The fire was burning as a lunch of crawfish was about to be cooked at the 3rd U.S. Colored Cavalry’s camp Sunday morning located on Pemberton Avenue by the Old Administrative Building in the Vicksburg National Military Park.

“We are all living historians/military re-enactors. With the exception of me, everybody in this group is a military vet,” John Russell said.

About six men from the Orlando, Fla. area spent all day Saturday and Sunday at the military park dressed as Civil War re-enactors with tents and horses in a mission to educate the public about the history of the 3rd U.S. Colored Cavalry.

“We want to educate people as to the real history— not what you see on television,” Arthur Battles said.

Whenever they are invited, the group travels all over the country, and even the world, year-round since 1992, to educate people on different wars and the role of colored people in the military. The group started as a Buffalo Soldiers historical group and has branched out to cover a number of different war histories.

“We actually do Negro military history from the 1500s through today,” Russell said. “A lot of things happened early on that people aren’t even unaware of that are a part of this country’s history.”

He said their presentations are geared toward their audience and in Vicksburg that comes in the form of Mississippi’s own 3rd U.S. Colored Cavalry that was formed in Vicksburg in November 1863 and fought on the grounds in which the re-enactors stood this weekend. Their motto is “Tell it like it was.”

“We do this to honor their sacrifices and to further educate people because truthfully most people’s perceptions or ideas of the Civil War are from movies,” Russell said.

He doesn’t consider what they do as black military history but instead as America’s military history and they are the historians. He also uses terminology from the 1800s and 1900s like “colored” and “negro” troops. “I use those words because we are not politically correct,” Russell said.

He said one of his favorite quotes is “You can’t know where you’re going until you know where you came from.”

He hopes their program will help people learn where they came from and instill pride in their identity.