Deaths: Five (four killed by friendly fire during the riot and one suicide) Injuries: Arrests: 60+
Deaths: 16 (11 civilians and five policemen) unknown number of wounded
19 soldiers executed
The Houston race riot of 1917, also known as the Camp Logan Mutiny,[1][2] was a mutiny and riot by 156 soldiers from the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment of the United States Army, taking place on August 23, 1917, in Houston, Texas. The incident occurred within a climate of overt hostility from members of the all-white Houston Police Department (HPD) against members of the local black community and black soldiers stationed at Camp Logan. Following an incident where police officers arrested and assaulted black soldiers, many of their comrades mutinied and marched to Houston, where they opened fire and killed eleven civilians (including minor, Freddie Winkler) and five policemen. Five soldiers were also killed.
In accordance with policies of the time, 118 soldiers were tried in three courts-martial. 110 were convicted, of whom 19 were executed and 63 were sentenced to life imprisonment.[3] Gregg Andrews, author of Thyra J. Edwards: Black Activist in the Global Freedom Struggle, wrote that the riot "shook race relations in the city and created conditions that helped to spark a statewide surge of wartime racial activism".[4]
In November 2023, the Army set aside all 110 convictions.[5]
Background
Map of Buffalo Bayou area – Camp Logan Riots (circa 1917)
Almost from their arrival, the presence of black soldiers in strictly-segregated Houston raised tensions.[7]Jim Crow laws were in place, and the soldiers were forced to contend with segregated accommodations including drinking facilities at the construction site. Prior to the riot, the soldiers were involved in a number of "clashes" with members of the Houston Police Department (HPD), several of which resulted in the soldiers sustaining injuries after being beaten and attacked.[7]:10
Around noon of August 23, 1917, Lee Sparks and Rufus Daniels, two HPD officers, disrupted a gathering on a street corner in Houston's predominantly black San Felipe district by firing warning shots.[7]:12 Sparks, pursuing those who fled the gunshots, burst into the home of a local woman named Sara Travers.[8] He did not find anyone he was chasing. Refusing to believe Travers' protestations that she had no knowledge of their whereabouts, Sparks dragged her outside of her house and arrested her.[9]
As Sparks and Daniels called in the arrest from a patrol box, they were approached by Private Alonzo Edwards. Edwards offered to take custody of Travers, but instead was pistol-whipped repeatedly by Sparks and then arrested himself.[9] Later that afternoon, Corporal Charles Baltimore approached Sparks and Daniels to inquire about the status of Edwards. Sparks struck Baltimore with his pistol and fired three shots at him as he fled into a nearby home. Sparks and Daniels pursued Baltimore, eventually finding him under a bed. They pulled him out, beat him, and placed him under arrest.[7]:10
Rumor reached Camp Logan that Baltimore had been shot and killed. The soldiers immediately began meeting in small groups to vent their anger and eventually plot their retaliation by initiating a battle with the HPD.[10]:1390 An officer from the 24th Infantry Regiment retrieved the injured Baltimore from the police station, which seemed to calm the soldiers for the moment.[7]:126
The mutiny and riot
The soldiers soon received reports of impending violence by an angry white mob.[11]Major K.S. Snow revoked all passes for the evening and ordered the guard around Camp Logan to be increased, but later that evening stumbled upon a group of men attempting to arm themselves from one of the supply tents.[7]:39 Snow ordered the men to assemble without arms and warned them that it was "utterly foolish, foolhardy, for them to think of taking the law into their own hands."[7]:40 One of the men, who had smuggled his rifle into the formation, fired it and cried out that a mob was approaching the camp. At this point, order broke down completely and the soldiers mobbed the supply tents, grabbing rifles and ammunition to take revenge[10]:1292
The soldiers began firing indiscriminately into the surrounding buildings. After several minutes of shooting at Camp Logan, Sergeant Vida Henry ordered the men in the area – about 150 – to fill their canteens, grab extra ammunition, and fall in to march on Houston.[10]:1295 The group marched through neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city and fired at houses with outdoor lights. They fired on a car with two white occupants.[7]:1214 They marched nearly two and a half miles, all the way to the San Felipe district, before they encountered any police officers. Due to the disorganization of the HPD and the belief that the black soldiers would be unable to arm themselves, officers had been sent out only in small numbers,[12]:141 expecting to quickly subdue unarmed men. The first police casualties occurred when a group of six officers stumbled upon large numbers of armed soldiers. Two policemen (including Daniels) were killed immediately, and one later died of wounds he had sustained.[7]:527
As the soldiers moved through Houston, an open-topped car carrying a man in an olive-drab uniform approached them. Believing this to be the uniform of a mounted policeman, the soldiers opened fire only to discover later that they had killed Captain Joseph W. Mattes of the Illinois National Guard.[7]:651 The killing of a military officer drove home the seriousness of their uprising and of the consequences faced by black men for attacking white people.[12]:162 At this point, soldiers began to desert the group, and Sergeant Henry led the remainder on a march back to Camp Logan. Just outside the San Felipe district, Henry shook hands with the remaining soldiers and informed them that he planned to kill himself after they left.[10]:1322 Henry's body was found in the area the next day, with his skull crushed and a bayonet or knife wound to his shoulder.[13]
By the time the firing ceased, 17 people were dead, including four police officers, nine civilians, and two soldiers.[14] One soldier and a police officer later died from wounds sustained during the riot, and one soldier died from wounds sustained during his capture the next day.
