did like to acknowledge the very hard work that his soldiers uh were doing um in that summer and so i always like to mention i always love to mention to visitors the visitors sequoia when i was working there that you know enjoying the giant forest a moral rock um they they all benefit from the foundation and infrastructure the buffalo soldiers established during their time in those parks and this photo here is one of some of the soldiers of the ninth calvary you see charles yang sitting down right in the center wearing no hat and there are also photos with some of the white construction workers that also helped them um built that very for one of the very first roads into what is now the giant forest sequoia grove and next slide and so i like to briefly touch upon charles yang he was an incredible man um his father uh was an enslaved person that actually ran across state boundaries to gain freedom and his father also was part of the military and because his father was in the military that inspired charles yang to join the military himself he was the third african-american man to graduate from west point academy and so his amazing list of accomplishments is something that deserves its own program um but the first acting superintendent of a place like sequoia national park and the first flax superintendent of any national park i always like to highlight and especially highlight this quote that he wrote about his time in sequoia during that summer of 1903 indeed a journey through this park and the sierra forest reserve to the mount whitney country will convince even the least thoughtful man of the needfulness of preserving these mountains just as they are with their clothing of trees shrubs rocks and vines and of their importance to the valleys below as reservoirs for storage of water for agricultural and domestic purposes in this lies in necessity the forest preservation and so charles yang you know again incredible person one of the you know few black men that started rising up the ranks in the military faced discrimination just like his soldiers were um he was somebody that not only wanted to honor his fellow soldiers but soldiers wanted to honor him and so this is a little bit interesting story about how they wanted to honor him in sequoia national park after that project of some in the summer of 1903 next slide so soldiers citizens of the nearby city of isalia wanted to really acknowledge the work that charles yang and his soldiers had done in that summer they had really completed a lot of really hard work underwent a lot of hard manual labor and so they actually wanted to honor him by naming a sequoia tree after him and so this quote says they wanted to name a tree fork captain but he refused saying that they could do so they felt the same way 20 years hence so the story goes that charles yang actually did not want the tree named after him and that instead if they wanted to honor somebody else in the black community to name a tree after booker t washington so after that summer of 1903 they dedicated a sequoia tree after booker t washington since that is who charles yang thought should get the honor of getting a tree named after him the story the booker t washington tree is pretty interesting on its own in fact it was kind of a missing story nobody really knew where the booker t washington tree was for a good hundred years or so there wasn't a lot of park documents there wasn't a lot of information as to where the booker t washington tree was actually located some people didn't even think of there was ever a sign dedicated to the booker to wash to booker t washington and so after a lot of work a lot of digging they were able to find a photograph at the dedication ceremony that the soldiers had and in the present day some park staff working along with others they were able to kind of use that photograph to be able to kind of see in the giant forest if they could locate that tree one of the main clues that helped them find the booker t washington tree was there was a leaning tree against it so they were able to find that leaning tree and they were able to actually find some of the nails on the tree where the original sign was the sign disappeared over the years because if you've been to the sierra novella during the winter a lot of these trees a lot of these areas can have more than 10 feet of snow so it's very likely that the sign just kind of washed away and that is why part of that story got lost but thankfully with dedication and initiative and those that wanted to still honor the importance of having this tree be still recognized as a booker t washington tree especially considering that that is who charles young wanted to honor they had a rededication ceremony in 2003 they invited descendants of charles young and they put up this new sign that you see right in front however you know charles young did get his own tree and then that will be in the next slide uh colonel young has his sequoia tree dedicated after him and it is located not too far of a walk from the booker t washington tree so next time you go to sequoia national park i challenge you to try to find these two trees and to say thank you to those people that really were really important not only for the context of sequoia national park history but for black military history as well and another fact i'll mention about the names of the trees in sequoia national park is from all the trees that have names in the giant forest and in the larger park only two trees of names after women and only two trees are named after people of color and those two trees are the booker t washington tree and the charles young tree so i hope the next time you go to sequoia i hope that you get to find these trees and say thank you to the very hard work uh the charles young um did um with his soldiers in the summer of 1903 next slide and i just quickly wanted to show you this photo uh sergeant priest pierce us pictured here in 1947 was actually with charles's young troops in the summer of 1903 and i really just loved finding this photo on the archives because i love that it shows us a quietry in the background and he is holding a photo of himself with his fellow soldiers so just something that i wanted to share with you all next slide and so um we'll kind of touch kind of bring it home you know bring it back to the presidium san francisco um we briefly i briefly mentioned