Every February, the
contributions of black Americans are recognized during Black
History Month. Since I’m black and work for the Bureau of
Land Management, a mostly white federal agency, I appreciate that.
But I also have a complaint: Why has its observance become so
predictable?
By now, I am sure that everybody knows that
black Americans were enslaved and some were lynched; that Rosa
Parks helped spark and Martin Luther King Jr. led the civil rights
movement that changed America. We usually hear tell of the Tuskegee
Airmen, the Buffalo Soldiers, and the black musicians that created
America’s great new music – the blues and jazz. All
were heroes by any measure.
But by singling out the same
black heroes – again and again — we ignore another reality:
Blacks have been a silent part of American history from the
beginning. There has been no glory and no shame that was not shared
by both whites and blacks.
Nowhere is this truer than in
the West, where black Americans fought in all of the Indian wars,
drove cattle from Texas to Kansas and beyond, led wagon trains over
mountain passes, trapped beaver, formed cavalry units, founded
entire towns, parachuted into raging wildfires, been among the most
notorious of outlaws and, conversely, some of the bravest U.S
marshals, and even owned slaves and profited from slavery. Like
every other American throughout our brief history, blacks have been
among the good, the bad and the ugly. Some examples:
*When Bass Reeves, a legendary deputy U.S marshal, died in 1910,
the Oklahoma Muskogee Phoenix eulogized him in surprising and
revealing words: “Bass Reeves was absolutely fearless and
knowing no master but duty… Reeves faced death a hundred times.
Many desperate characters sought his life, yet the old man even on
the brink of the grave went along the path of
duty…Black-skinned, illiterate, offspring of slaves whose
ancestors were savages, this simple old man’s life stands
white and pure alongside some of our present-day officials…
it is lamentable that we as white people must go to this poor,
simple old negro to learn a lesson in courage, honesty and
faithfulness to official duty.” Reeves has been called one of
the bravest men this country has ever known; he was honored
posthumously with the National Cowboy Hall of Fame’s
“Great Westerner” award.
*The Seminole-Negro
Indian scouts were descendants of escaped slaves who had settled
among the Seminole Indians of Florida. In the late 1830s, they were
relocated to the Indian Territories, and when slave hunters
continued to persecute them there, a band fled to Mexico. Drawing
on survival skills learned in Florida and adapted to the barren
terrain of the Mexico borderlands, they became known for their
skills, toughness and courage. During the 1870s, the U.S Army
recruited some of these men into the cavalry to form a highly
mobile strike force during the Indian wars. The Seminole-Negroes
never numbered more than 50 at a time, yet they distinguished
themselves to such an extent that they received four Congressional
Medals of Honor while never losing a single scout. Though the
scouts were promised their own land in return for their service,
the country never made good on that promise.
*Not many
know it, but the first armed “rangers” of any national
park were black — the 24th Mounted Infantry, who rode from the
Presidio in San Francisco to Yosemite National Park in 1899. Their
service was discovered not long ago by Shelton Johnson, a ranger at
Yosemite, who happened upon an old photograph in the park’s
archives. Now, old diaries have also come to light that confirm
their pioneering work.
*The 555th Parachute Infantry
Battalion was formed of black men in 1943, who trained as combat
paratroopers but who never made it overseas. Instead, the men were
sent to the Northwest to combat blazes that might be started by
incendiary balloons sent by the Japanese. The balloon threat
fizzled, but the men fought forest fires and were among the
nation’s first “smoke jumpers.”
*Isaiah
Dorman, the only black man to fight and die at the Battle of Little
Big Horn, was also the only soldier whose dying words have been
preserved. Dorman spoke the Sioux language perfectly, and while
mortally wounded, tried unsuccessfully to talk the Indians out of
maiming his already bloody body. The first known account of Dorman
was as a courier for the Army in the Dakota Territory. In 1871, the
Army hired him to guide the Northern Pacific Railroad survey team,
then later that same year as a Sioux interpreter. In 1876, Custer
ordered him to accompany the Little Big Horn expedition. Dorman
refused, having had a family by this time, so Custer sweetened the
pot by raising his pay from $50 to $75 a month. Dorman never lived
to collect his increased pay. To this day, he or his heirs are
still owed $102.50 back pay, plus more than a 130 years’
interest.
Black history, American history — aren’t
they the same thing? Somewhere along the way, the notion that we
have different values and different cultures has been fostered and
believed. But in spite of the ugliness and distance that we
maintain to this day, our histories have always been intertwined.
Let us celebrate black heroes this month, but someday, I hope, we
can become one community of non-hyphenated Americans, solving all
the problems that we all share.
Wayne Hare is a
contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News
(hcn.org). He works for the Bureau of Land
Management in western Colorado.
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