WWII veteran and one of the last surviving Buffalo Soldiers, John Joseph Nichols of Chester...

As a young man, duty called John Joseph Nichols to serve his country as one of America’s Buffalo Soldiers. As an old man, he felt called to keep telling their story.

“I feel that I have to tell them about it and to bring them up so they know and can be proud,” Nichols said in a 2016 interview with The Times-Dispatch about his frequent public presentations, particularly for schoolchildren, about the so-called Buffalo Soldiers, the Army’s African American units. Nichols served in one of those units, the 10th Cavalry Regiment, during World War II, before racial segregation in the military ended.

“I want them to know,” he said.