that you know right before they went to the philippines uh they were they stopped here in the presidium san francisco and in fact you know they weren't here until 1899 uh so the garrison here in the presidium that's where these black regiments were but no battles were actually fought here in the presidium this is more where the troops were stationed and then they were dispatched to other places and we are just going to show you a collection of photos and i believe sherry you're going to talk a little bit more about these photos as well um yeah so as christina mentioned um you know members of these uh regiments they were stationed um at the presidium and so we just wanted to share some of the photos that showed you a little bit about um their time at the presidium so you know here um you see one on a horse so um like the cavalry member um and then um here is a barber giving someone a nice shape um and this was a photo or this comes from a postcard that was shared with us from a um a colleague we used to work at the park and we used to um tell the story of the buffalo soldiers so we're very grateful to them for having shared that with us and then here we see uh troops i and m escorting president president titty roosevelt through the presidium um and so this was actually the first time that a black regiment was kind of given sort of like the honor of doing like a presidential escort um and so you know just really great photo here um that gives you an idea of what that day might have looked like and then um there was also um a band um and so you know similar to like the 54th massachusetts where they had their um you know their drummer um the buffalo soldiers also had bands and so this is them um you know going through the presidium so you might recognize some of these places um and so another site that is um within the park that is also associated with the buffalo soldiers is the san francisco national cemetery and so this is the final resting place of over 450 sold um buffalo soldiers and that also includes uh willymage tomkin uh again that medal of honor recipient that christina shared a little bit more about um and another connection that was shared with us was a um was from rick penn who he is the person who shared the postcard with us uh and so rick penn is you know an amazing buffalo soldier storyteller um but he shared with us that another person who is um who rests at the cemetery is named archie williams and so archie williams um was a flight instructor for the tiskegee airmen uh who you know some of you might know you know world war two uh segregated unit but who really you know were again trail blazers just like these other um regiments that we have talked about and archie williams actually after his um service he went on to um be a teacher um and the school that he taught at was actually just recently renamed um so it before it used to be sir francis drake um high school and now it is archie williams high school uh and so they were also archie williams you know was also an olympic um athlete as well and um also just you know a really um incredible story and from the area as well so if you haven't heard about archie williams i definitely encourage you to kind of look into a story but again we found just so many connections with people when even though we had all worked at different sites so myself in boston christina sequin kings canyon and adrian over in hawaii we found so many connections to the stories that we had um talked about in terms of like military history um and so it was really exciting to kind of come see all these connections coming up and so we'll we'll just kind of close it off and you know you'll know that by telling these non-dominant narratives and stories uh stories continue to be sort of relevant today and so you know even though this is black history month and we did this presentation you know for this month um we just want to remind you all that you know black history month it's it's more than just the month um and you know this really is american history and this really is something that um all people should really know about especially given the widespread impact that the buffalo soldiers had on our country um and so i'll kind of hand it off to adrian and christina for any kind of closing remarks thanks sherry yeah and you know as sherry mentioned um uh these uh places and stories are for everybody and this is a retired ranger rick penn who volunteered to show us uh he used to do talks on the buffalo soldiers in the cemetery here so he he came out of retirement to do a talk for us uh because he knew we were doing this talk and so african americans you know we make they make up 13 of the us population although only make up about three percent of the national park service workforce so just a reminder that no matter you know what race we are it's telling these stories it's america's story and there's a saying that if you don't tell the stories they're lost um and so we you know as rick's now retired it's who's gonna continue to tell these stories and so we're happy and we've had fun researching and looking into these stories and we couldn't cover every site that they worked at but we covered sites that we have connections to personally as we are park rangers that have worked at so that was a fun part too and i'll hand it over to you christina thank you adrian thank you sherry again just kind of echo what the both had said everybody should be sharing these stories rick mentioned something along the lines of the buffalo soldier story is like a wheel with spikes that extend in all directions they definitely had a lot of impact they definitely face a lot of challenges but their their accomplishments are something to still be talked about and definitely talk about the legacy in a way that honors them and in a way that kind of acknowledges the realities that they live during the time period and how they also serve inspiration for not just black men and women and other individuals in the military but for people that can connect to those stories so that's what's important to tell these non-dominant narratives which you know are narratives that tend to be kind of erased purposefully sometimes narratives that may be not make it into the mainstream but definitely should be talked about and so when we're talking about stories especially stories that may be forgotten i just think of that