Dodger Stadium — Sports Venue Review
If you're in from out of town, this is where you'll get to see the most Angelenos in their natural environment, all dressed in their best Dodger blue. You don't even have to be a sports fan to have fun. There are concessions everywhere to get a Dodger dog (a footlong that somehow tastes better than you might think), a can of beer, and some nachos. It's fun and raucous, so get in the mood to cheer on the team. And if you go on a Friday, there's a post-game fireworks show all summer long. If sports is not your vibe, there's usually a concert or two happening each year. Only the biggest acts can fill the stadium, so think the likes of Beyoncé and Elton John.
Any standout features or must-sees?
There are great statues at the Centerfield Entrance, including bronze depictions of Hall of Famers Sandy Koufax and Jackie Robinson. Check the website to see if your tickets fall on one of the giveaway nights; you could go home with a bobblehead toy or a t-shirt included with the cost of your ticket. The stadium shop is full of items to purchase, like a variety of ball cap styles, t-shirts, water bottles, and novelty baseball bats.
Was it easy to get around?
The park is accessible for the most part, with elevators and smooth walkways. Arrive early, because it can be a bit tricky to figure out where you're supposed to go, but there are plenty of attendants there to help point you in the direction of the best entrance for your seats. If you want to avoid the traffic, there's a shuttle bus available from Union Station, but arrive very early for that as it takes a minute. You probably won't be able to find a seat on the bus, and it jerks around as you head up into the Chavez Ravine area where the ballpark is. Bring sunscreen, water, and snacks, but make sure your items are in a clear bag or they won't let them in.
All said and done, what—and who—is this best for?
This is a fun, relaxing outdoor activity in LA for everyone, whether you're a sports fan or not.
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Los Angeles Times
12 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
The Sports Report: Max Muncy out six weeks with bone bruise in left knee
From Kevin Baxter: The Dodgers will be without Max Muncy for approximately six weeks after the third baseman was placed on the injured list Thursday with what the team is calling a bone bruise in his left knee. Muncy was injured in the sixth inning of Wednesday's walk-off win over the Chicago White Sox when Chicago's Michael Taylor slid headfirst into third on an unsuccessful attempt to steal third base. Taylor's helmet hit Muncy's knee, bending it sideways and flipping the infielder to the ground. The collision was so gruesome, SportsNet LA, which was broadcasting the game, did not show replays. Muncy writhed on the ground in obvious pain before being helped to the clubhouse. Muncy, who entered the Dodger clubhouse Thursday afternoon wearing a blue elastic support bandage on his left leg, said he originally feared the worst, but an MRI found no structural damage. 'It was tough news, but it was also great news,' he said. 'I still get to play baseball this year instead of coming back next year around April. So it was kind of best-case scenario.' Muncy, who said his knee felt stiff but not painful, was scheduled to meet the Dodger doctors later Thursday but said he intended to embark on an aggressive rehabilitation process. 'Everybody's body is different,' he said. 'You know, some guys heal extremely fast, some guys heal extremely slow. Traditionally, I've always healed fairly fast.' Continue reading here 'Super grateful' Clayton Kershaw, Dodger teammates bask in glow of 3,000th strikeout 'I knew he was going to get it.' Dodgers fans celebrate Clayton Kershaw's big night ———— Dave Roberts had some goals in mind for starting pitcher Dustin May on Thursday. And they had little to do with the final result. 'The first thing is his ability to go deeper in games,' the Dodger manager said. 'The sweeper has got to be a more effective pitch. His sinker has got to be more effective. 