See Yosemite Today Yosemit e Guide for a complete calendar Your Key to Visiting the Park of what’s happening in the park. SUMMER/FALL 2003 25¢ VOLUME XXXII, NO. 1 A History Look for this logo. Support the park by supporting the Yosemite Remembered Association. by Ranger Shelton Johnson Look Inside! Valley Map . Back Panel ne day I wandered into Park Map Yosemite’s Research Library Planning Your Visit . 8 & 9 and was talking to the Yosemite News . 2 & 3 librarian when I noticed an Protect Your Park . 4 Oold photograph. I took a closer look Nature Notes . 5 at the picture and read the caption. It th Bears . 6 was a photograph of the 24 Mount- ed Infantry taken somewhere in Camping . 7 Yosemite in 1899. The 24th, along with the 25th Infantry and the 9th Explore Yosemite . 10 & 11 and 10th Cavalry, were African-American Army regiments that during Backpacking & the Indian War period became known as Buffalo Soldiers. In 1903, four Valley Day Hikes. 12 troops of the 9th Cavalry became among the first “rangers” assigned to Just for Kids . 13 protect Yosemite and Sequoia & General Grant (Kings Canyon) General Information National Parks. For me, as an African-American park ranger, seeing this including . 15 photograph was like stumbling into my own family while traveling in a foreign country. Continued on page 1 YOSEMITE GUIDE Your Key to Visiting the Park SUMMER/FALL 2003 VOLUME XXXII, NO. 1 A History Remembered Continued from front cover A LETTER TO DEAD SOLDIERS I had no idea that 100 years ago the Dear men, 24th Mounted Infantry and the 9th Cavalry Forgive me for not writing sooner, but I only recently discovered that the dead do not were entrusted with the protection of completely vanish from this earth. I realize now that death does not occur with the stop- Yosemite National Park. I had never read ping of the heart, but when we choose to forget. One hundred years after horses and the this information in any history or heard creaking of wagon wheels, your names are air, unseen, yet moving around us. How can something as substantial as a column of twenty-six men riding side by side on a dusty another ranger tell this story. But there, road leave neither imprint on the ground nor sound in sky? staring at me, across a gulf of 100 years A century’s accumulation of dust has buried the fourteen days it took for you to get were these black soldiers who had over- from San Francisco to Yosemite. Yet, there you are astride your horses in a Yosemite that is come obstacles that made my challenges as close as the open window of my office seem insignificant. I immediately wanted When you arrived in Yosemite, the stockmen noticed your presence and avoided you. to know their names, to find out as much This was of little concern to sheepherders who used parklands illegally for grazing their as I could about them. They had almost flocks. They knew the country better than you, and ran their sheep far from the trails you completely disappeared from Yosemite’s patrolled. A million acres is a lot of space for 25 men to cover. It was easy in your time to history. If it weren’t for this one photo- avoid the presence of other people, and to lose yourself in Yosemite. graph, who would know or care that they I think that I understand why you joined the army. You had few choices, and a military ever existed? career provided a sense of dignity, respect, and a pension upon retirement. I imagine the Yosemite’s military history is otherwise hardships you endured in America and in service abroad. You left loved ones behind who fairly well documented. Prior to the cherished your memory. You risked your lives so that the lives of your brothers and sisters, creation of the National Park Service in mothers and fathers, would be better. You are more than just soldiers of the Twenty-fourth 1916, the U.S. Army was charged in the Regiment of Infantry, and this story is bigger than just a chapter in Yosemite’s military protection of Yellowstone, Yosemite, and history. Sequoia & General Grant (Kings Canyon) How can I reach across 100 years and hold out my hand for you to take? How can National Parks. With millions of acres of I convince people that you are not dead but live on? Not just in documents and old Photo courtesy of Research Library Yosemite land set aside for preservation, the Depart- photographs, or even in the park ranger uniform I wear, but are real soldiers ment of Interior called upon the then of race on their shoulders. On the one surviving into the present? Because hand, the Buffalo Soldiers were sent to Department of War for assistance— I choose to remember you, you live to protect Yellowstone’s fragile geothermal protect parks, routinely telling white on in me. I know