book or tea washington tree that kind of was forgotten for a while and it was until somebody took the initiative to say there is the book or tea washington tree you know i want you to think about a story at your sites or your community that it's important to talk about but a story that tells about a person or a group that fought for their freedom we're going to reflect on that question feel free to share in the chat but we definitely wanted to pose that question to you all as this question definitely applies a lot to what we talked about with the buffalo soldiers and definitely makes us reflect on what legacies we want to talk about what legacies we should be talking about yeah and we'll open up to questions too thanks everybody for hanging late with us on this windy night here for those of you that are in the san francisco bay area i know my lights flickered a couple times and we made it to the end i know one question was were the uh buffalo soldiers led by white troops or african-american troops and from for the most part i think it was they had white uh like kernels but i think there were some where african-americans were leading like charles young uh kernel charles young was leading but i think they also had like white kernels and and things leading them they weren't allowed to be like kernels of that time frame correct me if i'm wrong also share christina no you're completely right it was we'll say white officers uh there were white military people that were allowed to move up the ranks um so that's why charles young is a very important person to talk about especially considering like his military trajectory um and moving up the ranks as one of the very few people that were allowed to do so under the system um i know there was another question about there's a list of the buffalo soldiers um there should be a registry and share you might step in like one thing that the u.s army is really good at it's about keeping records about certain things um but i did share in the chat the name the list of names of those soldiers from the four regiments that are buried in the presidio remember there's about 450 of them that are buried at the presidio the national cemetery is open to the public from like dust to dawn if i'm if i'm correct um so definitely a place that you can wonder have you know moment of peace maybe try to say hi to william h thomkins grave uh but definitely you can only see who is buried at the presidio from those 450 soldiers and you can actually go to the cemetery and there's a nice little gray finder really close to the entrance you can type in people's names and it'll tell you the location because it's a huge cemetery if you haven't been there um the gray finder is very useful if you're looking for a particular a particular soldier a particular person so i highly encourage you all to check that out in the presidio and somebody asked how do you understand bob barley song about buffalo soldiers jackie well i guess you get it has many interpretations one would be you know he talks about that's the name of our talk is they were fighting on the rival and they were fighting for survival so they're fighting for their rights um and it talks about you know um how they were the dreadlock rastas uh that came from africa and initially if you think about the history of slavery and they turned into buffalo soldiers fighting for the right so it kind of went full circle from they came from a lot line of slaves um they were still living under trim crow laws in the u.s they were still segregated um and they were still fighting for survival um and fighting for their rights even as buffalo soldiers and uh there's you know those are some of the lyrics in that song that i would say speak to how we understand the lyrics and how it relates and if you know your history then you'll know where i'm coming from that the dreadlock rasta was the buffalo soldier yeah all right i think that wraps up the questions right um one more um yeah how was the infantry disbanded any connection to world war two um i can drop a link in the chat that talks about their involvement in world war one um but i know towards world war two their involvement severely decreased so maybe wrong and please step in share your adrian um but you know according to our website you know during the first world war the size of the united states army expanded to its greatest number since the civil war um however when it came to you know black soldiers i think there was a dramatic decrease due to racial attitudes um and other challenges so i'll definitely drop the link in the chat at least when it talks about world war one because it really kind of sets the president for the following world war uh sharing adrian do you have any last words about that questions i do know i think you covered it well and um i did also see a question um asking about whether any of ranger wick ranger ricks um talks were recorded um and there is a video on youtube um from ranger rick talking about the buffalo soldiers so i'll drop that link in the chat and i also dropped a link for anyone who's interested in doing more of their own research um on the buffalo soldiers there is a really great page from the national archives that kind of gives you an idea on what kind of records are out there you ready for me to come back on that oh my gosh that was so great and as i told you i knew the links would be flying tonight and there's no need for our attendees to worry we got you here's tonight's links with all of the links that are amazing presenters shared with us and i promise i'll send a follow-up email with those links too so you don't even have to worry about capturing it tonight but if you did want to you just click on the three dots next to that link and hit copy and all of the nature boost have been recorded and preserved and archived on our youtube channel and i just looked at it and we have a lot so you could go back see all of the nature boost all of them as informative as tonight's adrian sherry christina thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us and sharing it with the library community and library community thank you so much for showing up tonight and we'll see you next time thank you so much everyone thanks thanks everybody come say hi in the presidio thank you everyone oh you know we there's so many presentations too we could do from this one so i'll email you bye