Buffalo Soldiers: Local Filmmaker Dru Holley Brings Little Known History to Life
At some point in their formal education, most American schoolchildren learn familiar stories of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. From the American Revolution to the Civil War to the Spanish-American War and other later conflicts, remembered history has been curated by those with the power and freedom to publish it. But a Vancouver filmmaker has been working for years to shine a light on lesser-known American history and the hidden figures who have shaped our nation. Dru Holley is the director of a new documentary, “Buffalo Soldiers: Fighting on Two Fronts,” which premiered at Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) in April. The film tells the history of racially segregated Black military units (or “Buffalo Soldiers” as they were nicknamed by Indigenous peoples), and their fight for both America’s national survival and their own personal civil rights while enduring Jim Crow discrimination. The film weaves the stories of a few specific individuals who served in the U.S. military to illustrate the plight of Black Americans serving in the military from the Civil War into the 20th century, including Moses Williams, who received the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Indian Wars and who spent his last months in Vancouver, died in 1899 and is buried in the Vancouver Barracks Post Cemetery.
I sat down with Holley on the Monday following “Buffalo Soldiers”’s SIFF premier to talk about the process of directing his first feature film, America’s complex racial history and what he’s got planned for his next project.
Read the rest of this article in the full digital issue below.
Watch the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) trailer for Dru Holley’s documentary, “Buffalo Soldiers: Fighting on Two Fronts”:
