BATTLE OF TULAROSA (MAY 14, 1880)

May 1880 found Colonel Edward Hatch’s 9th Cavalry buffalo soldiers campaigning in the Southwest against the wily Apache leader Victorio.  A skilled practitioner of guerrilla warfare, Victorio – “The Triumphant One” – was proving difficult to catch, avoiding pursuit in Arizona and slipping into New Mexico.  Against this backdrop, a detachment of twenty-five dismounted cavalrymen from K Troop were dispatched to an abandoned post at … Continue reading BATTLE OF TULAROSA (MAY 14, 1880)

BOOKER WASHINGTON IN SEATTLE, 1913

An unusual incidence of interracial solidarity between blacks and Asian Americans occurred during Booker T. Washington’s visit to Seattle. In March 1913, Washington embarked on a national speaking tour in order to raise money for Tuskegee Institute, the chronically underfunded “Normal and Industrial School” in Alabama over whose fortunes he had presided since its founding in 1881. Washington’s barnstorming tours combined the racial uplift theme … Continue reading BOOKER WASHINGTON IN SEATTLE, 1913

Freedom Rides

During the spring of 1961, student activists from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) launched the Freedom Rides to challenge segregation on interstate buses and bus terminals. Traveling on buses from Washington, D.C., to Jackson, Mississippi, the riders met violent opposition in the Deep South, garnering extensive media attention and eventually forcing federal intervention from John F. Kennedy’s administration. Although the campaign succeeded in securing an Interstate Commerce … Continue reading Freedom Rides