THE NEXT 100 TARRANT COUNTY BUFFALO SOLDIERS.

THE NEXT 100 TARRANT COUNTY BUFFALO SOLDIERS. Link:

https://youtube.com/shorts/77uPIwRHVXI?is=jTUUWX8vMl6czv5C

FROM BLACK BOY SOLDIERS TO BUFFALO SOLDIERS — AND BEYOND.  Link: https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/tarrant-county/forgotten-black-cemetery-restored-honoring-more-than-500-buffalo-soldiers-tarrant-county-texas/287-a51ba10a-e803-42ff-9f89-e9388d5802c9

FROM SLAVERY. TO THE CIVIL WAR. TO THE WAR ON TERROR.

Digging for Dignity, New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church, the Texas Buffalo Soldiers Association and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Buffalo Soldiers Heritage and Outreach Program Unite to Recruit 100 Volunteers to Preserve an Incomparable Legacy. Link: https://www.fox4news.com/news/historic-black-cemetery-haltom-city-restored-time-veterans-day

HALTOM CITY, TEXAS — As an old throwback football player, Pastor Kyev P. Tatum, Sr. knows a little something about recruiting.

But this time, he isn’t recruiting athletes.

He is recruiting men and women, boys and girls, students and seniors, veterans and families to join a different kind of team—one dedicated to preserving, teaching and carrying forward the extraordinary legacy of Black military service and America’s Buffalo Soldiers.

The Digging for Dignity Legacy Project is a ministry of New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church in Fort Worth’s 76104 community, which is also home to the Texas Buffalo Soldiers Association, led by Commander RosieLeetta Reed, President.

Together with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Buffalo Soldiers Heritage and Outreach Program, the mission is creating a powerful bridge between church, community, cemetery preservation, public history and Buffalo Soldiers heritage.

And Tatum has set an ambitious recruiting goal:

100 VOLUNTEERS FROM TARRANT COUNTY BY CHRISTMAS 2026. Link: https://www.keranews.org/news/2025-11-11/black-veterans-honored-at-newly-restored-historic-haltom-city-cemetery

The mission will connect a new generation with Buffalo Soldiers history across Texas while strengthening the preservation work underway at historic People’s Memorial Legacy Park in Haltom City, where generations of Black military veterans rest.

The invitation is no longer simply an idea.

Tatum has officially been welcomed into the Buffalo Soldiers Heritage and Outreach Program volunteer family, providing a direct pathway for recruiting, training and engaging others in the work.

In welcoming him, Coy L. Poitier, PhD, Program Supervisor I for the Buffalo Soldiers Heritage and Outreach Program, emphasized that volunteers play an important role in bringing history to life through stories, period costumes, historical tools and educational interpretation.

Volunteers can also receive information about training opportunities, upcoming programs and potential travel opportunities, beginning with required Buffalo Soldiers Heritage and Outreach Program volunteer orientation (https://blacktexans.blogspot.com/2026/01/buffalo-soldiers-mlk-day-of-service-at.html?fbclid=IwZnRzaAT1xChwZG9mBWZkaWQWUM4kIifI_EAoGcR7ctRjfv3pzTKHZGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR6_Lcx0EW7aVw6Z197798FVrfQpsCWXfSezUibtekqdJi5xhnOPKqHwZM-6Jw_aem_YwIp0L_yZhT52W538n8MRQ&m=1).

For Tatum, that invitation immediately became bigger than one volunteer.

It became a recruiting call for Tarrant County.

“We can. We will. We must.”
— Coy L. Poitier, PhD, Buffalo Soldiers Heritage and Outreach Program | Link: https://dallasexpress.com/state/east-texas-veterans-cemetery-announced-to-honor-generations-of-service/

A SACRED PLACE OF SERVICE | Link: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/fort-worth/article285978296.html

People’s Memorial Legacy Park is more than an old cemetery.

It is an underground archive of Black life, Black sacrifice and Black military service.

Across its grounds rest more than 500 Black military veterans, representing generations of men and women who answered America’s call to serve.

But what makes this sacred ground especially significant is the extraordinary span of Black military history represented there.

