Lynching in America

Houston Riot of 1917
Construction on Camp Logan, a military base in Harris County, Texas, began shortly
after the United States declared war on Germany in 1917. The all-black Third Battalion
of the 24th United States Infantry Regiment, along with seven white officers, were deployed
from Columbus, New Mexico, to guard the construction site. Soon after the
black soldiers arrived on August 23, 1917, two Houston police officers raided the home
of an African American woman, physically assaulting her and dragging the partially clad
woman into the street in front of her five small children. A black soldier named Alonso
Edwards intervened on the woman’s behalf, and police beat and arrested him.
Corporal Charles Baltimore went to the police station to inquire about Mr. Edwards’s
arrest and about the police beating of another black soldier. The corporal was beaten,
shot, and arrested for challenging police authority, but later released. Seemingly under
attack by local white authorities, 156 black soldiers of the Third Battalion armed themselves
and left for Houston to confront the police about the persistent violence.
Just outside the city, the soldiers encountered a mob of armed white men who had
heard reports of a mutiny. In the ensuing violence, four soldiers, four policemen, and
12 civilians were killed. Afterward, many of the black soldiers were court-martialed and
convicted. Forty men received life
sentences, and 19 were executed.
Newspapers at the time reported
that the soldiers had mutinied
and attacked innocent
white civilians. But an NAACP investigation
concluded that the
soldiers acted in response to ongoing
police brutality. The soldiers
initially intended to stage a peaceful
march to the police station, but
violence broke out when they
were confronted by the mob of
white citizens on their way to
Houston. 28
14
(Library of Congress.)
No white civilian was ever
brought to trial for involvement in
the violence.