Immediate aftermath
The next morning, Houston was placed under martial law.[15] The remaining soldiers at Camp Logan were disarmed, and a house-to-house search uncovered a number of soldiers hiding within the San Felipe district. Soldiers in local jails were turned over to the Army, and the 3rd Battalion was sent by train back to New Mexico.[16]
In the ensuing court-martial, almost 200 witnesses testified over twenty-two days, and the transcripts of the testimony covered more than 2000 pages. Author Robert V. Haynes suggests that the Army's Southern Department commanding general, General John Wilson Ruckman, was "especially anxious for the courts-martial to begin".[12]:251
Ruckman had preferred the proceedings take place in El Paso, but eventually agreed to allow them to remain in San Antonio. Haynes posits the decision was made to accommodate the witnesses who lived in Houston, plus "the countless spectators" who wanted to follow the proceedings.[12]:254 Ruckman "urged" the War Department to select a "prestigious court".[12]:255 Three brigadier generals were chosen, along with seven full colonels and three lieutenant colonels. Eight members of the court were West Point graduates.
Map 24th infantry camp; Houston, Texas, showing bullet holes in the vicinity (c. 1917)
The Departmental Judge Advocate General (JAG), Colonel George Dunn, reviewed the record of the first court-martial (known as "the Nesbit Case") and approved the sentences. He forwarded the documents materials to Ruckman on December 3. Six days later, 13 of the prisoners (including Corporal Baltimore) were told that they would be hanged for murder, but they were not informed of the time or place.[12]:3 The court recommended clemency for a Private Hudson, but Ruckman declined to grant it.
Although 169 witnesses testified at the court-martial, the darkness and rain meant that many of the witnesses were unable to correctly identify any of the alleged assailants. Historians have also questioned the veracity of witness testimony, noting that some of the witnesses who testified as participants were granted immunity or promised leniency.[17][18]
The first hanging
The condemned soldiers (one sergeant, four corporals, and eight privates) were transferred to a barracks on December 10. That evening, trucks carried new lumber for scaffolds to some bathhouses built for the soldiers at Camp Travis near a swimming pool in the Salado Creek. The designated place of execution was several hundred yards away. Army engineers completed their work by the light of bonfires. The 13 condemned men were awakened at 5:00 am and taken to the gallows. They were hanged simultaneously, at 7:17am, one minute before sunrise. The scaffolds were disassembled and every piece returned to Fort Sam Houston. The New York Times, commenting on the clean-up operations, observed the place of execution and place of burial were "indistinguishable." The soldiers were buried in unmarked graves by the Salado Creek, their surnames were written on paper placed in empty soda bottles that were buried with each man.[19]
Ruckman told reporters he had personally approved the death sentences and said that 41 soldiers had been given life sentences and four received sentences of two and a half years or less. He said he was the one who chose the time and place for the executions.[12]:7 Military jurist Frederick Bernays Wiener has observed that Ruckman's approval and execution of the death sentences were "entirely legal" and "in complete conformity" with the 1916 Articles of War.[20]:122
Second and third courts-martial
A second court-martial, the "Washington" case, began six days later. Fifteen men of the Lower A Division were tried and five were sentenced to death. On January 2, 1918, Ruckman approved the sentences in a public statement. A new rule, General Orders 167 (December 29, 1917), prohibited the execution of any death sentence until the JAG could review the sentences.[20]:115 (The JAG Boards of Review to review death sentences were created by a subsequent rule, General Orders 7, on January 7, 1918.[20]:115[21]:2–3 The boards, though they had advisory power only, were the Army's first appellate courts.[21]:3)
While waiting for the JAG review to occur, Ruckman approved a third court-martial, the "Tillman" case, of 40 more soldiers. On March 26, 1918, 23 of the 40 were found guilty. Eleven of the 23 were sentenced to death and the remaining 12 to life in prison. On May 2, Ruckman approved the sentences.[citation needed]
Wilson's clemency and commentary
Private LeRoy Pickett, convicted of murder, mutiny, and assault with intent to murder. Sentenced to death but received clemency. He was released on parole in 1927.
