America's National Parks and The Buffalo Soldiers

Celebrating
African Americans in 
the National Parks Day

                        The Presidio in San Francisco 2014            

A recent news report focused on the lack of African Ameican visitors to America's National Parks. The TV report reminded me of a PBS documentary I viewed recently that proved that African Americans have every reason to visit the parks, and to be proud of their ancestors.

The documentary tells the story of the deployment of the US Calvary's 9th Regiment, the fierce Buffalo Soldiers, under the command of Captain Charles Young(1864-1922).Young was only the 3rd African American to graduate from the West Point Military Academy at that time. He was also the first African American to be put in charge of a national park. The year was 1903.

To understand how these facts came about we need to realize that the park rangers we see today had not yet been formed. Since the country was not at war, army units were sent to safeguard the parks.They were, in fact, America's first park rangers. 

In 1903 Captain Young and his regiment was sent to Sequoia National Park, in California. The army units were deployed to protect the parks from, livestock grazing in the parks natural habitats, poaching, and dangerous forest fires, like we see every year in California. 

For more info go to: outdoorafro.com, facebook.com/pages/African-American-Nature, and pbs.org