ALUMNI NEWS
By Nicholas Cole Vietnam Veteran Paul J. Matthews' Buffalo Soldiers National Museum is the Largest Privately Owned Repository of African American Military Artifacts in the World
A ccording to some of the na- tion’s leading historians and economists - without the Buf- falo Soldiers' contributions, the United States would not be what it is today, and the westward movement would have been delayed by more than 50 years. But thanks to the initiative of Military Historian and Vietnam Veteran Paul J. Matthews to found the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum in Houston, thousands of people from around the world are able to explore history that otherwise could have gone untold.
The Buffalo Soldiers originally were members of the 10 th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army, formed on Sept. 21, 1866, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The six all-black cavalry and infantry regiments were created after Congress passed the Army Reorganiza- tion Act of 1866. The nickname Buffalo Soldiers was given to the Black Cavalry by Native American tribes who fought in the Indian Wars. “I first heard about the Buffalo Soldiers when I was a ROTC cadet at Prairie View A&M University back in
the 1960s,” Matthews (Houston (TX) Alumni Chapter 1983) recalled. I read two paragraphs in a military book about the Buffalo Soldiers, and I just became intrigued by these black men in blue uni- forms. Because they did what they did, not necessarily for themselves, but for those who came behind them, I thought that this was a story that needed to be told. That’s why I founded the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum.” Founded on Jan. 5, 2001, the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum is the largest privately-owned repository of African
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