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A hush comes over the Mariposa Museum and History Center as the sound of a far away cedar flute floats into the room. Slowly
he enters the room, the decade
is the early 1900's, Sergeant Alizy Bowman, a Buffalo Soldier in Yosemite National Park enters the room playing the flute we
heard from far away. He keeps playing the flute, a haunting sorrowful sound stirs the heart and mind. Slowly the music fades
away and Alizy stands at attention. He begins his story taking about hunting and gathering firewood in Mariposa County back
in the late 1800's when one could walk anywhere in the county and shoot game for food. Suddenly there is a line drawn in the
county that you cannot see, it is Yosemite National Park and the line is a boundary line that now forbids you to cross and
get game to feed your family or firewood to keep your family warm. Cross this line in territory you walked all your life and
proceed to shoot a deer and now you are a criminal.
Alizy continues on saying, how would you feel when now someone walks up to you and asks you about that deer you just shot
and tells you that you are in trouble. Now imagine the man that's telling you that you're in trouble is a Black Man.
The Buffalo Soldiers in Yosemite had to do this as part of their mission of protecting the Park.
His life story unfolds before our eyes, his growing up in the South and how the separation of
whites and blacks was so prevalent. How a black person always had to look down at the shoes of a white person, because you
didn't dare look a white person in the eyes. He also talked about a
man who stepped right on him and called him a name and how his mom then took his face in her hands, what loving hands she had, and told
him he was Somebody. He then proceeded to walk tall and look at the white folks in their faces, but his father knowing that
something bad would happen to Alizy if he was to stay in the area, demanded that he leave the house, now! Alizy took off
walking, and walked all the way to Nebraska with shoes now worn down to where there was no shoe leather left and without any
money in his pocket. As he stood there in Nebraska, a white man called out to him in a friendly way, Alizy looked around as
he was sure the man could not be talking to him, but he was, and he offered him a job in the U.S. Army, paying a monthly
stipend of $13.00. He could have food and new shoes.
Sometimes you have choices and sometimes life makes the choice for you Alizy said.
Thus Yosemite Park Ranger Shelton Johnson begins his story of the Buffalo Soldiers that patrolled Yosemite and Sequoia
National Parks.
Immersing himself in the history of the Buffalo Soldiers. Mr. Johnson shapes a character, named
Sergeant Alizy Bowman. He tells of how the Park was in the late 1800's to early 1900's and the role that the Buffalo Soldiers
played in both parks. When it came to questions and answers with the audience Mr. Johnson slips into and out of
character, depending on who the question is addressed to. He mentions that we all cast a shadow and are a part of a
living history, that we all are part of a story. There were 500-600 Buffalo Troops stationed in Yosemite and Sequoia
National Parks and were called Buffalo Soldiers by the Indians who upon seeing the soldiers for the first time in their
lives thought that their hair was like the hair on the neck of the Buffalo. Clothes of period dress adorn
Shelton Johnson from his hat to his boots, including the flute that he plays of the sorrowful music that closed out the
presentation at the
Mariposa Museum and History Center on Sunday April 27, 2008. Mr. Johnson is a master story teller, not to be missed! If you
are planning a trip to Yosemite please ask the visitors center about his future performance schedule.
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