'I know he's working through some delivery things with the pitching coaches. I'm kind waiting to see what to expect tonight.' May would give Roberts far more than he asked for, setting down the first 16 batters in order and pitching into the eighth inning for the first time in his career in a 6-2 win over the Chicago White Sox. The win was the Dodgers' fourth in a row and ninth in their last 10 games. The start was May's 16th of the season and the seven innings he threw gave him 89.2 for the year, both career highs. Consistency, however, has been an issue. He won just once in June, when his 5.67 ERA was highest among Dodger starters. Continue reading here Dodgers box score MLB scores MLB standings Zach Neto had three hits, including a homer, Nolan Schanuel added a two-run blast and José Soriano gave up only three hits in seven scoreless innings to lead the Angels to a 5-1 victory over the weak-hitting Atlanta Braves on Thursday night. The Braves avoided a shutout on Jurickson Profar's ninth-inning homer off left-hander Brock Burke. It was Profar's second homer in two games since returning from an 80-game PED suspension. Soriano (6-5) had seven strikeouts and did not allow a base runner to reach second base. Neto scored three runs. Continue reading here Angels put Christian Moore on injured list, pick up contract of Chad Stevens Angels box score MLB scores MLB standings From Dylan Hernández: The Lakers found their next starting center, and they didn't have to give up Austin Reaves to land him. There's a reason why. As athletic and skilled as Deandre Ayton is for a 7-footer, he's better known at this stage of his career for his shortcomings. His maddening inconsistency. His uninspired defense. His lack of motivation. His inability to stay healthy. Portland Trail Blazers center Deandre Ayton shoots under pressure from Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic on Feb. 10 in Denver. (David Zalubowski / Associated Press)If you didn't like Anthony Davis, you're going to hate Ayton. Davis was always accountable or at very least not tone deaf, which Ayton apparently is. 'I got nothing to prove in this league,' Ayton once told veteran NBA reporter Mark Medina. 'I'm a max player, and I'll continue to be a max player.' Little wonder the Portland Trail Blazers officially gave up on Ayton during the weekend by buying out his contract, opening the door for the Lakers to pick him up at a bargain price. The Lakers are wagering they can do what the Trail Blazers, and the Phoenix Suns before them, couldn' Continue reading here Lakers agree to terms to bring back Jaxson Hayes Natasha Cloud scored 11 of her 23 points in the third quarter and sparked a huge run to lead the New York Liberty to an 89-79 victory over the Sparks on Thursday night. Breanna Stewart added 17 points and 14 rebounds and Sabrina Ionescu had 20 points for New York (12-5). The defending champion Liberty trailed 53-42 midway through the third before Cloud and Ionescu got going. Cloud's three-point play sparked a 13-0 run and then Ionescu scored 10 straight points for New York to give the Liberty a 63-59 advantage. Dearica Hamby scored 25 points to lead the Sparks, who got a boost with the return of Rae Burrell. She saw her first action since injuring her knee in the opener. She checked in late in the first quarter and played 12 minutes, finishing with five points. Continue reading here Sparks box score WNBA standings 1907 — Canadian world heavyweight boxing champion Tommy Burns KOs Bill Squires of Australia in round 1 in Colma, Calif., his 6th title defense. 1910 — Jack Johnson knocks out Jim Jeffries in the 15th round at Reno, Nev., to retain the world heavyweight title and spoil Jeffries' comeback. 1914 — The Harvard eight wins the Grand Challenge Cup to become the first American crew to capture the top event at the Henley Royal Regatta. 1919 — Jack Dempsey wins the world heavyweight title at Toledo, Ohio, when Jess Willard fails to answer the bell for the fourth round. 1923 — Jack Dempsey beats Tommy Gibbon in 15 for the heavyweight title. The fight almost bankrupts the town of Shelby, Montana, which borrowed heavily to stage it. 1930 — Helen Wills Moody wins her fourth straight singles title at Wimbledon with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Elizabeth Ryan. Moody would go on to win four more Wimbledon singles titles. 