‘Buffalo Soldiers’ A Story Of Heroism Amid Discrimination

It’s New Mexico territory in 1880, and the Texas Rangers have rounded up a band of Mescalero Apaches - mostly women, children and old men - while scouring the countryside for the rampaging war chief Victorio.

They start lynching Apaches at the rate of three an hour - and won’t stop until somebody reveals where Victorio is hiding.

That’s when a United States Cavalry troop comes riding up - and puts the Texas Rangers under arrest on murder charges.

One group of Indian fighters arresting another? Makes no sense - unless you know the bluecoats are from the 10th Cavalry, the fabled “buffalo soldiers” troop made up entirely of former black slaves who don’t take well to the sight of lynchings.

That’s the opening sequence of TNT’s “Buffalo Soldiers,” the rousing new made-for-TV movie about the black cavalrymen recruited in 1866 for duty on the Western frontier and nicknamed by Indians who assumed their woolly hair made them kin to the buffalo.

They stayed to build their own legend as fighting men, forging a military tradition that would last into the late 1940s when President Harry Truman finally ordered the military desegregated, disbanding the all-black units.

Executive producer/star Danny Glover, who plays Sgt. Washington Wyatt, and director Charles Haid have fashioned a thoughtful action film that not only tells how the buffalo soldiers helped stop a coalition between war chiefs Victorio and Nana that imperiled the American frontier, but also shows us the climate of discrimination that served as the backdrop of their heroism.

“This is going to bust a few fences, I’ll tell you that,” says director Haid, who discovered efforts to make a film about the black cavalrymen had gone on for 20 years before TNT finally stepped up with the financing.

Though blacks who fled Southern slavery fought against the Confederacy during the Civil War, it took a special act of Congress to get them admitted to the Union Army, so they could take up arms against their former masters. As “Buffalo Soldiers” illustrates, that didn’t mean black cavalrymen were treated the same as white cavalrymen.

Regulations, for instance, required that “colored” men in uniform had to follow the whites in any procession by more than 15 yards. Their provisions and accommodations were substantially worse than those for whites. And, originally, they were required to be led by white officers because the generals believed “field Negroes” were not capable of leadership. their general says of them in the movie, “and does not give them.”

After their white lieutenant is killed and Sgt. Wyatt takes command in the field, capturing Nana in a daring maneuver, Wyatt is reprimanded for departing from his orders. Sent to bring back Victorio, dead or alive, they’re still put under a white officer.

“Buffalo Soldiers” is uncompromising in depicting savage conditions on the frontier. In one elaborate sequence, where the Mescaleros lead the cavalrymen into an ambush, one soldier is knocked off his horse and Apache children beat him to death with stones. In another, the cavalrymen come upon a nightmare locale where Texas Rangers have been stripped, mutilated and burned by Apaches.

Glover’s character, who’s fictional, is a complex man - a former slave who has found a sense of dignity in the U.S. Cavalry despite the bigotry, but has yet to find a way to prove he can rise above what the white man says are his limitations. Carl Lumbly, best known for his role as Detective Mark Petrie on TV’s “Cagney & Lacey” and as the superhero “M.A.N.T.I.S.,” has the film’s most offbeat role as half-Apache, half-black Army scout John Horse.

Also superb are Mykelti Williamson, who played Bubba in “Forrest Gump,” as the valiant Christy; Michael Warren (“Hill Street Blues”) as the articulate Tockes; Glynn Turman (“A Different World”) as Joju, who loses an eye in a grotesque sequence; and Timothy Busfield (“thirtysomething”) as the racist Carr.

As you watch Sgt. Wyatt lead his men on their long, bloody quest for the elusive and deadly Victorio, you may wonder what kind of justice sets them on a path to destroy another minority in service to their former white masters. Indeed, when Wyatt and Victorio finally come face to face, it’s the first question on the Apache’s mind.

“Buffalo Soldiers” is well aware of the ironies it’s depicting, and this multilayered texture, along with the fierce action, the stunning photography and entrancing musical score mesh to make it a TV movie well above the average for the genre.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: TV PREVIEW “Buffalo Soldiers” premieres tonight at 5 on TNT, with repeat showings at 7 and 9 and throughout the month.