your lives had wonders, ancient groves of giant sequoias visitors what they could and could not do. meaning to black folks. in the Sierra Nevada, and the sanctity of On the other, these soldiers were a part of The deeper we gaze into the past, the national park idea itself from those a larger society that had difficulty seeing the greater our recognition of our- who sought exploitation rather than them as symbols of authority. In spite of selves in other places and other inspiration. these challenges, the Buffalo Soldiers times. You, who are soldiers, who In 1903, nearly 400 African-American fulfilled their mission. are family, have given me that soldiers made the dusty journey on horse- This year marks the 100th anniversary story. In so doing you have back from the Presidio in San Francisco of their service in Yosemite and Sequoia assured yourself a presence in to Yosemite. During this time, African- National Parks. Birthdays are important Yosemite. Thank you for clearing the trail that I followed 100 Americans occupied the lowest rung on to us individually because they celebrate years later. You cannot imagine our arrival into a family. So too, marking the social ladder. Most of the jobs avail- how your passage has made my able to “colored folks” were menial, this centennial is a way of honoring the journey infinitely easier. labor-intensive, and very rarely consid- arrival of African-Americans into the ered professional. Segregation and family history of our wilderness parks. lynchings were common affairs of daily And since national parks exist “for the life in America. One of the few paths out benefit and enjoyment of the people” of this morass was through the military. both in the United States and around the At the time The Army provided a vocation, training, world, this is also a celebration in which of his death, room and board, and a pension. It also everyone can take pride. Col. Charles Young provided a sense of self-esteem; the Today, as a National Park Service ranger (1897-1931) was the uniform provided pride in country. who is also African-American, I want to highest ranking speak to these men, to tell them that they African-American But while these soldiers had the same in the U.S. Army. responsibilities as their Euro-American weren’t forgotten. The following “Letter counterparts, they had the added burden to Dead Soldiers” is a result of that desire. Shelton Johnson has been a Yosemite ranger since 1993. “I’ve always felt spiritually connected to Yosemite, but TO LEARN MORE... Photo courtesy of the now I feel culturally connected as well.” He was the Charles Young Collection, Go on a walk with Ranger Shelton Johnson as National Afro-American recent regional recipient of the Freeman Tilden Award, Museum & Cultural the highest honor given those who work in Interpretation he assumes the personae of Elizy Boman, a Center,Wilberforce, OH within the National Park Service. member of Yosemite’s 9th Cavalry. “Through the Eyes of a Buffalo Soldier” takes place on Sundays at 10:00 a.m. and meets in front of the Valley Visitor Center. YOSEMITE HELP US CELEBRATE! Visit http://shadowsoldier.wilderness.net for an online exhibit devoted to the story of Sierra GUIDE Buffalo Soldiers. Also visit www.buffalosoldiers.com For 80 years, the Yosemite Association has been a nonprofit Published by the National Park Service organization in service to Yosemite National Park. When you pur- for more information on the history of African- NPS Editor-in-Chief Kristina Rylands chase Yosemite Association publications, you American service to the United States military. Production by Skip Gaynard Designs share in that commitment to stewardship. Stop To learn more about Buffalo Soldier history, We’re Interested... by the bookstore in the Yosemite Valley Visitor read The Buffalo Soldier by William H. Leckie, Center or any visitor information station in the We are always looking for ways to available at the Valley Visitor Center or improve our visitor publications. park; or visit online at www.yosemite.org or through the Yosemite Association (see left). You can help by sending your www.yosemitestore.com. Look for this anniversary comments via email to [email protected]; logo throughout the Yosemite Guide for more fax to 209/379-1295; or information on the important contributions of mail to the address on this dedicated partner. this Yosemite Guide. 1 YOSEMITEYOSEMITE NEWSNEWS FROM THE SUPERINTENDENT If You Dear Yosemite Friends, for future generations. Thus, in honor of the 100 th Welcome to Yosemite! This park has long been anniversary of Buffalo Soldiers in Yosemite, we associated with the early origins of the National speak the names of soldiers like Col.