1954 — FIFA World Cup Final, Wankdorf Stadium, Bern, Switzerland: Helmut Rahn scores twice as West Germany beats Hungary, 3-2. 1964 — Maria Bueno of Brazil upsets Margaret Smith of Australia 6-4, 7-9, 6-3 for the women's title at Wimbledon. 1975 — Billie Jean King beats Evonne Goolagong, 6-0, 6-1 for her sixth and final singles title at Wimbledon. 1982 — Jimmy Connors beats John McEnroe 3-6, 6-3, 6-7, 7-6, 6-4 for the men's singles championship at Wimbledon. The match lasts 4 hours, 16 minutes. 1987 — Martina Navratilova wins her eighth Wimbledon singles title and sixth straight, beating Steffi Graf 7-5, 6-3. 1994 — FIFA World Cup: A Bebeto strike saves Brazil from embarrassment, beat USA 1-0 at Stanford. 1999 — Pete Sampras overwhelms Andre Agassi in three sets to capture his sixth Wimbledon title and tie Roy Emerson's record with his 12th Grand Slam championship. Sampras is the first man in the Open era with six Wimbledon titles. 2002 — Venus and Serena Williams win in straight sets to set up their third title match at a major in 10 months — and the first all-sister Wimbledon final since 1884. Top-seeded Venus, the two-time defending champion, overpowers Justine Henin 6-3, 6-2. Second-seeded Serena routs Amelie Mauresmo 6-2, 6-1 in 55 minutes. 2003 — Lakers star Kobe Bryant is arrested in Eagle, Colo., for sexual assault, charges eventually dismissed. 2004 — UEFA European Championship Final, Estádio da Luz, Lisbon, Portugal: In a huge upset Greece beats host nation Portugal, 1-0. 2004 — Meg Mallon wins the Women's U.S. Open with a 6-under 65, the lowest final round by a champion in the 59-year history of the tournament. Mallon finishes at 10-under 274 for a two-shot victory over Annika Sorenstam. 2008 — Dara Torres completes her improbable Olympic comeback, making the U.S. team for the fifth time by winning the 100 freestyle at the U.S. Olympic trials in Omaha, Neb. The 41-year-old wins in 54.78. A nine-time medalist, she already was the first U.S. swimmer to make four Olympic teams. 2009 — Serena Williams beats her big sister Venus 7-6 (3), 6-2 for her third Wimbledon title and 11th Grand Slam championship. In the fourth all-Williams final at Wimbledon, Serena comes out on top for the third time. Later, Venus and Serena win their fourth women's doubles title at Wimbledon and ninth Grand Slam doubles title as a pair. 2010 — Rafael Nadal beats Tomas Berdych in straight sets, 6-3, 7-5, 6-4, to win his second Wimbledon title and eighth Grand Slam championship. 2011 — Tyler Farrar becomes the first American to win a July 4 Tour de France stage, dominating a sprint finish in the third leg as teammate Thor Hushovd of Norway kept the yellow jersey. 2014 — Germany becomes the first country to reach the semifinals for a fourth straight World Cup by beating France 1-0 in a quarterfinal match settled by a first-half header from Mats Hummels. 2015 — Copa América Final, Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos, Santiago: Chile defeats Argentina, 4-1 penalties to win their first title; 0-0 after extra time. 2015 — Super Rugby Final, Westpac Stadium, Wellington: Otago Highlanders beat Wellington Hurricanes 21-14 for their first title. 1905 — The Philadelphia Athletics scored two runs in the 20th inning, giving Rube Waddell a 4-2 victory over Cy Young of the Boston Red Sox. Both pitchers went the distance. 1908 — George Wiltse of the New York Giants pitched a 10-inning, 1-0 no-hitter against the Philadelphia Phillies. 1912 — George Mullin of the Detroit Tigers celebrated his 32nd birthday by pitching a no-hitter over the St. Louis Browns. 1925 — Two of the great left-handers of their time, Herb Pennock of the Yankees and Lefty Grove of the Athletics, hooked up in a pitcher's duel that New York won 1-0 in 15 innings. Pennock gave up four hits and walked none. 1939 — Jim Tabor of the Boston Red Sox hit three home runs, including two grand slams, in an 18-12 triumph over the Philadelphia Athletics in the second game of a doubleheader. 1945 — Augie Bergamo drove in eight runs to lead the St. Louis Cardinals to 19-2 rout of the New York Giants in the second game of a doubleheader. Bergamo, batting leadoff, went 5 for 6 with two home runs and four runs scored. 1976 — The Phillies' Tim McCarver lost a grand slam when he passed Garry Maddox on the base paths. The Phillies still beat the Pirates 10-5 at Pittsburgh. 1983 — Dave Righetti of the New York Yankees pitched a 4-0 no-hitter against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium. 1984 — Phil Niekro of the New York Yankees struck out five Texas Rangers to become the ninth pitcher with 3,000 strikeouts. No. 3,000 was Larry Parrish. 1985 — The New York Mets beat the Braves 16-13 in 19 innings at Atlanta. The game went until just before 4 a.m. on July 5, and was followed by a fireworks display for the 10,000 still left in the stands. Keith Hernandez of the Mets hit for the cycle in 10 at-bats. The score was tied 8-8 after innings. Both teams scored two runs apiece in the 13th. The Mets scored a run in the 18th to take an 11-10 lead, but Braves pitcher Rick Camp tied the score with a homer. Camp then gave up five runs in the top the 19th. Ron Darling, the seventh Mets pitcher, closed the game giving up two runs. 2006 — Victor Martinez went 5-for-6 and Jhonny Peralta and Travis Hafner each hit two of Cleveland's six home runs, powering the Indians to a 19-1 rout of New York. The win was Cleveland's largest at home in more than 56 years, since a 21-2 victory over the Philadelphia Athletics on June 18, 1950. 2006 — Jose Contreras tossed 6 2-3 scoreless innings to win his 17th straight decision and lead the White Sox to a 13-0 victory over Baltimore. 2008 — The Cardinals drop a 2-1 decision to the Cubs but Albert Pujols socks his 300th career home run. At 28 years, 170 days old, he becomes the fifth youngest player to hit 300, one day ahead of Mel Ott. The younger players were Alex Rodriguez, Jimmie Foxx, Ken Griffey Jr. and Andruw Jones. 2008 — Colorado homered six times to rally from a nine-run deficit for the biggest comeback in franchise history and an 18-17 victory over Florida. Chris Iannetta singled home the winning run off Kevin Gregg in the ninth inning. The Rockies and Marlins combined for 35 runs and 43 hits, 21 of them for extra bases with eight home runs. 2010 — The rosters for the 2010 All-Star Game, to be played at Angel Stadium, are announced today. The top vote getters are Joe Mauer in the American League and Albert Pujols in the National League. Among the first-time All-Stars is 40-year-old reliever Arthur Rhodes of the Reds; he sports a sparkling 1.09 ERA in his 19th big league season. 2012 — Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz hit his 400th career home run, a leadoff drive to right in the fourth inning against Oakland's A.J. Griffin. 2014 — Brian Roberts hit three doubles and a triple, leading the New York Yankees to a 6-5 win over Minnesota. Compiled by the Associated Press That concludes today's newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you'd like to see, email me at To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
Los Angeles Times
13 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
A tale of two parks: One was a ‘poor boy's Disneyland,' the other had a Cobra Woman who was really a man
Here's a little story for summertime, a tale of two seaside amusement parks of days of olde: One eventually got itself a reputation as a rackety, unsavory hangout where you didn't have to look hard to find gambling, dive bars, tattoo parlors (back when nice people didn't go near them), and 'soiled doves,' what the Victorians called prostitutes. Notoriously, someone once found a corpse there — as a sideshow exhibit, not a murder victim. More about him presently. The other park, not far up the coast, was as perky and clean-cut as a barbershop quartet, painted the colors of sand and sky, with shipshape and jaunty ocean-inspired adventures, and zippy, futuristic, razzle-dazzle rides. Now, which one do you think lasted longer? It was the first one, the older one — the Pike, in Long Beach. It opened in 1902, when the electric cars first brought sweaty, landlocked Angelenos to the beach breezes and the Pike's carnival delights, like the fabled Cyclone Racer roller coaster that swooped its riders fast and furious above the water. It was finally done, and done in, in 1979, replaced by shops set among the Long Beach Convention Center and the Aquarium of the Pacific. The other one, Pacific Ocean Park, straddled the sand of Santa Monica and Venice. It opened in 1958, three years after Disneyland, and didn't last even 10 years. Santa Monica has seen amusement parks come and go over more than 120 years, but POP is of fairly recent and fond memory. That place should not to be confused with the much smaller Pacific Park that operates now on the Santa Monica pier, the heir to L.A.'s long beachfront amusement park heritage. POP was a creature of Cold War America. Westinghouse Electric Corp. built one display, a replica of the hull of the atomic-powered Nautilus submarine, with sound effects like an actual submarine at sea. A 'spaceship' theater 'took' the audience to Mars, to see the Red Planet and its imagined Martian residents. A 'house of tomorrow' [sound familiar, Disneyland fans?] ran on 'electronic age' conveniences with an 'artistic representation of the atomic city of tomorrow,' as the old Pomona Progress-Bulletin newspaper wrote in September 1958. An 'ocean skyway' ride took visitors in clear gondolas out over the Pacific surf. Zev Yaroslavsky, the L.A. native, longtime county supervisor, and city council member, still misses the place, even all these decades later. In elementary school, in junior high and high school, 'me and my buddies would take the bus out there, and we'd spend the day having fun. It was a great place to go with girls on whom we had a crush. It was the poor boy's Disneyland.' You entered through the watery darkness of the aquarium, and when you came out the other side, Yaroslavsky remembers, you were 'greeted by the bright sunshine on the pier with the attractions and the Pacific Ocean in my line of sight,' like being wafted from the humdrum to 'the exciting fantasy land of a shoreline amusement park.' 'I felt wronged when it closed, and I have missed it ever since.' In 1960, an FM station, KSRF – K-Surf – began broadcasting from POP, but it was POP's live dance shows that brought in big names and the crowds that followed them – Ritchie Valens, Sam Cooke, and the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson wrote a short foreword to the lavishly illustrated 2014 book 'Pacific Ocean Park.' The 1950s and '60s gave us a glut of amusement parks, and as with any boom, there was a bust. POP became one of the busted. Competition from that place in Anaheim was unrelenting. So too is sea air, and its assault on wood and metal and human-crafted things in general, and the price for keeping all of that at bay was untenable. Rides broke down and went un-repaired. City building projects messed up the roads into POP. By the autumn of 1967, POP was closed – ostensibly for repairs but in fact for good. The apocalyptic forces that work against amusement parks, neglect and fires, did their handiwork. As The Times wrote in February 1975, as the last of POP was being demolished, 'Sooner or later all dreams come to an end.' Yet the Pike soldiered on — rather, sailored on. In 1919, Long Beach became the home port for the nation's Pacific fleet of battleships, and in time, more ships followed. The Navy was big business for Long Beach, and for the Pike, where thousands of Navy 'gobs' stationed here spent some of their shore leave and their earnings. Like Las Vegas, the Pike, too, underwent an identity shift, if not a crisis. It too suffered from competition of more family-focused resorts. As parents took their kids holidaying at Disneyland or Knott's Berry Farm, the Pike was left more and more to grownups like boisterous sailors and footloose Angelenos and their tastes for pool rooms, bars, dance halls and sideshows. In 1946, a sideshow fixture billed as 'Miss Elsie Marks, the Cobra Woman,' died after her seven-foot diamondback rattlesnake bit her. That was the first big headline. The second was that 'the Cobra Woman' was in fact a 6-foot-3-inch man surnamed Nadir, who had traveled in circus sideshows over the years as, serially, 'the dog-faced boy,' then 'the monkey man' and 'the bearded lady.' The Pike's louche doings made for great newspaper copy. In 1914, the 'Duke of the Pike' — a debonair character who lived large, mostly on brash cheek and bad checks — finally got caught when his car broke down in Compton. He was asking the police chief to lend him $10 for repairs when a sergeant recognized him as a wanted man. The next year, a businessman who said he had simply wanted to show a young girl the sights on the Pike was arrested for breaking a local law delicately phrased by The Times as being 'in a certain state of mind when approaching an apartment house' where the girl was living on his largesse. In 1943, at the height of World War II, Deputy Dist. Atty. Ted Sten announced that gambling was going on on the Pike: 'I personally counted eight last night. There are wide-open crap games, and the only police down there are watching the merry-go-round.' In fact, the Pike was probably the most heavily policed part of Long Beach, but players will be players. In the 1950s, the Pike rebranded itself Nu-Pike, in a makeover that tried to snag more families as customers. That didn't rescue the Pike, nor did another new name for the area: Queen Park, after the ocean liner RMS Queen Mary, permanently anchored on the Long Beach landscape. Geography itself worked against the Pike, too. Beyond its actual borders, unsavory operations sprang up, but the whole stretch was identified as 'the Pike.' In 1965, as Long Beach began sprucing up the harbor, a dredging operation piled up a landfill at the edge of the Pike. In short order, the Pike was no longer at the beach. A man who ran a grill restaurant in the Pike's 'Fun Zone' told The Times in 1979 that 'they pushed the beach back so far they killed business.' By 1967, a columnist at the Long Beach Independent had to defend his town to an anonymous letter writer demanding an expose of Long Beach's gay bars and brothels, including the Pike, 'that nightmare alley with its rock-bottom characters and perverts in plain view … ' The columnist's retort was valiant but rather weak sauce: There are only three gay bars in Long Beach — down from nine two years before. At the 'notorious hotel' occupied by prostitutes, there was only one arrest there in the last six months. In 1979 the city had big plans that did not include the Pike. 'Nu-Pike May Be No Pike,' ran The Times' headline. Leases were not renewed. Attractions that hadn't already fallen down were knocked down. (A small museum of Pike artifacts survived in the Lite-A-Line game arcade in Long Beach, operated by the Looff family, which had run the same attraction at the Pike for decades. But even that closed, in 2022.) By 1979, too, one of the Pike's foremost attractions was already gone, first to the L.A. County coroner's office, and then to a graveyard in Oklahoma. In 1976, a wax dummy painted Day-Glo red was being moved around in the Laff in the Dark attraction when an arm fell off. Underneath was not more wax, but a human bone. The dummy was a mummy — the desiccated corpse of Elmer McCurdy. McCurdy was a B-list, turn-of-the-century outlaw, a ne'er-do-well train robber who was so lousy at his craft that he held up virtually empty trains instead of the gold-toting ones he thought he was targeting. He once blew up a train's safe that was full of loot, but the 'bang' fused all of the coins to the safe's inside walls. He was shot down by a sheriff's posse in Oklahoma in 1911. After that, his unclaimed body began its wanderings: as a greeter for an Oklahoma funeral home, as a sideshow attraction for touring carnivals, and even in a titillating 1933 pre-Code film, 'Narcotic.' (It wasn't a speaking role.) Once out of the carny racket, McCurdy became more famous in death than he had been in life. Times columnist Steve Harvey christened him the King Tut of the Tumbleweeds. McCurdy's post-posthumous credits: a BBC documentary, two biographies, a Celtic folk song, and a murder mystery weekend. He was buried in a historic cemetery in Guthrie, Okla. — under a two-foot layer of concrete, lest anyone be tempted to take him on tour again.
