Maya Gwynn
With KVCR Public Media, I'm Maya Gwynn with Black Perspectives IE, a show where we learn about the amazing things members of the Black community are doing in the Inland Empire. My guest today is Susan D. Anderson, History Curator and Program Manager at the California African American Museum. Thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it. I know you're very busy and I'm really excited to talk about your exhibition.
Susan D. Anderson
Thanks for having me, Maya. I'm really pleased to be here.
Maya Gwynn
Of course, we're pleased to have you. So yesterday, as I was mentioning, I had the pleasure of visiting your exhibition "For Race and Country" at the Ontario Museum of History and Art, and I loved learning about where the title came from, from Colonel Young's 1919, inscription "Yours for Race and Country", and how it speaks about double loyalty, especially the difficulty of being a black soldier at that time and living in segregation in the United States. And I kind of wanted to start there. I'm curious what inspired you to curate this exhibition, and why did you feel the story of Buffalo Soldiers in California needed to be told now?
Susan D. Anderson
Well, I think that there's a lot of mythology about Buffalo Soldiers. And people have seen kind of in popular culture, you know, maybe a movie with Danny Glover or, you know, something like that. And I just felt because my focus is on the untold histories of California's African American past, and I was aware that Buffalo Soldiers had been stationed throughout the 20th century in California, and actually starting in the late 19th century. And what impressed me was that many of them and their families had had a lasting impact on the state. There are places where you can go today and see institutions, spaces, impact that Buffalo soldiers left. For instance, Vallejo, there's still a community center that Buffalo Soldier veterans of the Spanish American War built in the late 19th century, and it's still there, and people still use it. They use it for weddings. The State Park, Colonel Allensworth, State Historic Park, which is just north of Bakersfield, and it commemorates the founding of the all black town of Allensworth by a Buffalo Soldier and officer, Colonel Allensworth, who was a chaplain. That's been preserved by our state parks department, and it was an experiment in the early 20th century to prove that black people deserved full citizenship in Los Angeles,
Maya Gwynn
Like many people, I first learned about the term Buffalo Soldiers from the Bob Marley song. I listened to it on the way home after the exhibit, and I was like, wow, he told us everything about them, and I never realized that. But your exhibition goes way further than the song, of course, highlighting stories. Like one of my favorites that I learned at your exhibition was Cathay Williams, who went in disguise as a man in order to fight, and also the fact that black soldiers earned 18 Congressional Medals of Honor, which is the highest. What are some of the biggest misconceptions that the exhibition challenges, in your opinion, and for those who may not be familiar with the term Buffalo Soldiers, what do you feel like is the easiest way to understand who they were?
Susan D. Anderson
Well, you know, interestingly, the Buffalo Soldiers never called themselves Buffalo Soldiers. That is a term that only came into use in the 20th century, and there are very few references to it in history at a certain point, especially in the 60s and Black is Beautiful movement, and these kind of stories started coming out, and the kind of romance about the Buffalo Soldiers began, and that's really when the term became more widespread. One of the things I think, that I learned is how proud the soldiers were to be in the army. And that was true from 1866 when Congress created these units. Because, you know, as the exhibit shows, the US had never had African Americans in the military during peacetime, they would certainly draft people and allow people to enlist during wars, but as soon as the war was over, they were out the army, like all institutions in this country, was whites only. So after the Civil War, because of the extraordinary effectiveness and bravery of colored troops during the Civil War, the reconstruction Congress wanted to also reconstruct the military, and they created what ended up being the four Buffalo Soldier units. The four units all black. They kept the army segregated racially, but black soldiers were able to enlist. People were proud to serve at the same time they knew often that they had to speak out both about what they faced within the Army, and what they saw the army doing, especially to people of color in other countries. So to me, that was maybe one of the most interesting parts of the history that I wanted people to be aware of.
Maya Gwynn
And that brings me to my next question. We're living in a time when people are actively trying to rewrite history. Was it difficult to include harder truths about the black soldiers' role in violence against Native American communities and debates within the black communities about imperialist wars, and why was it important to make a space for complex narratives?
