The Buffalo Soldiers, an all-black unit of the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments, have a gallant history of fighting in the American western frontier post the American Civil War, to protecting National Parks to performing with distinction in the Spanish-American War and then, ultimately, honorably training the cadets at West Point in mounted drill and tactics for 40 years from 1907 to 1947.

The U.S. Military Academy and the Buffalo Soldiers Association of West Point celebrated and honored the legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers of the U.S. Military Academy Cavalry Detachment during the 62nd annual wreath-laying ceremony on Sept. 3 at the Buffalo Soldier Monument at Buffalo Soldier Field on West Point.

This year’s ceremony involved several distinguished guests, including Principal Chief Ronald Yonaguska Holloway of the SandHill Band of Lenape and Cherokee Indians, Superior Chief Tureygua Taino Cay of the Cibuco-Bayamon Taino Tribe, and retired Maj. Gen. Barrye L. Price, current president and CEO of Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America.

U.S. Corps of Cadets Chaplain Matthew Pawlikowski began the ceremony with an invocation but also provided enlightening words about the Buffalo Soldiers.

“Today, at Buffalo Soldier Field, in the shadow of this statue, we are reminded of a whole regiment of Soldiers who through the performance of their duty and high standards of excellence, even in spite of gross injustice in their day, demonstrated the dignity of the human person and communicated the importance of dignity to leaders of our country here at West Point,” Pawlikowski said. “Today, we are grateful for the memory of our Buffalo Soldiers.”

Col. Marcus Wildy, G-3 deputy chief of staff for operations and the master of ceremonies of the event, then provided a little historical background that on July 28, 1866, nearly 15 months after the end of the Civil War, Congress authorized the creation of six black, regular Army regiments as part of the military peace establishment in the United States. Hundreds would then enlist to help form four infantry regiments and two cavalry regiments.

“The Soldiers of the two cavalry regiments – designated as the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments – would come to be known as the ‘Buffalo Soldiers,’ a term that would eventually apply to all black Soldiers,” Wildy said.

Wildy spoke about the Buffalo Soldiers’ accomplishments, dedication and bravery in our nation’s history. He highlighted the Buffalo Soldiers heroic exploits settling the west and taming the frontier in 19th century America, while then serving as our nation’s first Pony Express riders and National Park Service rangers to then fighting alongside Theodore Roosevelt’s “Rough Riders” in Cuba and Gen. John J. Pershing’s expedition into Mexico, among other conflicts.

“Of course, they are also an important part of the West Point story, supporting the cadet riding and mounted drill instructions throughout the first half of the 20th century,” Wildy said. “The Buffalo Soldiers paved the way for many who would lead our nation with distinction, and their legacy and example of duty, selfless service and excellence has inspired generations of cadets, Soldiers and Americans over the years – and their legacy still inspires us today.”

The next speaker, retired 1st Sgt. Frank Accetta, the conference coordinator for the Simon Center for the Professional Military Ethic, who is also the executive director of Operation Impact, which is a special project group of the Buffalo Soldiers Association of West Point, took to the podium and spoke about the initiative that stands as a distinct project group under the aegis of the Buffalo Soldiers Association of West Point.

“Operation Impact is at the forefront of education and veteran engagement in the community,” Accetta said. “We’re doing our best to serve underrepresented students living in underserved communities with the same resolve, perseverance, resilience and grit of the Buffalo Soldiers – We Can, We Will … Ready and Forward.”

Operation Impact is a community centric facilitator that brings opportunity through engagement and collaboration to leverage resources and broaden responsibility among the entire community to facilitate afterschool STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) programs designed to widen the STEM workforce pipeline for young women and underrepresented students. It also offers equine therapeutic horsemanship for veterans experiencing difficulties in their post-military careers.

“Mentorship is the ‘keystone’ of our program,” Accetta said. “We work purposefully with college admissions to identify cadets and college students who themselves are young women and underrepresented minorities to maximize the impact of mentoring – for students, by students.”

Accetta then reflected on how the Buffalo Soldiers Association of West Point was founded within the Highland Falls community in 1962 by Staff Sgt. Sanders Matthews Sr., whose likeness is captured on the monument that is displayed at Buffalo Soldier Field. Matthews Sr. joined the Buffalo Soldiers at West Point in 1939 and continued to serve at West Point through to his retirement in 1962.

“Now, (the association is) led by his granddaughter, Dr. Aundrea Matthews, whose unique zeal and unwavering commitment to ensure the legacy and mission of the Buffalo Soldiers Association of West Point live on for generations to come,” Accetta said. “This is to honor, promote, preserve the history and contributions of Buffalo Soldiers that served the United States of America.”

