I reckon most people know this phrase because of the Bob Marley song. And call me racist or a cultural appropriator or whatever you want, but my favorite rendition of that song was when my tiny and extremely pale toddler would belt it out at the slightest provocation. He had this excellent dance move to the chorus—a sort of trudging-marching move with his arms in front of him and his elbows up like he was muscling his way through a dense crowd. (He refuses to re-enact this for me as a self-aware grown-ass man. Oh, where has the joy gone?)

But the actual story of the Buffalo Soldiers isn’t much of a laughing matter, although I hope there was some joy for some of them somewhere along the way. There’s a lot of lore and myth, and there’s probably a lot of room for interpretation in the story, up to and including how they got that label. One story is because of their hair and fighting spirit. Another is because they wore buffalo robes acquired in the West, where those big fur blankies went a long way toward fighting endless wind and subzero temperatures.

So, who were these guys? They were, indeed, soldiers in the U.S. Army: the 9th and 10th Cavalries and the 24th and 25th Infantries—all-black regiments generally led by white guys, with some rare exceptions. I seem to recall reading somewhere that these regiments formed during the Civil War, but I can’t find anything indicating that is actually true. (There were black regiments—just not THESE regiments.) These guys came along after the war and contributed to westward expansion by building roads serving as park rangers, along with taking part in the Red River War and the Battle of San Juan Hill in 1898).

Given today’s climate, it’s sort of hard to wrap one’s head around the idea that a bunch of newly freed slaves would give themselves over to defend a country that, despite fighting a war to end slavery, had really not done right by this population. It’s also hard to reconcile that these guys signed up as a way to reinforce their rights as citizens—basically by joining an effort to stomp on Native Americans who gave them this moniker. But that’s pretty much how it all played out.

The regiments didn’t die off with their namesakes, either. They fought in both world wars and Korea. Elements of the 10^th served in Vietnam. The 9th and 10th got folded into the 1st Cavalry Division, now stationed in Texas. This is also a remarkable achievement considering the frustratingly slow evolution in cultural attitudes that could still use some improvement in some quarters. (I’m assuming. I’m not up on political relations within the military, but I suspect it’s like everywhere else—most people just wanna do their jobs, but there’s always jerks who gotta ruin it for everyone.)

According to Wikipedia, the last surviving Buffalo Soldier was Robert Dixon, who died last year at age 103, and the oldest Buffalo Soldier, Mark Matthews, died in 2005 at the age of 111 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. I couldn’t find any comments from either of them about the song, but I suspect that the lives they led would have given them a perspective that would have had them cracking up if they’d ever seen my kid dance.