Iowa fights for rights and freedom

As we enjoy the freedom to gather together as families, neighbors, and communities during backyard barbecues and awe at the sight of brilliant fireworks that light up the sky, let us also remember those who were, for much of their lives, were denied freedom, yet were willing to lay down their lives that we all may be free.

This year marks the 120th anniversary of dedication ceremonies opening of Fort Des Moines. Originally a garrison of a few hundred dragoons where today’s Iowa Cubs’ Principal Park stands, after the Spanish-American War in the late 19th century, it was decided to establish a larger military training facility in the region.

Several sites were considered and a parcel of 400 acres of flat prairie range was chosen four miles south of the first riverfront location. Excavation was immediately begun with headquarters of red brick erected at the north end of a long parade ground (open field) lined with similarly constructed brick officers’ and support barracks.

The property, however, was intended to be a training center for the cavalry, and with automobiles just beginning to appear on the market as a novelty and not yet seen to hold any military value, rows of brick and wood frame stables were put up to house the hundreds of horses that would be needed to keep America’s troops on the move in the event of war.

War, though, was seen as a white man’s pursuit at the time. A few African Americans were put on horseback after the Civil War in sporadic units in the West, but not allowed to form divisions of their own.

In the early 1900s, following the war against Spain, the Department of War agreed to an experiment in which they would attempt to train those of color as cavalry units for the main army, but fearing they would fail, and not wanting to shed a spotlight upon them, the “colored” troops would be garrisoned in remote Midwest outposts.

The first African American “Buffalo Soldiers” as they became known (so named after the Black troops of the West who Native Americans thought looked strong and had a brown complexion like bison) arrived at Fort Des Moines in the autumn of 1903 and formed the 25th Infantry, primarily as Military Police. Recruits intended as Cavalry soldiers began to be integrated (with a white commander) within five years when four all Black cavalry units were organized and stationed at the fort.

With a goal of having Black units composed of minority cavalrymen under the command of Black officers (a college degree was required to be promoted to the position of officer), by the time World War I had broken out in Europe, more than 1,000 graduates of Tuskegee, Howard, Harvard, Yale, Iowa, and other universities, had signed on with the Army and were dispatched to Des Moines in an effort to organize all minority regiments and prove the military’s “experiment” could succeed.

The majority of these soldiers were assigned to the 92nd Division of the U.S. Army Expeditionary Forces after the United States formally entered the war. In June 1918, they were shipped off to France, and within three months, were engaged on the front line of the Meuse Argonne campaign of the war. The assaults on the densely forested region of the French border were to be the deadliest of the conflict, with 26,000 American deaths and 120,000 injured.

Among those leading in the continuous fusillade of shells was young Samuel Joe Brown. Raised in Ottumwa, he attended the University of Iowa and became the first Black graduate to receive a liberal arts degree and later went on to obtain a law degree, ultimately gaining the distinction of being the first minority counsel to present cases in front of the Iowa Supreme Court. He and his wife, Sue, remained active at the University, procuring a dormitory and activity center for women of color, and Brown Hall, on the campus, was later named in their honor.

The 92nd battled for three months, along with other African American units who had been splintered off from them into the French 8th Army, each charged with the objective of capturing the heavily defended fortress guarding the city of Metz.

Under continuous bombardment, they progressively advanced forward and triumphantly marched in as the first Americans to occupy one of the last major objectives to be secured as the Armistice was announced to end the war.

Today, few people remember the name Samuel Joe Brown, nor the thousands of other African Americans like him who trained at Fort Des Moines and did, indeed, help to prove the Army’s “experiment” a success. Without their efforts, and those who came after them and answered the nation’s call so bravely, we may not have had this opportunity to graze on that barbecue and ooh and ahh at those fireworks as they dazzle in the sky.

Fort Des Moines, also, remains but a distant memory, many of its barracks torn down and with its former bachelor’s quarters and officers club forming a small museum as a reminder of its inimitable role in military and social history.

The horse stables are being converted to contemporary condominiums in the shadow of what remains of the barracks, but the campus now bears only ghosts of its glory days as home to the Buffalo Soldiers of World War I.

David V. Wendell is a Marion historian, author and special events coordinator specializing in American history.