Motorcycle Club touts history of the nation's 'buffalo soldiers'

Written by Off the Wire
News - MCs in the News

Units made up of black soldiers have fought in major conflicts around the world.


By Caren Burmeister

JACKSONVILLE BEACH - Since 1866, buffalo soldiers - infantry and cavalry units made up of black soldiers - have settled the West and fought in major conflicts ranging from the Spanish American War to present-day battles in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But most people have never heard of buffalo soldiers, including students in American history classes.

That became clear to Joe "Hot Wing" Tillmon, president and founder of the Jacksonville chapter of the Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club, when he watched a video of a buffalo soldiers presentation in a Texas classroom.

"Why are we not being taught this in school?" a student asks, noting that most of what they learn about blacks involves slavery. "I would like to have known that we have heroes, too."

Tillmon, whose motorcycle club's main goal is to promote the history of the buffalo soldier, said he hears similar comments in the classrooms he visits.

"It struck home when I heard that," Tillmon said. "It's a proud history that deserves to be told."

Buffalo soldiers' history will be on exhibit at the Rhoda L. Martin Cultural Heritage Center at Fourth Street and Fourth Avenue South in Jacksonville Beach beginning Tuesday with a jazz reception at 7 p.m.

Jackie Meadows, the Cultural Center's executive director, is working with the Jacksonville Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club on the exhibit's installation.

"It's going to be interesting," Meadows said. "We'll learn a lot."

Congress authorized six "colored" army regiments on July 28, 1866, including the 9th and 10th Cavalries.

The name buffalo soldier came from the Plains Indians, who thought black men's hair felt like buffalo hide. The name was not derogatory, but a term of respect based on one of their most sacred animals.

Composed entirely of black soldiers, many of them Civil War veterans, the buffalo soldier regiments were commanded by white officers.

Their history has a minor connection with Jacksonville Beach because buffalo soldiers fought side-by-side with the Rough Riders on San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish-American War.

In 1898, several Rough Rider regiments were stationed at training camps in Jacksonville Beach, which was then known as Pablo Beach. Two Rough Riders were buried in Warren Smith Cemetery on Beach Boulevard.

The 10th Cavalry, a buffalo soldier unit with the most fighting experience in Cuba, planted the flag on San Juan Hill. Based on eyewitness accounts from reporters covering the war, President Teddy Roosevelt, who had fought with the Rough Riders, later had to recant his story that the 10th Cavalry was forced at gunpoint to climb uphill and plant the flag.

The Jacksonville chapter of the Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club began in 2007 and is one of about 90 chapters in the U.S. and Canada.

Tillmon is a retired staff sergeant who served with a buffalo soldier unit, the 24th Infantry, from 1977 to 1997, a stint that included two tours in Korea.

Not all motorcycle club members must have military service, he said, but they do have to possess a passion for motorcycle riding. To prove it, they must ride 2,500 miles over a six-month period with at least one 300-mile trip with an overnight stay.

Most importantly, members must learn the buffalo soldiers' history and participate in educational programs. About 80 percent of the club's educational efforts takes place in restaurants and other public places, Tillmon said.

"Someone is going to walk up to you and ask if you are from Buffalo, N.Y.," he said. "That's where you do most of your work."

Most people don't know that in the 1800s, buffalo soldiers fought the American Indians but were also called upon to protect the American Indians. Also, buffalo soldiers were some of the first units posted at forts to secure the Western frontier. They carried the mail, escorted wagon trains into towns even though they weren't allowed to go through town because of racial prejudice, laid telegraph wire and fought townsmen at night.

"They were the law in the West," Tillmon said.

The motorcycle club doesn't focus on buffalo soldier history to take away from any other race that served in the military, he said, but to "bring attention to the heroes that didn't receive the attention they deserve."

"When you think about a man willing to give his life so his children will enjoy freedom, they took up that battle with that the hope one day," he said. "That's a big pill to swallow."

For more information, call the Rhoda L. Martin Cultural Heritage Center at 241-6923 or (618) 203-4519.

Caren Burmeister can be reached at (904) 249-4947, ext. 6321.

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