On August 31, 1918, PresidentWoodrow Wilsoncommuted the death sentences of ten soldiers to life in prison.[23] Wilson issued a rare public statement in order that the basis of his action might be "a matter of record."[24]
The President's statement began by recounting the events that led to the deaths of "innocent bystanders" who were "peaceably disposed civilians of the City of Houston."[23] He noted the investigations that followed were "very searching and thorough", in the fashion of most investigations involving alleged attacks by black citizens. In each of the three proceedings, the court was promised to be "properly constituted" and composed of "officers of experience and sobriety of judgment." Wilson also took pains to claim that "extraordinary precautions" were taken to "insure the fairness of the trials" and, in each instance, the rights of the defendants were "surrounded at every point" by the "safeguards" of "a humane administration of the law." As a result, technically there were "no legal errors" which had "prejudiced the rights of the accused."[24]
Wilson stated that he affirmed the death sentences of six soldiers because there was "plain evidence" that they "deliberately" engaged in "shocking brutality."[24] On the other hand, he commuted the remaining sentences because he believed the "lesson" of the lawless riot had already been "adequately pointed." He desired the "splendid loyalty" of African American soldiers be recognized and expressed the hope that clemency would inspire them "to further zeal and service to the country."[24]
Most importantly, from Ruckman's standpoint, Wilson (a former law professor) wrote the actions taken by the former Commander of the Southern Department were "legal and justified by the record." Indeed, the President agreed that "a stern redress" of the rioters' "wrongs" was the "surest protection of society against their further recurrence".[23] As historian Calvin C. Smith noted in 1991, there was no proof of a "conspiracy", and many of the sentenced were not conclusively identified in the dark and rainy night as having even participated in the riot, despite the pledge of fair trials and absolute transparency.[18][25]
Release and rehabilitation
On December 14, 1924, four of the rioters, including future Negro league baseball player Roy Tyler, were released on parole, with 34 remaining imprisoned in Fort Leavenworth.[26][27] On March 8, 1927, President Calvin Coolidge reduced the sentences for the last 20 imprisoned rioters, making them eligible for parole within one year.[28] In 1937, the remains of the 13 executed soldiers were exhumed from their unmarked graves and reburied with military headstones in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the release of the last rioters still in prison.[29][19]
On November 13, 2023, the Army set aside the convictions of the 110 soldiers.[5] "After a thorough review, the Board has found that these Soldiers were wrongly treated because of their race and were not given fair trials," said Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth. "By setting aside their convictions and granting honorable discharges, the Army is acknowledging past mistakes and setting the record straight."[30]
Camp Logan today
Map – Camp Logan (circa, 1917)
The area where Camp Logan was located is now called Memorial Park. It is bordered by highways I-10 and I-610.[citation needed]
In popular culture
The hanging of the first 13 soldiers is mentioned in part 4 of the 1979 television miniseries Roots: The Next Generations.
KHOU, a CBS affiliated TV station located in Houston produced a documentary of the riot in 2006 entitled Mutiny on the Bayou: The Camp Logan Story.[31]
Fire and Movement is a newly commissioned public performance by interdisciplinary Chicago-based artist Jefferson Pinder in 2019. The uprising saw African American soldiers of the 3rd Battalion of the 24th United States Infantry revolt and attempt to march on the city police department after experiencing abuse from white citizens and the police in Jim Crow-era Houston. On July 11, 2019, Pinder and a trained group of performers retraced the route taken by African American soldiers. This incident is one of Houston's most complicated and often-misrepresented historical events.
In August 2021, Jaime Salazar released an updated account of the mutiny and courts martial, Mutiny of Rage, published by Rowman & Littlefield.
Buffalo Soldiers were United States Army regiments composed primarily of African Americans, formed during the 19th century to serve on the American frontier. On September 21, 1866, the 10th Cavalry Regiment was formed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The nickname "Buffalo Soldiers" was purportedly given to the regiment by Native Americans who fought against them in the American Indian Wars, and the term eventually became synonymous with all of the African American U.S. Army regiments established in 1866, including the 9th Cavalry Regiment, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 24th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Regiment and 38th Infantry Regiment.
