Welcome to the Tweet Trends podcast. Hey, Evette, what's trending today? Hey, I'm Evette, hey girl. And you are tuned in to Tweet Trends.
It's the quickest way to find out what's trending today. Today is the day that we honor the strength and the struggles of the Buffalo Soldiers. Let's get started. So I don't know if it's the fact that I've never really been much of a history buff or the fact that I grew up in South Carolina.
And we just didn't learn about Buffalo Soldiers. But I literally had to do some digging to figure out exactly what a Buffalo Soldier is because as far as I knew, Bob Marley was the only one that ever told me about a Buffalo Soldier. And in his song, they didn't really go into much detail. So I looked up some information.
And if you go to the US Department of the Interior's website, they even mentioned the fact that today is Buffalo Soldiers Day. And they have a cute little video. It's about a minute long. However, the only thing they mention in that video is the fact that Buffalo Soldiers were the first regular army regiment of African American soldiers.
And that they were serving as the very first park rangers at Yosemite, Sequoia, and Yellowstone National Parks. And that's a really great thing, yeah, because it came 10 years before the formation of the actual National Park Service. However, the more digging I did, the more information I found. And I'm kind of like, oh wait, they didn't mention that on the US Department of the Interior website.
So just a little nugget here. When you do research something, don't stop at the first place that you get to. Keep digging. And you're probably going to find a lot more information than what you bargained for.
You may or may not be aware that African Americans have fought in military conflict since the colonial days. However, the Buffalo Soldiers comprised of former slaves, freemen, and black civil war soldiers were the first to serve during peacetime. And once the Westward movement had begun, prominent among those blazing treacherous trails to the Wild West were the Buffalo Soldiers of the United States Army. Now these African Americans were charged with the responsibility of escorting settlers, hurting cattle, and helping the railroad crews get to whatever locations they were trying to reach.
And it was mainly because they were having to wage these campaigns against the Native Americans because, of course, the Native Americans were trying to protect their land. And here these people trying to just trample through and throw up all their railroad tracks and everything and take over land. And the Native Americans were like, nope, that's not about to happen. So these Buffalo Soldiers were the ones that were charged with protecting everyone as they made their way out West.
And so in a sense, it's kind of like, wow, these guys, although they were a part of the United States Army, they were still treated poorly. It was racism, all that type of stuff going on. And then they were in charge of bringing down another group. They were in charge of fighting against the Native Americans.
And that's actually how they got their name Buffalo Soldiers because of the tenacity in which they fought. The Native Americans soon came to call them Buffalo Soldiers. Now I'd like to think that there's more to it than just the fact that they fought really hard, like Buffalo. Buffalo are brown.
OK, there's a distinction there. And then I also read that because of their dark curly hair, it reminded the Native Americans of the coat or hair on a buffalo as well. And all of those things combined caused them to be called Buffalo Soldiers. OK, but you know, what I've just given you, that was a light dusting of my own research into who the Buffalo Soldiers were.
If you're into it and you want to learn more, by all means, dig a little deeper and find out for yourself. As a matter of fact, I've got a couple of places you can go to to get some more information, like actually go to. There is a Buffalo Soldier Monument in Huntsville, Alabama, a Buffalo Soldier Memorial in Junction City, Kansas, as well as another monument in Leavenworth, Kansas. There's a Buffalo Soldier Memorial of El Paso, Texas.
And then to top it all off, there is a Buffalo Soldier National Museum in Houston, Texas. Now all of these places that are indoor type locations, because of COVID-19, the majority of them have shut down temporarily. However, keep an eye out, keep an ear out to listen and find out when these places will be opening back up. And meanwhile, you've got the internet right there at your fingertips.
Let your fingers do the walk in. Let's do a little bit more research and find out more about the Buffalo Soldiers. Well, that was today's episode of Tweech Rens. I hope you enjoyed it.
I hope you learned a little bit more about Buffalo Soldiers. And maybe you were even inspired to do a little bit more digging on your own. If you are, why not head over to Twitter to at BSN Museum. That's BSNMUSEM.
And there, you can find the Buffalo Soldier Museum. They have a link to their page. And you can also, guess what, donate to the cause. You know we always got to go that in there.
And while you're on Twitter, go ahead and follow me at hay event that's at heyeviette. Or just look for the hashtag Tweech Rens. All right, guys. Hope you have a great day.
And I'll see you back here again on Thursday.