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Life of famous Buffalo Soldier portrayed by Lawton resident

LAWTON, Okla. – Portraying a Buffalo Soldier is a passion for Lawton resident Wallace Moore.  It is something he has done for the last 19 years, and now he wants to share his passion with the public.

It is all part of this year's Lawton Soulful Stories of Oklahoma Tourist and Recreation's endeavor to link Black History with sites across the state.

Moore gave 7News a tour of the barracks on Fort Sill where some Buffalo Soldiers once lived.  He says not all Buffalo Soldiers had the stable mind or the right situation to stay in the army as long as Shelvin Shropsire, the soldier that he portrays.  He says the one thing they all had in common though was courage to fight a good fight.

The time was the late 1800s, not too long after the civil war.  Free black men needed work, so they joined the U.S. Army.

"The first generation of Buffalo, 90-percent slaves, 99-percent illiterate.  All enlisted men were black.  They had very little in common with you and I," said Moore.

One of the Buffalo Soldiers to have spent time at Fort Sill was Shropshire, a man who kept coming up as Moore got deeper into the life of a Buffalo Soldier.

"You have to research the white men that he rode with, the officers.  Black men didn't keep notes, they didn't keep diaries.  Our archives here are full of precious notes and diaries, but none them were written by black men," said Moore.

Wallace says there are no photos of them either, including Shropshire.  But Shropshire seems to be a figure present at many pivotal events.

"He was there with William Christy, the first Buffalo Soldier killed out in Kansas.  He was here in 1872 when the Red River War started.  He rode with William Davidson up to Anadarko where he saved a bunch of soldiers by exposing himself to a sniper."

Moore has pieced together information like that to build a picture of Shropshire's life and remarkable service.

"He served around 35 years.  We have no idea how old he was because black men didn't have birth certificates.  You had to take me for my word that I was the age I tell you I am."

Moore says Buffalo Soldiers were initially brought in to be used as laborers, but that is not how it turned out.

"No one had any idea how many Native Americans were here and what kind of resistance they put up to the expansion of white society moving into their lands."

So they soon became soldiers.  But in addition to their duties as soldiers, Moore says around 1869, Buffalo Soldiers constructed many of the barracks on Fort Sill, including the ones now used as a museum, a museum that shows the life of these brave men like Shropshire.

"He had to be the ideal representative of enlisted men.  He had an unbelievable career, a long career."

Wallace also said the Buffalo Soldier Organization was originally supposed to last only five years.  He says it was their "can do" attitude that made them indispensable.

You can catch Moore's portrayal of Shropshire at 6 p.m. Thursday.  It will be at city hall's banquet room.  The performance is free but dinner is $15 per person.