One of the most tragic incidents in the racial history of the US occurred on August 23, 1917. It resulted in the largest courts-martial in US Army history and the largest trial in American History. On July 27, the 3rd Battalion, 24th Regiment (one of the Buffalo Soldiers regiments) arrived in Houston to guard the construction of Camp Logan. Most of the soldiers were from the South and were used to Jim Crow segregation and racism, but being in the Army, they expected treatment would be better. They were wrong. As soon as they arrived they encountered racial mistreatment, including having to sit in the back of street cars, while in uniform! White civilians taunted them with racial slurs, probably thinking they could not fight back. They were wrong. It was not uncommon for Houston police to harass the soldiers. They were often arrested and sometimes assaulted by cops. It all boiled over on August 23.
On that day, policemen disbursed a group of soldiers gathered in a black neighborhood by firing warning shots. They then chased the men. One of the cops entered a house. When he did not find a soldier he was looking for, he grabbed the woman and dragged her outside and arrested her. Private Alonzo Edwards came to the woman’s aid and he was pistol-whipped and arrested. Later that day, Corporal Charles Baltimore (a military policeman) confronted the two officers to ask about Edwards. He was hit by a pistol and when he ran, three shots were fired at him. He was chased into a house, beaten, and arrested. Back at Camp Logan, the rumor spread that the widely-respected Baltimore had been killed. His comrades were enraged. Sensing the rage, white Major K.S. Snow gathered the men and warned them not to be fools and play into the racists’ hands. The men were calming down when one of them fired a rifle and yelled that a white mob was on the way. It was on now.
Over 100 of the men armed themselves and marched on the city, expecting to meet the white mob. There was no mob. The soldiers opened fire randomly at white homes. The police were not expecting armed men, so they figured they would be able to intimidate the blacks. When the Buffalo Soldiers met a group of cops, three of the policemen were killed. Gunfire was exchanged with white civilians. The riot was fully on when some of the men saw a uniformed man driving in a car. They shot and killed him, only to discover he was a member of the National Guard. This quickly brought the seriousness of their actions to most of the men and they began to filter back to their barracks. One of the leaders, Sgt. Vida Henry committed suicide. The riot had resulted in the deaths of 4 cops, 9 civilians, and 4 soldiers.
The next day, the Army moved the unit to San Antonio. The courts-martial started on Nov. 1 and ended the following March. In the court-martials 110 soldiers were convicted. 19 were executed (13 in the first execution – the largest mass execution by the Army). 63 were given life in prison. No Houstonians were put on trial. In August, 1918, Pres. Wilson commuted the death sentences of ten soldiers to life imprisonment. On Nov. 13, 2023, the Army set aside the convictions. An investigation did not justify the killings, but discovered that the men had not been given a fair trial. The one lawyer for them all was not even a lawyer. There was no review of the decision or appeal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_riot_of_1917
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/houston-riot-of-1917
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