Buffalo is marking Veterans Day by thanking both the Black men and women who served and the people who made sure their service would be remembered. The African American Veterans Monument will hold a ceremony at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park on the city's waterfront.

The program will unveil and dedicate benches honoring three of the monument's co-founders: retired Air Force veteran Ronal R. Bassham, Air Force veteran Richard A. Cummings and Madeline O. Scott. The ceremony will also include presentations of commemorative brick pavers.

Bassham joined the Air Force at 17, served during the Vietnam War and retired in 1975. He was 90 when he attended the monument's unveiling in 2022.

A first of its kind

Organizers describe the memorial as the first in the country built to honor African Americans in every branch of the armed forces, both in wartime and in peacetime. Black Americans have served in all 12 of the nation's major conflicts, from the Revolutionary War to the war on terror, whether they volunteered or were drafted.

The design tells that story in stone. Twelve black concrete pillars, each 10 feet tall and 3 feet wide, stand in the order of the conflicts they represent. The gaps between them stand for the years of peace in between. At night the tops of the pillars glow, a nod to the candles families once placed in windows to guide a soldier home.

The late artist Jonathan Casey designed the monument with a local design team.

Built by the community

The effort grew out of a 2014 project by the Erie County chapter of The Links Inc. to record the names of every deceased African American veteran from Western New York. That list was shared with the public in 2016. Crystal Peoples-Stokes, then a state Assembly member and now the Assembly majority leader, promised to bring together a committee to plan what became the country's first such monument.

Today's ceremony is also a chance to look ahead. The group that runs the site is raising money for repairs and upgrades so the pillars can keep teaching visitors about Black military service for generations to come.