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Donald A. Thigpen, charter member of the Maryland Chapter of the Buffalo Soldier motorcycle club, said the cyclists arrayed across the parking lot of the Sears in Landover, some of whom had come from as a far as Michigan and Florida, showed how the group had expanded to include 97 chapters across the country. He said a number of the cyclists planned to take part in Rolling Thunder events after the Buffalo Solider tribute.

“I am a Buffalo Soldier with the Maryland mother chapter and we are here today to honor our heroes of the past,” Mason Monroe said. “We ride in honor of the Buffalo Soldiers and we are going to continue this tradition and we are going to make a difference in this community.”)Riders included active duty soldiers and veterans remembering the past, as well as older married couples like Norman and Lisa Buffalo, who were riding together on 1996 Harley Davidson Road King and said the event stoked old passions.

Even though there is no relationship between his name and the group’s Norman Buffalo still feels a since of pride every time the Buffalo Soldiers club — named for black soldiers who served in the Army’s 10th Cavalry Division in the 1800s — rides.

“These soldiers were curly haired men like me who performed their duties, and some died for the salvation of this country,” said Buffalo, whose sentiments were echoed by his wife Lisa. “The Native Americans gave them the name of Buffalo Soldiers.”

In a tradition that began a decade ago, African American motorcyclists from across the country rode from a Landover parking lot to the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington in honor of all the people of color who paid the ultimate price for freedom in this country.

Read more at the Root DC