USA Today
14 hours ago
- USA Today
What to know about Beyoncé's Buffalo Soldiers T-shirt and their complicated role in history
Beyoncé Knowles-Carter wore a Buffalo Soldiers T-shirt during her Juneteenth performance in Paris, sparking online debate over the group's complicated legacy in U.S. history. During her international stint, Beyoncé donned a shirt with images of the Buffalo Soldiers — African American soldiers who served in the U.S. Army after the Civil War, primarily on the Western frontier. As part of their service, they built infrastructure, fought in the Indian Wars, and later served in conflicts like the Spanish-American War and World War I and World War II. They also participated in violent U.S. military campaigns against Indigenous peoples during westward expansion and land dispossession. On the back of her shirt there was a long description of the soldiers that read in part, 'their antagonists were the enemies of peace, order and settlement: warring Indians, bandits, cattle thieves, murderous gunmen, bootleggers, trespassers, and Mexican revolutionaries.' It's unclear where the passage originated. Some folks quickly criticized Beyoncé's wardrobe choice, specifically making note of the the phrase "enemies of peace" in relation to Indigenous people. A post shared by Beyoncé (@beyonce) One fan wrote, "Beyoncé wearing a Buffalo Soldiers shirt, an American army unit comprised exclusively of African Americans that helped European and White American colonists fight back Native Americans and seize control of their land, is not the serve she thinks it is." Another questioned, "Girl why I wake up and see Beyoncé calling Native Americans defending their home 'enemies of peace?'" Meanwhile, one fan offered another perspective on X, "Beyoncé wearing a Buffalo Soldiers T-shirt isn't glorifying genocide. It's a nod to a deeply complex and painful part of Black history — one that involves survival, contradiction and power structures that never had our best interest in mind." "Yes, these soldiers were involved in U.S. expansion and conflicts with Native nations," the fan wrote. "That's historical fact. But we have to zoom out: These Black men were used as tools in a white supremacist system they didn't control." These regiments were primarily composed of formerly enslaved Black men. They were deployed to support the U.S. government, which often meant using violence to seize land, resulting in the forced removal and destruction of Indigenous nations across the American West and the U.S.-Mexico border. Despite their role in the military, these soldiers faced intense racism and systemic discrimination within the very army they served. Riché Richardson, professor and chair in the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University, said it's important to acknowledge both the realities and complexities when it comes to viewing this history. "American history is very charged, to be sure," she said. "It's about understanding the long-standing contributions that people of African descent have made to the military, and it's not been a perfect union. I think the challenge has always been to help create a more perfect union, and people of African descent have, in some cases, been complicit with policies that are detrimental to other populations. So I think it's important for there to be an acknowledgment of that." beyoncé wearing a buffalo soldiers shirt, an american army unit comprised exclusively of african americans that helped european and white american colonists fight back native americans and seize control of their land, is not the serve she thinks it is. Richardson viewed the Buffalo Soldiers shirt in the context of Beyoncé's background. "I find her as a product of what I analyze as the Africana Southwest, as a Texas native," Richardson said. "So, given the themes associated with this most recent album and the concert tour, I presume that she's embracing the legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers in tandem with that." The Buffalo Soldiers' complicated legacy doesn't solely consist of their contributions to the United States' westward expansion. According to the U.S. Department of Interior, the soldiers also served as some of the country's first park rangers. "These dedicated men protected wildlife from poachers, built trails and forged a proud legacy in our nation's history," the department wrote on social media. Richardson said the criticism of Beyoncé's shirt was valid and important, but she advised folks not to immediately jump to conclusions about the singer's messaging. "My inclination is not to think the worst of Beyoncé precisely because of her investments and critical thinking and her efforts to bring public attention to so many issues," she said. Richardson emphasized the importance of viewing Beyoncé's actions within the broader context of her career and activism. "I think she's gone out of her way in so many instances to try to impact lives and make a difference," Richardson said. "She's consistently compassionate. I think people should not draw conclusions, especially without adequate information. She's a performer. There's performance art. There are all kinds of things. At the very least, it's a teaching moment from which everyone can learn." She said it's important to remember that a single image doesn't always reflect a full endorsement or clear message. "I think it's always important for us to have awareness of the messages that we send, but I wouldn't necessarily just assume that wearing a shirt is an indicator of an endorsement of any particular ideas," Richardson said. "Because that certainly isn't in keeping with what we see and know of Beyoncé." Beyoncé is in the middle of her Cowboy Carter and the Rodeo Chitlin' Circuit Tour, which is in support of her album "Cowboy Carter." The project, which features emerging Black country artists and country legends alike, became a catalyst for the renewed spotlight on Black country artists and the genre's Black roots. The album has challenged music industry norms and sparked important conversations pertaining to the intersection of race and country music. The tour spans nine cities across the U.S. and Europe. The grand finale is set to take place in Las Vegas on July 26. Follow Caché McClay, the USA TODAY Network's Beyoncé Knowles-Carter reporter, on Instagram, TikTok and X as @cachemcclay.
