Dale C. Buffaloe
Black History Month, day 28
On this final day celebrating Black History Month for 2021, I recognize my beautiful, intelligent, indomitable, and kind mother, Dale C. Buffaloe. If you followed me all month, this edition is the most important one.
I love you, Mom.
Dale Buffaloe was born and raised in Northwest Baltimore, Maryland, in 1942. She graduated from Morgan State College in June 1964, majoring in French. She taught French at the Army Education Center in Augusta, Georgia in 1965, Black History at S.H.A.P.E. (NATO allied forces) in Belgium in 1970, English at Leavenworth High School in Kansas in 1973, and reading at the Hawaii Job Corps in 1976. From 1979–2003, she was a career civil servant for the federal government (US Bureau of Reclamation and the US Army Corps of Engineers). She received a MS in Public Administration from Golden Gate University in 1995.
Dale’s family roots are strongly tied to states along the eastern seaboard: Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, Georgia, and Washington, D.C. Her parents came from large families, six in her mother’s, and four in her father’s. Her own family was comparably smaller — just she and her brother are the only children of my grandparents.
My mom had an extremely happy childhood. Her family experiences were generally middle class, her mother, a public school teacher and housewife, and her father, a small businessman. Her neighborhood was “a thriving city for all classes of African Americans.” “We had a large professional presence in the Black community: doctors, dentists, lawyers, judges, preachers, teachers, political leaders, engineers, nurses, civil servants, small business owners, real estate and insurance agents, entertainers, manual laborers. It was like a city within a city, similar to other big cities of the South.” Her “home church” was St. James Protestant Episcopal Church, where her uncles Tollie and Gustav Caution were Episcopal priests.
Dale and her brother belonged to many organizations as children to elevate their lives culturally and educationally and assimilate into a bigger world. She recalls attending Saturday dance class, piano lessons, a Marian Anderson concert at the Lyric Theater and seeing her pastor ordained as a bishop for the Virgin Islands. Her neighbors on Monroe Street, a boulevard lined with the well-known marble steps, was friendly and self-sufficient. The lady next door was a seamstress, next a civil servant, then a postman, etc. Jewish people living there soon left for what was called “white flight,” as the supermarkets crowded out the small grocery stores owned by some. She was taught to help others since all African Americans, whatever their economic circumstances, typically experience the consequences of limited opportunities and prejudice.
Dale attended Eastern High School in Baltimore, where she and about 20–30 other “Negro” girls were integrated. Eastern HS was an all-white, all-girls high school located on the other side of town, about an hour and half ride away on the city bus, including one transfer each way. The transfer stop was their social hang out since the all-boys white schools were on the same route and attended by “Negro” boys, who were also bussing. They considered themselves the “cream of the crop” as they took advantage of presumed opportunities to grow. In classrooms, although no segregated seating was practiced, the girls enjoyed sitting together in the cafeteria at lunchtime. Before then, due to laws of widespread segregation, all Black high schools, like Dunbar and Douglass, were the ones attended by Black kids in northwest Baltimore. Ivy League colleges and universities slowly were becoming integrated then. Despite the fact that neighborhood high schools had excellent teachers and staff, they did not prepare my mom and her peers for the oncoming of a less segregated, more integrated world. Today, many neighborhoods in Baltimore are integrated due to changes in real estate, but then families still largely chose to live racially separated in social and religious settings, and chose to attend historically Black colleges and universities. The few times that my mother came into contact with white people as a young child was in downtown Baltimore at large department stores and public government buildings. Even the beaches, libraries, movies, churches, and parks in her neighborhood were segregated.
With that early background, Dale became a strong proponent of social, economic and racial justice and participated with Black organizations like Jack and Jill, the NAACP, National Urban League, and Alpha Kappa Alpha, Inc, as well as integrated groups who continue to fight for many causes in support of the civil rights movement. Most memorable for her were sit-ins organized at her alma mater, MSU, which were designed to break racial discrimination laws at Northwood Center, a nearby mall, within walking distance of the college. She recalls: “As resident and non-resident students, we were barred from eating at the drugstore counters or attending the movie theater. Our student government organized a peaceful protest that lasted for several weeks and resulted in the laws being changed to allow integrated public accommodations. Gradually, Morgan State University acquired that land, as demographics changed, extended the campus and constructed a bridge that conveniently connects both side of the campus.” In 2019, her son Mark drove her to the campus to triumphantly cross that bridge to the other side.
My mom dreamed of becoming an ambassador during her college years, and she’s actually done it in her own way. She’s traveled to 21 foreign countries, including several island nations. She’s thankful to have been blessed with her parents, her “village,” who, along with her husband, provided her with extraordinary religious, educational, and cultural experiences that have shaped her life. (One example: skiing became a huge family sport in the Buffaloe household after my parents learned how when living in Berchtesgaden, Germany in 1970.) Along with my father, our family, and countless friends she’s skied in many countries, including skiing the route from Austria to Switzerland and back again. The opportunities that allowed my mom to travel extensively and live in foreign countries among family and friends, she says, “is a humbling experience.”
As a young person, my mom recalls praying sincerely for many things, and over time she’s received them all. Now, she sincerely prays for harmony and world peace. Her greatest achievement is having an open heart, curious mind, abiding faith in God, and good health. She is proudest of her family’s ability to live, love, and evolve within many communities and cultures all over the world. Her children and grandchild, she asserts, are the very best reflection of herself and her husband.
So now you know a personal and intimate story of Black Family life, as told through my extraordinary mother, Dale Buffaloe. She was my first teacher, constant nurturer and cheerleader, and the one who moved me to communicate: Black history IS American history.