FROM SLAVERY TO THE WAR ON TERROR | https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/article312880681.html

The story begins with people born into slavery and reaches into the modern American military.

From slavery.
To emancipation.
To the Civil War.
To the Black Boy Soldiers.
To the Buffalo Soldiers.
To World War I.
To World War II.
To the Red Ball Express.
To the Tuskegee Airmen.
To the women of the 6888th.
To Korea.
To Vietnam.
To the Persian Gulf.
To the War on Terror.

More than a century of Black military history is represented in one sacred place.

These grounds tell an extraordinary American story: generations of Black men and women who served a nation whose freedoms they sometimes had to fight to fully experience themselves.

Some were born into slavery.

Some witnessed emancipation.

Some lived through Reconstruction and Jim Crow.

Some served in segregated military units.

Some fought tyranny abroad while confronting discrimination at home.

Others served as America’s military moved toward integration.

And later generations carried that tradition of service into the Persian Gulf and the War on Terror.

Different wars. Different uniforms. Different generations. One continuing legacy of service. | https://fortworthreport.org/2025/11/11/black-veterans-honored-at-newly-restored-historic-haltom-city-cemetery/

THE BLACK BOY SOLDIERS | Link: https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/video/hundreds-of-black-veterans-honored-at-new-trinity-cemetery/

Among the stories that must be intentionally preserved are those of the Black Boy Soldiers.

They cannot be reduced to a footnote or hidden beneath the broad category of “other veterans.”

Their story belongs in the larger continuum of Black military service represented at People’s Memorial Legacy Park.

Their lives help connect the era of slavery and the Civil War with generations of Black soldiers who followed.

Then came the Buffalo Soldiers.

Among those resting within the park are veterans connected to the historic 24th and 25th Infantry Regiments, two of the famed regiments associated with the Buffalo Soldiers.

And the story continues.

Also resting there is Florence Marie Cole Rawls, a veteran of the historic 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion and a recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal (https://libraries.uta.edu/news/honoring-local-6888th-battalion-members).

Across the cemetery are veterans representing successive generations of American military service.

Some of their stories are known.

Others have been nearly forgotten.

And some may still be waiting beneath a weathered stone for someone to discover a name.

That is where the next 100 come in.

HUNTING FOR HEROES™

The partnership creates an opportunity to expand one of Digging for Dignity’s signature educational initiatives:

HUNTING FOR HEROES™

A History Hunt at People’s Memorial Legacy Park

Searching the Stones. Finding the Soldiers. Raising Their Names.

Volunteers, students, descendants, veterans, churches, historians and community organizations will help search cemetery records and grave markers, conduct historical and genealogical research, document military service and reconnect families with stories that might otherwise disappear.

The search will intentionally seek and preserve stories connected to the Black Boy Soldiers, Buffalo Soldiers, World War I, World War II, Red Ball Express, Tuskegee Airmen, 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, Korean War, Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War, War on Terror and other chapters of Black military service represented within the park.

But this isn’t simply a hunt for graves.

We are hunting for names.

We are hunting for stories.

We are hunting for service.

We are hunting for sacrifice.

We are hunting for heroes.

And when we find them, we will raise their names again.

FROM VOLUNTEER TO RECRUITER | https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/tarrant-county-sheriffs-cemetery-cleanup-project/3931033/

The official welcome from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department gives this effort a practical framework.

Those who answer the call are not simply being asked to walk through a cemetery.

They are being invited into a broader heritage mission.

Through the Buffalo Soldiers Heritage and Outreach Program, volunteers can learn how to interpret history, tell stories, participate in educational presentations, use historical tools and period dress, attend training and serve at programs throughout Texas.

At People’s Memorial Legacy Park, those same volunteers can help apply those skills to a sacred landscape filled with overlooked military history.

That creates something powerful:

Learn the history through BSHOP.
Find the history through Digging for Dignity.
Teach the history to the next generation.

The goal is to build a corps of trained volunteers who can move from simply knowing the words “Buffalo Soldiers” to understanding the people, their service, their sacrifice and their place in the larger American story.

PARTNERS IN THE PROMISE

Tatum describes the relationship between these missions with three words:

PARTNERS IN THE PROMISE.

The words are bigger than sponsorship.

They speak to shared stewardship—a shared responsibility to preserve history, educate another generation, honor those who served and ensure their contributions do not disappear from America’s memory.

That stewardship brings together several important pieces of the mission.

New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church provides the ministry home for Digging for Dignity.

The Texas Buffalo Soldiers Association, under the leadership of Commander RosieLeetta Reed, provides a living connection to Buffalo Soldiers education, remembrance and community engagement.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Buffalo Soldiers Heritage and Outreach Program, State Parks Division, Interpretive Services, provides a statewide educational platform dedicated to bringing Buffalo Soldiers history to life.

And People’s Memorial Legacy Park provides sacred ground where that history is not merely discussed.

It is buried beneath our feet.

Together, they create something bigger than a preservation project.

They create a classroom without walls.

A living laboratory of history.

A place where a child can walk from one grave to another and encounter generations of Black military service.

A place where history can move from the textbook to the tombstone.

From the tombstone to research.

From research to storytelling.

And from storytelling to remembrance.

A CHURCH, A CEMETERY AND A CALL TO SERVE

There is something especially fitting about this work being rooted at New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church in Fort Worth’s 76104 community.

The church is home to both a ministry committed to raising forgotten names and an organization committed to keeping the Buffalo Soldiers legacy alive.

Faith meets history.
History meets service.
Service meets preservation.
And preservation becomes ministry.

The goal isn’t simply to tell young people what the Buffalo Soldiers did.

The goal is to recruit them to help preserve what the Buffalo Soldiers gave us.

THE RECRUITER HAS A NEW TEAM

For Tatum, there is something fitting about becoming a recruiter again.

The former football player once understood recruiting as finding athletes who could help a team win.

Today, he sees recruiting differently.

This team needs historians.

It needs teachers.

It needs students.

It needs veterans.

It needs churches.

It needs researchers and genealogists.

It needs families and descendants.

It needs young people carrying smartphones.

It needs senior citizens carrying memories.

And it needs ordinary people willing to give some of their time so extraordinary people are never forgotten.

THE NEXT 100

100 VOLUNTEERS.

TARRANT COUNTY.

BY CHRISTMAS 2026.

The recruiting has begun.

And this time, winning isn’t measured on a scoreboard.

Winning means completing the orientation.

Winning means learning the history.

Winning means finding another soldier.

Winning means discovering another story.

Winning means connecting another family to an ancestor.

Winning means teaching another child.

Winning means raising another name.

JOIN THE NEXT 100

Come learn the history.

Come train to tell the story.

Come search the stones.

Come find the soldiers.

Come raise their names.

Come help preserve an incomparable continuum of Black military history—from those born during slavery and the Black Boy Soldiers, through the Buffalo Soldiers, two World Wars, Korea and Vietnam, and into the military service of the modern era.

Because preservation isn’t simply about remembering what happened yesterday.

It is about deciding what the next generation will know tomorrow.

DIGGING FOR DIGNITY LEGACY PROJECT

A Ministry of New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church

Fort Worth, Texas 76104

HOME OF THE TEXAS BUFFALO SOLDIERS ASSOCIATION

Commander RosieLeetta Reed, President

TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT

BUFFALO SOLDIERS HERITAGE & OUTREACH PROGRAM

State Parks Division — Interpretive Services

PARTNERS IN THE PROMISE

100 VOLUNTEERS BY CHRISTMAS 2026

“WE CAN. WE WILL. WE MUST.”

And at People’s Memorial Legacy Park, the call to a new generation begins with a challenge:

“Today, the hunt begins. Somewhere beneath these stones are heroes whose names have been waiting generations to be called. We intend to find them.”

FROM SLAVERY.

TO THE CIVIL WAR.

TO THE WAR ON TERROR.

SEARCHING THE STONES.

FINDING THE SOLDIERS.

RAISING THEIR NAMES.

Every Stone Has a Song.
Every Hero Has a History.