First Sergeant Mingo Sanders is best known as one of the leading figures in the Brownsville Affray in Brownsville, Texas in 1906. Sanders was a career soldier with the then-segregated U.S. Army’s 1st Battalion, 25th Infantry, when it was posted at Fort Brown, Texas in … Read MoreMingo Sanders (1857-1929)
Richard Robert Wright Sr., college founder and banker, was born into slavery on May 16, 1855, near Dalton, Georgia. After the Civil War ended Wright’s mother moved with her son to Atlanta, Georgia where he attended the Storrs School, an institution founded by the American … Read MoreRichard R. Wright, Sr. (1855-1947)
When the U.S. Army was reorganized on July 28, 1866, for peacetime service after the American Civil War, six regiments were set aside for Black enlisted men. These included four infantry regiments, numbered 38th through 41st. The 24th Infantry was organized during a reduction in … Read More24th Infantry Regiment (1866-1951)
The 10th Cavalry was one of the original six regiments of the regular army set aside for black enlisted men. These were authorized by Congress in the act of July 28, 1866 reorganizing the army for post-Civil War service, mainly against native peoples in the … Read More10th Cavalry Regiment (1866-1944)
The 9th Cavalry was one of the original six regiments of the regular U.S. Army set aside for black enlisted men. These were authorized by Congress in the act of July 28, 1866 reorganizing the army for post-Civil War service, mainly against native peoples in … Read More9th Cavalry Regiment (1866-1944)
Horace Waymon Bivins, a Buffalo Soldier, was born on May 8, 1862, in Accomack County, Virginia. His father Severn S. Bivins and his mother Elizabeth Bivins were free black farmers on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. His parents taught Bivins to farm, and at the age of … Read MoreHorace W. Bivins (1862-1937)
Between 1866 and 1917, African American soldiers served throughout the western United States, including the territory and later state of Montana. Beginning in 1888, the 24th and 25th Infantries and the 9th and 10th Cavalries would be stationed throughout Montana at Fort Missoula, Fort Keogh, … Read MoreBuffalo Soldiers in Montana (1888-1898)
George Prioleau was chaplain of the 9th Cavalry of Buffalo Soldiers in the late 19th century. After witnessing inequality and mistreatment of his men, he publicly challenged the hypocrisy and racial line being drawn against black soldiers. Born in 1856 to slave parents in Charleston, … Read MoreGeorge Prioleau (1856-1927)
John Roy Lynch, congressman, soldier, and author was born in Concordia Parish, Louisiana on September 10, 1847 to Patrick Lynch, an Irish immigrant and Catherine White, a slave. Lynch’s father died soon after his birth. Lynch and his mother were then traded to a plantation … Read MoreJohn Roy Lynch (1847-1939)
Casper Holstein was a prominent New York philanthropist and mobster involved in the Harlem “numbers rackets” during Prohibition. He, along with several other rivals, most notably Stephanie St. Clair, were responsible for resurrecting illegal gambling in Harlem after several years of inactivity following the conviction … Read MoreCasper Holstein (1876-1944)
