SEATTLE _ When Clyde Robinson was drafted into the U.S. Army's 9th Cavalry Regiment in 1942, he had never heard of the buffalo soldiers. He did not know that he would become part of the storied, complicated legacy of the all-black regiments of the U.S. military.
Robinson served in the Philippines in World War II. Now 98 and living in Skyway, he proudly proclaims that he is the "last remaining buffalo soldier in Seattle and Tacoma."
The term "buffalo soldiers" refers to the men who served in the four all-black Army regiments founded after the Civil War. According to legend, the name was bestowed by Native people who thought the soldiers' hair looked like buffalo fur. Other lore contends it was due to the soldiers' fierceness in battle.
The all-black regiments patrolled new settlements in the West, built infrastructure that helped make westward expansion possible, and fought in every U.S. war after the Civil War until the U.S. Army was desegregated in 1948. However, despite their significant role in U.S. history, their own story has been largely erased over time.
"A lot of people still don't know, because they don't publicize it," Robinson said. "White people not gonna tell you. Most of them don't even know what's the buffalo soldiers. No, they never teach that. And you just fade out."
This erasure was quite intentional, says Dr. Darrell Millner, professor emeritus of black studies at Portland State University. "Generally speaking, most people don't associate blacks with the Western story, the Western experience. They're surprised to hear that blacks were here and certainly surprised to hear that blacks were involved with some of the, what you might call iconic, experiences in the West," Millner said. "For most of American history, it was not considered to be convenient to acknowledge that black people had the same qualities as those other people who came into the West _ the potential for heroic behavior, the potential to be an explorer, the potential to be important in that difficult environment and circumstance."
"You can't maintain a slave society and acknowledge that black people are capable of heroic acts and capable of significant contributions," he said. "So that's why black people are dropped out of American history."
In addition to their contributions to U.S. history, the buffalo soldiers helped to spread black culture in places, like many locations in the Pacific Northwest at the time, where black populations were small or nonexistent.
The legacies of these forgotten servicemen live on in their descendants and the people who continue to be inspired by their stories. A number of them have devoted their lives to reclaiming and spreading the legacy of the buffalo soldiers in the Pacific Northwest.
