Military
Black soldiers fought in Washington’s army during the War of Independence, and served with Andrew Jackson at New Orleans in 1815. Late in 1861, Colonel T. W. Higginson took command of the First Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers, the first Black regiment in the service of the United States.
On June 28, 1866, an Act of Congress authorized the creation of two cavalry and four infantry regiments, “which shall be composed of colored men.” They were organized as the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 38th through 41st Infantry. The 9th and 10th Cavalry would go on to play a major role in the history of the West, as the “Buffalo Soldiers.”
On September 21, 1866, the 9th Cavalry Regiment was activated at Greenville, Louisiana under command of Colonel Edward Hatch and the 10th Cavalry Regiment at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas under command of Colonel Benjamin Grierson.
The term “buffalo soldiers” came from Cheyenne warriors who first encountered these black men in blue uniforms, whose dark skin and thick hair resembled the buffalo. The initial strangeness turned to respect buffalo soldiers participated in most of the campaigns against hostile tribes, earning themselves battle honors and no less than 18 Medals of Honor for individual heroism.
The Buffalo Soldiers consistently received some of the worst assignments the Army had to offer. They also faced fierce prejudice to both the colors of their Union uniforms and their skin by many of the citizens of the post-war frontier towns. Despite this, the troopers of the 9th and 10th Cavalries developed into two of the most distinguished fighting units in the Army.
After the Indian campaigns, the buffalo soldiers continued their outstanding service during the Spanish-American War and along the Mexican border. For three years during the Philippine Insurrection, portions of all four black regiments and two black volunteer regiments saw action. They were distributed among army posts throughout the archipelago, the black soldiers, both regulars and volunteers, participated in military operations from Northern Luzon to Samar.
Elements of the 9th and 10th went on to fight in Cuba, and took part in the charge up San Juan Hill. The 10th Cavalry took part in the expedition against Pancho Villa, with General Pershing.
In addition to their fine combat record, the buffalo soldiers steadfastly performed the other duties. They explored and mapped vast areas of the southwest and strung hundreds of miles of telegraph lines. They built and repaired frontier outposts around which future towns and cities sprang to life. Without the protection provided by the 9th and 10th Cavalries, crews building the ever expanding railroads were at the mercy of outlaws and hostile Indians.
Despite its dreariness, hardships, boredom, and fatigue, they had the lowest desertion rate of the frontier Army; on $13.00 a month, meals, and a roof, if available.
The two regiments were formed into the 4th Cavalry Brigade in 1941, commanded by General Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., at Camp Funston, Kansas. The horse cavalry regiments were disbanded in 1944, and with them, the long and proud history of The Buffalo Soldiers.
Education
b. July 24, 1893, Bristol, Va., U.S.
d. Oct. 27, 1956, Louisville, Ky.
U.S. sociologist, authority on race relations, and the first black president (1946-56) of Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn. (established in 1867 and long restricted to black students). Also founded and edited (1923-28) the intellectual magazine “Opportunity.”
Music
Born in 1922, Charles Mingus was one of the most powerful forces in modern jazz. He took up the bass at the age of 16, studied piano and music theory, and got his first gig with Buddy Collette. By 1942 he had worked with Louis Armstrong and he formed his own band in 1944. It was the ’50s that saw him emerge as a leading innovator in the avant-garde jazz movement. A great student of jazz, he used his broad knowledge to shape his compositions..mixing it with his childhood. Mingus said: “This was based on a form of music I heard as a kid. My mother used to go to church on Wednesday night. There was always clapping of hands and shouting. Methodist or Holiness Church. Holiness was a little louder, in order to stir up the spirits, the dead spirits.” In the ’60s, he experimented with large bands, but by 1977, MS had taken his body. He died in 1979.
The Arts
Rock musician and composer. “If you tried to give rock ‘n’ roll another name, you might call it [Chuck Berry],” John Lennon of the Beatles once said. At the height of his popularity in the last half of the fifties, no one had more influence than Berry. During the sixties, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones played a dozen of his songs note for note, and Bob Dylan acknowledged his debt to Berry as a lyricist.
Berry was born in St. Louis into a lower-middle class black family. He served three years in reform school on a robbery conviction, earned a certificate in hairdressing and cosmetology, and then took a job on an auto assembly line to support his wife and children. By 1953, he was leading a three-piece blues group, which played on weekends. In 1955, his first hit, “Maybelline,” reached the top ten after being plugged by New York disc jockey Alan Freed, who earned royalties on it by listing himself as the song’s co-author–an example of whites exploiting black musicians and of the pervasive corruption in the music industry at that time.
Berry’s greatest hits recounted teenage experiences and frustrations, but also conveyed the fun of adolescent rebellion. “School Day” (which reached the No. 3 spot on the Billboard charts in 1957) complains about teachers and, in retrospect, seems to prophesy the student rebellion of the sixties: “Close your books, get out of your seat/Down the halls and into the street.” “Sweet Little Sixteen” (No. 2 in 1958) presented the breathless world of a young rock fan. The autobiographical “Johnny B. Goode” (No. 8 in 1958) provides a classic treatment of the small-town-boy-makes-good theme-in this case, as a rock ‘n’ roll star. The Voyager I spacecraft, heading out toward distant galaxies, includes among its messages to other worlds a recording of “Johnny B. Goode.”
In 1959, at the peak of his creativity and popular success, Berry was convicted under the Mann Act and went to prison for two years. He had few hits after that. In 1972, touring as an “oldies” act, he finally reached No. 1 on the charts with “My Ding-a-ling,” a forgettable novelty song. Its success only underscored the fact that none of his classic records ever sold as well as those of white crooners like Pat Boone.
As a rock lyricist, Berry was among the best. His lyrics convey an immense, childlike delight in linguistic play, cataloging the fun and frustrations in the lives of white teenagers. That these lyrics were the work of a black man in his thirties makes them especially remarkable. As a guitarist, wrote Robert Christgau, Berry’s style featured a “limited but brilliant vocabulary of guitar riffs that quickly came to epitomize rock ‘n’ roll. Ultimately, every great white guitar group of the early sixties imitated Berry’s style.”
In 1987, Berry published a widely praised autobiography entitled Chuck Berry: An Autobiography. A 1988 feature film, Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll, documents his career.
The Arts
1903 – 1946
Countee Cullen was one of the strongest voices associated with the Harlem Renaissance, the flowering of black art and literature in New York City in the 1920s. Not. much is known about his early childhood except that he was born Countee Porter and adopted by Rev. and Mrs. Frederick Cullen, who provided him with a fine education. He excelled in his studies, receiving honors in Latin, mathematics, English, history, and French. In 1925 he graduated phi beta kappa from New York University and published his first book of poems, Color.
After receiving his master’s degree from Harvard University, Cullen became an editor and critic and later wrote plays and novels, but it was his poetry that singled him out as a voice to be listened to. Though he wrote on universal themes such as love, religion, and death, Cullen believed in the richness and importance of his African American heritage and deftly applied traditional forms of verse, using melodic meter and rhyme, to African American themes.
