Black Jack Pershing, Frank E. Vandiver, and the Buffalo Soldiers

1,290 Views | 4 Replies | Last: 2 yr ago by WBBQ74
94chem
How long do you want to ignore this user?
I visited the Buffalo Soldiers Museum in Houston a few months ago. There's a little something for everyone there. One subject that I wanted to follow up on sort of relates to the trend in recent years of destroying Civil War-related artifacts such as statues, renaming schools, etc.

In the course of this debate, It's interesting to recognize that pieces of metal have a memory. For example, a statue of Robert E. Lee in Lexington, VA, erected in 1870 would have a very different meaning than a statue erected in Houston in 1920. The former could be to honor the great Virginian's legacy; the latter merely an affirmation of Jim Crow.

So, at the Buffalo Soldiers Museum, there's some good info about Gen. Pershing's advocacy for black soldiers, including their many contributions during WWI. Yet, when I studied US history in HS and college, we learned about Jackie Robinson, and how Truman integrated the armed forces...in 1948!

The problem is that when you read about WWI, and then you see the segregationist movements between WWI and WWII, you see that to some extent the rights being gained by blacks in WWII were rights they already had in WWI. This is where Gen. Pershing comes in. I know he would not have been the only expert, but as a man of honor and a great leader, he would have been keenly aware of the status of black soldiers in both world wars.

As I was pondering this history, I thought, "Wouldn't it be great if someone had interviewed Pershing on these issues? What would he have perceived about civil rights in the 1920's, and what could we learn today about our history?" Well, I had no idea that Frank Vandiver, former president of Texas A&M, actually wrote Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing, which was a finalist for a National Book Award.

Anyway, do any of you scholars know whether this book tracks racial progress/regress through Pershing's eyes? It seems that we have this conception that our racial inequities in American trace to the era of the slave trade, or perhaps more recently to the events of 1860-1865, and that the Civil Rights movement was a response to lingering recalcitrance for the Civil War. Yet, I question how much of the Civil Rights movement was a response to the much more recent abridgement of rights, and whether our military history might be the best place to understand this? What did the average soldier of color see in 1918 vs 1946; or 1916 vs 1941?

I appreciate your thoughts, and any guidance to additional reading.
94chem,
That, sir, was the greatest post in the history of TexAgs. I salute you. -- Dough
ABATTBQ87
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG

Quote:

Frank Vandiver, former president of Texas A&M
That's my President!
94chem
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Quite an accomplished man. He got his doctorate but didn't have a HS diploma. HISD gave him one years later. Don't think he even had to take the STAR test.
94chem,
That, sir, was the greatest post in the history of TexAgs. I salute you. -- Dough
AgBQ-00
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Considering Wilson and his administration was responsible for segregating Fed Gov. I think much of the need for the Civil Rights movement can be directly traced to his presidency.
94chem
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AgBQ-00 said:

Considering Wilson and his administration was responsible for segregating Fed Gov. I think much of the need for the Civil Rights movement can be directly traced to his presidency.
Good point. When you look at Brown vs. Board of Education (1954), the legal history shows that it overturned Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896), like there was this slow but linear progress. The problem with this is that on the surface, it appears that Plessy merely fortified institutional racism. In reality, it caused it, or at least catalyzed more of it. So when you fast forward 30 or 40 years to Civil Rights, it changes things when you realize that we weren't undoing injustices that our fathers had inherited; rather, they were things our fathers had created and perpetrated. Moving the timeline closer, for me at least, makes me uncomfortable, but it's made me a better thinker. Viewing these years through the eyes of Pershing and the military would add more insight, I think.

On a related note, as a parent of a disabled child, it comes as a shock to think that I was a student at A&M when the Americans with Disabilities Act passed in 1990.

94chem,
That, sir, was the greatest post in the history of TexAgs. I salute you. -- Dough
WBBQ74
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Pershing spent much of his company grade years with black cavalry troopers of the 9th Cav and would have had much insight into the racial attitudes in the US Army during that pre Spanish American War era
Refresh
Page 1 of 1
 
×
subscribe Verify your student status
See Subscription Benefits
Trial only available to users who have never subscribed or participated in a previous trial.