#washpost

BUFFALO SOLDIERS DAY!

By Miriam Kleiman, Public Affairs

#OTD in 1866, Congress created six army regiments of all-Black soldiers, eventually known as "Buffalo Soldiers." We honor their legacy and were surprised to recently find in our holdings previously-unknown images of Buffalo Soldiers at West Point, including of these men playing football! Washington Post reporter Mike Ruane broke the story, fittingly, during Black History Month 2021, and detailed the discovery by preservation specialist Richard Schneider. Details below.

UPDATE: There's an incredible update to this story!

Intrigued by this news, football historian Timothy P. Brown wanted to learn more. He researched and shared his findings in his Friendly Fields of Strife blog post: The Mystery of the West Point Cavalry Detachment Football Team. After seeing the trophy photo in an online collectors' forum, Brown reached out to the collector, Ron Pomfrey. The football enthusiasts then shared this amazing story with the press! See: Hanover collector scores priceless piece of West Point football history. Brown continues to learn more about these men and this incredible unknown history. Stay tuned!

Trophy awarded to the Cavalry Detachment, 1929. From 6News Richmond story.

Washington Post feature:

West Point football was all-White until 1966. So why does this 1920s photo show an all-Black squad? National Archives scans reveal rare images of a Black team at the then-segregated military academy.

Had the pleasure of working with the super careful Lizzie Hart (AD) at this piece for the Wash Post last month and know more about Cameron Mackintosh, the producer behind most of the all time BroadwayBusters Plays of the last couple of decades. 

West Point Buffalo Soldier Cavalry Detachment Football Team, NARA ID 404-WS-6-4886-1.

West Point Buffalo Soldier Cavalry Detachment Football Team, NARA ID 404-WS-6-4886-2.

WASHINGTON POST FEATURES NEW RECORDS FIND!

West Point football was all-White until 1966. So why does this 1920s photo show an all-Black squad? National Archives scans reveal rare images of a Black team at the then-segregated military academy.

See all 12 newly-discovered images of Buffalo Soldiers at West Point!

Today’s Washington Post feature by reporter Michael Ruane details the incredible records find by preservation specialist Richard Schneider. 

Excerpt:

Richard Schneider had just scanned the old negative of a West Point football team into his computer. It was a classic black-and-white shot from the 1920s — linemen posed in formation, the center about to snap the ball.

It was one of thousands of fragile West Point nitrate images he had retrieved from a refrigerated vault at the National Archives’ site in College Park, Md. He opened a program to flip the negative to positive and clicked invert.

To his surprise, the image that popped up showed a team of all African American players. But the U.S. Military Academy did not have its first varsity Black football player until 1966, 40 years later.

“Who are these guys?” he said he wondered.

Schneider had opened a fascinating window into West Point’s past — a time when, amid entrenched racial segregation, units of the famous African American troops known as Buffalo Soldiers were brought to West Point to teach horsemanship.

Top: Confederate payroll receipt from 1864 for the work of enslaved women and children at a nitre bed used during the Civil War for the production of gunpowder.  

Lower: A payroll before conservation treatment shows how pieces had crumbled away from the brittle paper. (National Archives photo by Halaina Demba)

Washington Post Reports on Civil War Slave Records 

Newly available online for the first time

Today’s Washington Post Retropolis blog details grim documentation of work done by slaves for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Slaves were used for digging entrenchments; strengthening fortifications; digging for potassium nitrate (saltpeter) for gunpowder at “nitre works”; work in ordnance factories and arsenals; work in harness-making shops; and creating obstructions on major rivers (James River, Neuse River).

The nearly 6,000 payroll records, from the National Archives’ War Department Collection of Confederate Records, were scanned, digitized and made available online for the first time earlier this year.

Read reporter Michael Ruane’s Retropolis blog: During the Civil War, the enslaved were given an especially odious job. The pay went to their owners.

See also:

National Archives News: Confederate Slave Payrolls Shed Light on Lives of 19th-Century African American Families

National Archives News:  Pandemic Telework Project Sparks Increase in Black History Records Accessibility

Documents Relating to Slaves who built the White House and U.S. Capitol

Mary Haasdyk Vooys - Washington Post books selection

Portraits for a Washington Post story about Micah Conrad, 26, a film editor who worked on a project that made him begin to doubt vaccines as the Coronavirus swept the nation.