Re-Enacting a Bloody Past

Civil War re-enactor Malcolm Beech poses with an Abe Lincoln impersonator.

Video will return here when scrolled back into view

Here’s 100 years of the Best Black Dandyism Heading Into Met Gala 2025

view video

Here’s 100 years of the Best Black Dandyism Heading Into Met Gala 2025

Photos courtesy of Malcolm Beech. Captions by The Root’s editorial staff.

Bernard George, Malcolm Beech and Harvey Gooding.

These re-enactors bear the colors of a unit from the U.S. Colored Troops (yes, that’s what they were called).

The U.S. Colored Troops had men on horseback as well. When they were sent West after the Civil War, the Indians called them Buffalo Soldiers.

From left: Civil War re-enactors Sammy Aiken, Dr. Joseph Askew, Harvey Gooding and Malcolm Beech.

African-American re-enactors re-create the segregated units of the Civil War.