Buffalo Soldiers have been mythologized in movies, television, and popular songs. Despite this romanticism, their history is complex. “For Race and Country: Buffalo Soldiers in California,” a new exhibition from the Ontario Museum of History & Art, explores the history surrounding all-Black US Army regiments whose members—both in and out of uniform—left traces in the Golden State. The show runs through March 1, 2026.
Venturing beyond myths, the exhibition confronts the role of Black soldiers in the Army’s history of violence against Native American people, explores historical debates in the Black community over participation in wars, and exposes cracks in a society permeated by racism, in which African American soldiers faced the searing conflict between commitment to equality for their people and to the country they chose to serve. Such is the “double life” African Americans live, in the words of scholar W.E.B. Du Bois, including in the armed forces.
Through photographs, objects, historical records, newspapers, musical scores, and media representations, the exhibition presents a narrative of Black soldiers and their families who made California home during the era of government-sanctioned racial segregation in the US military. “For Race and Country” highlights Californians, from Northern California to the Mexican border, whose little-known influence transformed the state, and the nation. The presentation of the exhibition includes special contributions from the Inland Empire Buffalo Soldier Heritage Association and Buffalo Soldiers 9th & 10th Horse Cavalry Association of Greater Los Angeles…