Houston riot of 1917

The Houston riot of 1917 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 some black soldiers, many of their comrades mutinied and marched to Houston, where they opened fire and killed eleven civilians and five policemen. Five soldiers themselves were also killed as a result of the riot. In accordance with policies of the time, the soldiers were tried at three courts-martial; nineteen were executed, and 41 were sentenced to life imprisonment.

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".

Preliminary situation

Shortly after the United States declared war on Germany in the spring of 1917, the War Department rushed to construct two new military installations in Harris County, Texas — Camp Logan and Ellington Field. On July 27, 1917, the United States Army ordered the 3rd Battalion of the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment to guard the Camp Logan construction site. The regiment traveled to Houston by train from their camp at Columbus, New Mexico, accompanied by seven commissioned officers.

Precipitating causes

Almost from their arrival, the presence of black soldiers in strictly- segregated Houston raised tensions. 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.

Around noon 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. Sparks, pursuing those who fled the gunshots, burst into the home of a local woman named Sara Travers. He did not find any of the citizens 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.

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. 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.

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 a plot their retaliation by initiating a battle with the HPD. An officer from the 24th Infantry Regiment retrieved the injured Baltimore from the police station, which seemed to calm the soldiers for the moment.

The mutiny and riot

The soldiers soon received reports of impending violence by an angry white mob. 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. 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." 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 in order to protect themselves.

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. 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, but let a second car with black occupants pass. 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, 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.

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. 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. 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. Despite this vow, Henry's body was found in the area the next day, with a crushed skull and bayonet wound to the shoulder.

By the time the firing ceased seventeen people were dead, including four police officers, nine civilians, and two soldiers. 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. 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.

In the ensuing court-martial, almost two hundred witnesses testified over twenty-two days, and the transcripts of the testimony covered more than two thousand 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".

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. Ruckman "urged" the War Department to select a "prestigious court". Three brigadier generals were chosen, along with seven full colonels and three lieutenant colonels. Eight members of the court were West Point graduates.

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, thirteen 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. 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 the some of the witnesses who testified as participants were granted immunity or promised leniency.

The first hanging

The condemned soldiers (one sergeant, four corporals, and eight privates) were transferred to a barracks on December 10. That evening, motor trucks carried new lumber for scaffolds to some bathhouses built for the soldiers at Camp Travis near a swimming pool in the Salado Creek

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