Red Summer was a period in mid-1919 during which white supremacist terrorism and racial riots occurred in more than three dozen cities across the United States, and in one rural county in Arkansas. The term "Red Summer" was coined by civil rights activist and author James Weldon Johnson, who had been employed as a field secretary by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1916. In 1919, he organized peaceful protests against the racial violence.
The Houston Police Department (HPD) is the primary municipal law enforcement agency serving the City of Houston, Texas, United States and some surrounding areas. With approximately 5,300 officers and 1,200 civilian support personnel it is the fifth-largest municipal police department, serving the fourth-largest city in the United States. Its headquarters are at 1200 Travis in Downtown Houston.
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Dudley Vanness Sutphin was a prominent resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, a well-known attorney and judge, a French Legion of Honor medal winner, and an outstanding amateur tennis player.
The Brownsville affair, or the Brownsville raid, was an incident of racial discrimination that occurred in 1906 in the Southwestern United States due to resentment by white residents of Brownsville, Texas, of the Buffalo Soldiers, black soldiers in a segregated unit stationed at nearby Fort Brown. When a white bartender was killed and a white police officer wounded by gunshots one night, townspeople accused the members of the African-American 25th Infantry Regiment. Although their commanders said the soldiers had been in the barracks all night, evidence was allegedly planted against the men.
The Étaples mutiny was a series of mutinies in September 1917 by British Army and British Imperial soldiers at a training camp in the coastal port of Étaples in Northern France during World War I.
Camp Logan was a World War I-era army training camp in Houston, Texas named after U.S. Senator and Civil War General John A. Logan. The site of the camp is now primarily occupied by Memorial Park where it borders the Crestwood neighborhood, near Memorial Elementary School. Some chunks of concrete, many building foundations, and extensive trenches used for training or middens still remain in the heavily forested park. Many of the trails through the park in this area trace the routes of old Camp Logan roads. One stretch of a Camp Logan road remains in original condition, that being the shell-surfaced service road to the golf course.
Leon Aaron Gilbert, Jr., of York, Pennsylvania was a decorated World War II combat veteran and a lieutenant in the all-black 24th U. S. Infantry Regiment that fought in the Korean War. His court-martial for refusing to obey an order from the regiment's white commanding officer led to worldwide protests and increased attention to segregation and racism in the U.S. military.
The history of the Houston Police Department started with the founding of the City of Houston. While the department's beginning was humble, it grew more advanced as technology became available and was able to handle the various challenges that would plague various cities as well as some of the more distinctive aspects of its geography.
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The Agana Race Riot took place in Agana, Guam, as the result of internal disputes between white and black United States Marines. The riot was one of the most serious incidents between African-American and white military personnel in the United States Armed Forces during World War II.
Rodney Joseph Johnson was a Houston Police officer who served 14 years with the agency prior to his death in the line of duty on September 21, 2006.
John Wilson Ruckman was a major general in the United States Army.
There have been several mutinies by African-Americans in the United States Armed Forces, often owing to racial tension.
The Townsville mutiny was a mutiny by African American servicemen of the United States Army while serving in Townsville, Australia, during World War II.
The Battle of Bamber Bridge is the name given to an outbreak of racial violence involving American soldiers stationed in the village of Bamber Bridge, Lancashire, in Northern England during the Second World War. Tensions had been high following a failed attempt by US commanders to racially segregate pubs in the village, and worsened after the 1943 Detroit race riot. The battle started when White American Military Police (MPs) attempted to arrest several African American soldiers from the racially segregated 1511th Quartermaster Truck Regiment for being out of uniform at Ye Olde Hob Inn public house in Bamber Bridge.
Petrie Kimbrough, better known by his alias Will Lockett, was an American serial killer who killed three women and one girl between 1912 and 1920 in three states, also attempting to kill a woman in his native Kentucky. He was executed for killing 10-year-old Geneva Hardman, whom he killed by crushing her head with a stone. Lockett pleaded guilty to the crime, and admitted to three other murders before his execution.
The 24th is an American historical drama film co-written and directed by Kevin Willmott. The film stars Trai Byers, Bashir Salahuddin, Aja Naomi King, Mo McRae, Tosin Morohunfola, Mykelti Williamson, and Thomas Haden Church. It generally tells a story of the Houston riot of 1917.
"Thirteen Negro Soldiers Hanged for Rioting in Houston, Texas". The Commercial & Financial Chronicle ...: A Weekly Newspaper Representing the Industrial Interests of the United States. Vol.105, Part II. William B. Dana Company. 1918. p.2337. List of 13 executed
"Negro Soldiers Must Die". Woodville Republican. Woodville, Mississippi. January 12, 1918. List of five sentenced to be executed
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