Buffalo Soldiers National Museum highlights history, shares a legacy
The bronze bust of 1st Sgt. Moses William sits poised like a watchman inside of the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum.
William was a member of the 9th Calvary, one of the all-Black U.S. Army regiments called “Buffalo Soldiers,” and the bust was created by Lubbock-based artist Eddie Dixon, who titled it “The Old Soldier.”
It’s one of the museum’s more than 5,000 historical artifacts that tell the stories of thousands of Black men and women who fought to protect this nation. It’s also a favorite of retired Capt. Paul Matthews, the Vietnam veteran who founded the museum with his wife, Barbara, in 2001.
Housed in the old Houston Light Guard Armory building, it is the nation’s largest museum dedicated to the legacy of African Americans in the military, and it contains the largest private collection of African American military memorabilia anywhere in the world. Matthews purchased the building from the city of Houston in 2008. The collection includes art, memorabilia, weapons, currency, letters, proclamations, uniforms, helmets and so much more.
In 1866, Congress created six all-Black Army units, and they were nicknamed “Buffalo Soldiers” by Native Americans, who respected their bravery.
Considering all of the history that is contained within the museum’s walls, it’s a wonder that some Houstonians don’t know the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum is in our city.
But Matthews gets tickled talking about the museum’s reach — people come from around the world to visit and hear the stories of these men who fought so valiantly.
“Being a country boy from La Marque and Mama Matthews’ oldest son, to have people come from Paris and London and tell us they are not here because of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston or the Texas Medical Center, but they are here because of the Buffalo Soldiers — it’s very powerful,” he said.
Matthews is also enchanted with the children who tour the facility and seem to absorb lessons that they never learned in history books.
“What gets me is when the students come through, and when I go through the history of the Buffalo Soldiers and things they did not know, they seem to stand taller,” he said.
The museum is gearing up for a major expansion and preservation project with a $13 million “Ready & Forward” campaign. The Kinder Foundation has donated $2 million, of which $1 million is a matching gift.
“The Buffalo Soldiers Museum is a historic treasure, and the story of its founding inspired us,” said Rich Kinder, chairman of the Kinder Foundation. “We have intentionally made our gift a matching gift in hopes of inspiring others to support the museum.”
In addition, the Houston Endowment has given $1.5 million; the Texas Historical Commission donated $250,000; and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, $50,000.
In the competitive landscape of philanthropic funding, Black museums, and others focused on communities of color, rarely get donations of this magnitude. While African American museums have a critical role in helping tell stories in America’s history and racial injustices that may be missing from history books, they also are chronically underfunded.
“The culture of philanthropy has changed, and it’s shifted in a way that allows us to make those decisions and move forward in those efforts,” said Desmond Bertrand-Pitts, the museum’s CEO and Matthews’ grandson. “We’ve dealt with funding inequities, like any other African American institution, so we’re not different from that. But what’s really special about this gift from the Kinder Foundation is that $2 million is the largest single gift that we’ve had in our history.”
Preservation already has begun, starting with building’s façade. The plan is to completely redesign the exhibits, enhancing the technology and interactive components for children, as well as preserve the building, which was built in 1925.
More than half of the museum’s artifacts, letters and memorabilia are from Matthews’ personal collection.
“What makes us different from the Museum of Fine Arts, for example, is when you go there, you get content,” he said. “When you come here, you get context. We talk about people like Frederick Douglass, who made a very important point at the start of the Civil War. I’ll paraphrase: ‘Give the colored man a uniform, a buckle with the U.S. on it, a button with an eagle on it and a musket, and you make him a citizen — but you also make him a man.’ ”
Buffalo Soldiers National Museum is now run by Bertrand-Pitts, who didn’t serve in the military but developed an appreciation for the Buffalo Soldiers through his grandfather’s stories.
“I feel as though this is my service, making sure that we continue to tell the story,” he said.
In the past two years of racial protest, major museums across the nation began pledging greater inclusivity in their collections. Some have maintained their commitments as the protests have quieted. Others have lost that focus altogether.
In July 2020, on National Buffalo Soldier Day, the museum was vandalized with a swastika symbol and a statement attacking the Democratic party. That incident of hate did not dissuade the museum from its mission.
“Our focus is on being a sustainable force,” BertrandPitts said. “We’ve been around 20 years, but there’s so much more that we can do. We’ve contributed a lot to the community, but now we have to take it to the next level.”
A few days a week, Matthews stops by the museum to conduct tours and share his stories of the Buffalo Soldiers.
“I hear him laugh as he tells the stories, and he still gets emotional,” Bertrand-Pitts said. “It makes me emotional because I get to continue to share this. I get to be a part of this legacy.”