The last living Buffalo Soldier in Junction City, Albert Curley, died September 30th at Brookdale Senior Living in Junction City. His funeral service is set for 10 a.m. Monday, October 8th at the Junction City Church of the Nazarene, 1025 South Washington Street.
Curley retired from the U.S. Army in 1969 after a career that saw him become one of the storied Buffalo Soldiers, a member of one of the all African-American cavalry and infantry units activated between the late 1800s and the mid-1900s. During his military career Curley received a Purple Heart, Bronze Star and World War II Victory Medal.
During an interview last week his son, Albert Curley II, noted that his father’s thoughts on serving as a Buffalo Soldiers went back to the beginning of those troops. “The Buffalo Soldiers, they got the worst gear, the worst horses, and sometimes they were led by people who didn’t want to be there. And yet they had the lowest desertion rate, the highest morale.” He also stated. “We go back three generations of Buffalo Soldiers and they fought hard for equality and for their rights. But they also fought for everybody else’s rights when they fighting for those rights, and they knew that. Dad kept that attitude, he kept that philosophy that we are all the same and everybody is to be treated with respect and honor, and recognized for what they are.”
The Department of State in Washington D.C. held an event called, The Day in the Life of a Buffalo Soldier. Curley stated his father was interviewed and asked if he had any bitterness or feelings about discrimination he’d experienced. “He said no. He had accomplished what he set out to accomplish.”
The elder Curley helped other community work members to establish a Buffalo Soldier Monument near 18th Street on the former Pawnee Park site on the north side of Junction City. His son stated, “For them to convert that to Buffalo Soldier Park was a true accomplishment, and he was very very proud of that.”
Curley will be buried with full military honors at the Kansas Veterans’ Cemetery near Manhattan.