The keynote speaker of the event, retired Maj. Gen. Price, came to the podium and, first and foremost, would not be remiss without mentioning retired Maj. Gen. Fred Gorden, a 1962 USMA graduate and the first African American to serve as the Commandant of Cadets. Gorden, who was a keynote speaker of the event at one time, was the man who pushed hard for the monument to be built at West Point to honor the legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers, which used to be a small boulder located at the northeast corner of Buffalo Soldier Field.

“The life and legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers is complex and has many layers, but their legacy is undergirded by selfless service and sacrifice with the hope of liberty and freedom,” Price said. “I would ask you to consider what was occurring in the U.S. after the American Civil War to understand this notion of selfless service and sacrifice within the ranks of the Buffalo Soldiers.”

During the 40-year duration of the Buffalo Soldiers at West Point, the Army was still segregated causing them to endure abuse despite the respect they had earned as the best horsemen in the Army.

Price would also speak about a timeline that included the 13th Amendment that outlawed slavery, the 14th Amendment that granted citizenship and the 15th Amendment that provided African American males the right to vote, however, overt racism and roadblocks continued in the U.S., in both the North and South.

“Black Codes were created in 1865 by white southerners to keep freed men from exercising their rights,” Price said. “The Ku Klux Klan was started in 1865 and continued through 1870 when it was outlawed by a series of acts by President (Ulysses S.) Grant. But it was reconstituted in 1915 after President Woodrow Wilson screened ‘Birth of a Nation’ in the White House.”

Between 1889 and 1921, there were 3,426 recorded lynchings of blacks in the United States, Price explained. He mentioned anthropological studies that were commissioned that falsely suggested that the brain matter of blacks was somehow less than whites and then Plessy vs. Ferguson sustained the separate but equal doctrine within the United States.

The Military Intelligence Division of the United States created its War Plan White in 1919 as “negroes, especially Soldiers, were considered a suspicious population, much like communists and socialists within our nation’s intelligence threat assessment,” Price said.

Add pseudo slavery that was maintained through sharecropping and enforced by patrollers and, all the while, segregation was rampant in schools, hospitals, restaurants, hotels and cemeteries. Then, as the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) deployed to World War I, there were explicit orders that all American troops were only to fight as part of the AEF, “but that order did not include the black Soldiers,” Price said.

Every time Price mentioned one of these instances of discriminatory actions during the late 19th century and into the 20th century, he spoke three words that succinctly spoke of the character of the Buffalo Soldiers – “Yet, they served.”

“So why did they serve you might ask? It’s for the very reason that immigrants have braved nature and have since the days of the pilgrims in search of this new land,” Price said. “It’s epitomized by Cubans and Haitians who braved the shark-infested waters of the Gulf of Mexico on rickety watercraft and innertubes, and it’s demonstrated by current immigrants walking and hitching rides on trains from South and Central America to our nation’s borders.

“The immutable truth is found in the words … in 1831 by Protestant minister Samuel Francis Smith, whose song was our nation’s de facto national anthem through 1931, the words are simply, ‘My country, ‘Tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, To thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims pride, From every mountainside, Let freedom ring,’” Price added. “The song was aspirational for the Buffalo Soldiers who believed that their service would lead to freedom, liberty and full citizenship.”

At the end of the ceremony, Price and Native American Chiefs Holloway and Cay were among those who honored the Buffalo Soldiers by placing a wreath at the footsteps of the monument.

In honor of her grandfather and those who served with the Buffalo Soldiers   

Dr. Matthews enthusiastically continues the legacy that her grandfather began as the current president of the Buffalo Soldiers Association of West Point. Their perseverance and standard of excellence, Matthews said, allows them to “deserve a platform and the U.S. Military Academy showed them the respect and showed the honor of these great Soldiers who were at West Point and who were a shining example of what you can be, what you can do and how you should think when you come to the number one leadership institution in the country.”

Her grandfather spent 23 years at the academy working in some capacity, including the first eight years as part of the Buffalo Soldiers. However, she said it wasn’t always easy, but it also made him stronger and appreciate what he had.

“My grandfather told a lot of stories of how difficult it was here, but within that, he found satisfaction, joy and purpose,” Matthews said of her grandfather, who passed away in 2016. “He appreciated the challenges that he had to endure as he got older, and he credits West Point and his whole experience for helping him be the man that he was, which this continuation (of the Buffalo Soldiers Ceremony) just shows you how influential and inspirational he was to everybody.

“This is his legacy. He established this (ceremony) by being open and inclusive while showing everybody dignity and respect,” she added. “This is a testament to what he stood for with the Buffalo Soldiers, and what they learned here and what they were able to accomplish. My grandfather loved West Point, loved his country and even with all the issues and everything he endured, there was no better place that he ever wanted to be – he was an American, he was proud of it and he was a proud black man, and West Point gave him and his comrades the opportunity to live with dignity and respect. It shows because we’re here today to that testament and we’re still living that dream.”

While the Buffalo Soldiers organization started in 1962 when her grandfather retired, it was about 1972 when they put the Buffalo Soldiers boulder at the northeast corner of Buffalo Soldier Field and formally continued a yearly ceremony, even though there has been some form of celebration for 62 years under the organization, there have been celebrations well before that to honor the Soldiers.

Matthews said she found a program that went back to 1927 of functions that used to take place at the Cadet Mess Hall, the only place the Buffalo Soldiers could celebrate due to segregation at the time.

“West Point has always done something to recognize the Buffalo Soldier Detachment,” Matthews said.

As for Matthews, she said she has been coming to the ceremony for pretty much her whole life as her dad, Sanders Matthews Jr., who was a Vietnam veteran, grow up in Highland Falls and the ceremony has been an important fabric of their lives.

For her, to continue her grandfather’s legacy is a continued dream of his vision that helps inspire the cadets who are the future leaders of character but also bringing people to West Point who may have not felt welcomed in the past or didn’t think it was a place open to them.

“Every time we do this event, it let’s everybody know that we’re in this together, and we’re contributing and defending this nation and that we love America,” Matthews said. “You get to see the diversity of all the people here – Africans, Latinos, Asians, women, all ranks, all branches of service at West Point, and it speaks to the legacy (of the Buffalo Soldiers) … It speaks to exactly what the superintendent and all the other superintendents have done and worked to where this is a safe space where all Americans can come to pay tribute to those who have defended our country.”

The monument of her grandfather’s likeness was unveiled in a ceremony on Sept. 10, 2021, which was a monumental task considering how the United States is divided from a political perspective.

“To get this monument erected at the U.S. Military Academy, both democrats and republicans has to say yes, we came together on this,” Matthews said. “And to have Native Americans here in full ceremonial dress and salute … showing their appreciation to the leadership and the standard of excellence.”

Native Americans fought the Buffalo Soldiers in the western frontier in the late 1880s, so the sign of respect they gave coming to West Point is a part of respecting them as warriors and that time does heal all wounds, and also that America is a melting pot for all people to come together to break bread and enjoy each other’s company. 

“What it says is as my grandmother, who lived to be 101, used to say, ‘If you live long enough, it all makes sense. When you are in it, it didn’t make sense.’ … One thing is for sure, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘We may have come here on different ships, but we’re all in the same boat,’ and we’re all people who came from oppressed lands to come to America, regardless of what color you are – you came here for a better way of life,” Matthews said. “What we can say is that in America, we pledge allegiance to figure it out. To do the heavy lifting and figure out a way we can live together as we don’t have to agree on everything.

“The one thing I love about the military is that the military is one living example that we can do it. In the military, if you make the team, they don’t care what color you are – you have to come into this thing ready to fight for the mission … I learned that at West Point,” Matthews added. “I’ve embraced the people who voluntarily give up their whole entire lives to serve others, so that we can remember that we’re all in this together. If my grandfather’s spirit along with all the other Buffalo Soldiers can do what they did here … they did it when nobody else could do it under horrific circumstances, but as my grandmother says, ‘It all makes sense now,’ and in this era right now … it is a good time and there is no better place for all the legacy of West Point and that West Point took the lead in showing us how it can be done.

“How we all can be from different places and on one occasion at least one time a year, we can come together and say, ‘You know what, thank you comrade, thank you neighbor, thank you friend, we’re still in this fight,’” Matthews concluded.

Matthews wanted to thank everybody for helping put the ceremony together, as “it took a village to get this done over the years.” Matthews, much like Price, gave much thanks to Gorden because without him, she said the monument would not have been possible.

And through his work to get it done, she announced that the Buffalo Soldiers Association has endowed a cadet award in honor of the Buffalo Soldiers and Gorden through Col. John Baskerville and the Department of Foreign Languages. 

“We will make sure that a cadet who graduates from the U.S. Military Academy will be honored with the Maj. Gen. Fred Gorden Leadership Award out of the Foreign Languages Department,” Matthews said. “His legacy will live on and I’m proud as the president of the Buffalo Soldiers Association to be able to accomplish that for Maj. Gen. Gorden under Superintendent (Steven) Gilland because he used to be his commandant (as a cadet) – see how with life things come full circle.”  

The ceremony is an incredibly special and emotional time for Matthews as it is a reminder of both her dad and grandfather. Her dad died in 2003 of complications from his time in Vietnam, so after her grandfather died in 2016, someone had to pick up the mantle to continue the journey her grandfather started.

“This is bigger than me. I’m just glad that God used me to be the vehicle to be used and that my grandfather prepped me for this my entire life,” Matthews said. “This is special in the name of my father as his daughter because he couldn’t be here to carry on his father’s legacy, so I’m definitely honored … to pay honor to the Buffalo Soldiers and grow that legacy.”