Susan D. Anderson
Well, that's what history is. It's complicated, and we can't be people who consider ourselves educated if we don't accept that the story is always complicated, and there's never just good guys and bad guys. And when the exhibit opened, there were a group of Buffalo Soldier reenactors showed up in uniform. There was at least one who wanted to fight with me about whether black cavalry men and black soldiers during those years when the US was waging war against Native people, whether black soldiers were involved. He wanted to argue with me, but I'm sorry to say that the evidence is incontrovertible. Part of the exhibit carries a statement from the National Black Veterans Association, apologizing for the role of black soldiers in massacres of native people. That's our country, that's our history, and unfortunately, we can't say that our people are blameless in what we see that you know, is oppressions and wrongdoing in the past.
Maya Gwynn
Definitely. With the exhibition in Ontario closing March 1, what do you hope visitors carry with them after experiencing it, especially younger generations, encountering the stories for the first time? And do you have a favorite part of the exhibition that I didn't speak of yet that you want to highlight, like I love that it ended with your poem. I thought that was really beautiful.
Susan D. Anderson
Thank you so much. Well, I do want people to see how influential these men and their families, because that's one thing that's kind of woven throughout, were in the time that they spent here. Many of them came to California after they retired from the military. Allensworth, for instance, when it was founded in 1908 it was promoted as a home for Buffalo Soldiers, for men who had served in the 25th and the 24th and the 9th and 10th Calvary. So I really want people to see how influential they were. And I guess for me, one of my favorite parts of the exhibition is the stories about Charles Young, because he was a remarkable person that everyone should know about, dear friend with W.E.B DuBois. Since they were young men teaching at Wilberforce and his time in California, he accomplished so much, you know, he and the 9th Calvary and residents around the area who were on the work crews. They created the trails that we still use. Colonel Young was in charge of the Presidential Guard of Honor when President Teddy Roosevelt came to San Francisco in 1903. That was the first time Black units had ever been part of a presidential accompaniment like that. They actually knew each other, Teddy Roosevelt and Colonel and Captain Young at that time Charles Young, because they had both fought in Cuba during the Spanish American War, and one element of the fight to free Cuba from Spanish colonialism that the US participated in, is the heroic role played by the Black troops, especially 24th and 25th infantries, as well as the cavalry and the cavalry units and the black infantry units, they saved the lives of Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders. And at the time of the wars around the 1899 or so, this was well known. It was in the newspapers. There were books written about it, and then that kind of got disappeared, you know, and telling those stories so the president, Teddy Roosevelt, knew Charles Young from his troops brave performance in Cuba, and he asked specifically he could have gotten any army troops that were stationed in the area to accompany him on the presidential parade. He asked specifically for Charles Young's troops. And then lastly, what I'll say about Charles Young is he loved being in California. He loved being in Northern California, and the woman that he married actually was from Northern California, so and she was his lifelong companion. So he got a lot out of being in California, and we benefited from his presence as well.
Maya Gwynn
That's amazing. We're gonna move to our rapid fire portion. So I'm excited to hear your answers. If your work had a theme song, what would it be?
Susan D. Anderson
I've Been Working on the Railroad.
Maya Gwynn
Good one. And if you had to teach a master class or give a TED talk on a random skill you have, what would it be, besides the work that you already do.
Susan D. Anderson
It would be on writing.
Maya Gwynn
And what's your favorite piece of art you recently came across?
Susan D. Anderson
I think my favorite piece of art was I saw at SFMOMA in San Francisco - the new work that's being done by this extraordinary black woman artist, Suzanne Jackson. She might be close to 90 years old, and her work is just so bold and big and vibrant.
Maya Gwynn
That's awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. I really appreciate it.
Susan D. Anderson
You are so welcome.
Maya Gwynn
Susan D. Anderson is a history curator and program manager at the California African American Museum. Find this segment and others at kvcrnews.org/bpie. Support for the segment comes from the MECCA IE Fund at the Inland Empire Community Foundation, advancing racial equity and supporting long term investments in black led organizations in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Join us again next week for Black Perspectives IE. For KVCR Public Media, I'm Maya Gwynn. Thank you.
