THE HOUSTON MUTINY AND RACE RIOT, 1917

Less than four weeks earlier, 654 black soldiers and 8 white officers of this battalion had arrived in Houston to assume guard duties at Camp Logan, a new training cantonment then under construction and located approximately three and half miles from the center of town. On the evening of August 23, a sizable group of enlisted men participated in a mutiny and in a march on the city which left twenty persons dead or dying on the streets of Houston...

For the Third Battalion, consisting of companies J, K, L, and M, the prospect of service in Texas was grim if not frightening... In 1906, three companies of the Twenty-fifth Infantry were discharged without honor by President Theodore Roosevelt for allegedly shooting up the border town of Brownsville. In 1911 and again in 1916, black soldiers nearly came to blows with white citizens of San Antonio over disagreements involving racial insults and unequal access to places of public accommodations... The men of the Twenty-fourth Infantry were also aware that Texas was a rigidly segregated state and that it had a reputation for violence against non-white citizens. Two brutal lynchings of Negroes, one at Temple in 1915, and another at Waco in 1916, had been publicized by black newspapers and journals. Only a month before the Third Battalion's arrival in Houston, a mob of two hundred whites hanged a Negro in nearby Galveston. Finally, the East St. Louis Massacre, which had occurred in early July, 1917, was still vividly in their minds, and men of the Third Battalion contributed nearly $150 to a relief fund for the displaced civilians and homeless blacks of the city.

With both white civilians and black troopers anticipating trouble, it was not slow in developing. On Saturday evening, July 28, most of the newly arrived soldiers went to town to acquaint themselves with Houston and to locate the suitable places of entertainment. Several incidents occurred on streetcars over the segregated seating arrangements required by city ordinance. In most cases the soldiers obeyed the law or the white conductors disregarded minor violations, but a few black soldiers openly defied the system of discrimination by removing the Jim Crow screens which they either kept as "souvenirs" or tossed out the windows.

The most serious confrontation happened the next evening. Two platoons of the Twenty-fourth, fearful about missing the eleven o'clock check, piled onto a streetcar only to have the annoyed conductor them off for violating the segregation ordinance. While a handful of angry soldiers were threatening to "throw the goddamn thing off the track," others spotted another trolley. As the fifty-eight men swarmed aboard it, one of the soldiers firmly told the conductor that "they would just like to see the first son-of-a-bitch that tried to put them off" while a few others enlarged the "colored section ordering six white passengers to move up front. By Monday morning, news of the weekend altercations was all over town...

The principal cause of racial bitterness between soldiers and police did not stem from these confused arrangements but from a series of physical assaults on blacks by law officers. On August 18, two policemen arrested a black youth for allegedly "throwing bricks promiscuously." After two soldiers who were passing by in a streetcar protested what they regarded as unwarranted harassment, the two patrolmen stopped the trolley and tried to apprehend the two "uppity" soldiers. When the latter "showed fight," the two officers slugged them with their pistols and escorted them to the police station.

Later the same day, two other soldiers complained to the desk sergeant that two policemen had severely beaten them for objecting to being called "niggers." The next day a deputy sheriff of Harris County arrested another soldier for sitting in the "white only" section of a streetcar. When the private allegedly drew a "penknife," the sheriff pistol whipped him and took him to the county jail where he remained until after the disturbance of August 23.

By late August, as the list of grievances mounted, the situation was becoming intolerable for several black soldiers. On Thursday, August 23, when the temperature soared to 102 degrees, there occurred a series of incidents which channeled the frustrations of this small but influential group of black soldiers into armed revolt. During the morning, Rufus Daniels and Lee Sparks, two police officers, assaulted Private Alonzo Edwards of Company L for interfering in the arrest of a black housewife. Early that same afternoon Corporal Charles Baltimore, a provost guard from I Company, tried to obtain information from the two mounted policemen about the circumstances which had led to Edwards's arrest. Annoyed by this inquiry from a Negro, Sparks, generally regarded as one of the more vociferous racists on the police force, struck Baltimore with his pistol and fired at him three times. Baltimore fled with Sparks in close pursuit. The policemen cornered the bloodied soldier underneath a bed in an unoccupied house on Bailey Street, arrested him, and sent him to jail in a patrol wagon.

Immediately news of the beatings of Private Edwards and Corporal Baltimore reached the Twenty-fourth's camp. The report that Baltimore was "shot at" soon grew into the rumor that he was "shot." Incensed by what they regarded as the unwarranted shooting of one of their most respected noncommissioned officers, several soldiers vowed to avenge Baltimore's death by getting the policeman who had killed him...

Shortly after eight o'clock that evening Major Kneeland Snow [acting on a tip about possible trouble] ordered the first sergeants to collect all rifles and to search the men's tents for loose ammunition. While Snow's ordered were being carried out, Private Frank Johnson of Company I slipped to the rear of the company street and yelled "Get your guns men! The white mob is coming!" This cry stampeded the frightened men into rushing the four company supply tents where they grabbed arms and ammunition. After approximately thirty minutes of confused and indiscriminate firing, Sergeant Henry ordered the men of Company I to "fall in" and to fill their canteens. Rallying the soldiers with cries of "stick by your own race" and "To hell with going to France.... Get to work right here" and with threats to shoot anyone who refused to join them, ringleaders of the mutiny were able to attract the support of the bulk of Company I and a small contingent from Company M together with a scattering of men from the other two companies. In all 75 to 100 men moved out of camp and, about nine o'clock, began a determined march on the city.

Circuitously approaching the city through the friendly confines of the San Felipe district where they hoped to fine Lee Sparks and Rufus Daniels, the black soldiers encountered the police first at Washington Avenue and Brunner Street and later at Wilson and San Felipe streets, and easily repulsed them each time. After killing Daniels and three additional policemen and wounding three others, one of whom subsequently died, the black rebels, weakened by numerous desertions, fell into disagreement over what course of action to pursue next. The vast majority...circled back to camp. The remainder...sought refuge in the homes of black Houstonians where they were captured the following day by city police and soldiers....

The results of this Houston encounter were tragically predictable. The Houston riot and mutiny of 1917 was closely followed by the largest court-martial in American military history, by the mass execution of thirteen soldiers at Camp Travis at dawn on December 11, 1917, and by the sentencing of forty-one others to life in prison. Not satisfied with this impressive retribution, the army tried 55 more soldiers in two additional courts-martial which sentenced 16 to hang and 12 to life terms. Under extreme pressure from Afro-Americans, President Woodrow Wilson saved ten of the latter sixteen men who were convicted of capital offenses from the gallows by commuting their sentences to life in prison. The rendering and execution of these verdicts closed one of the most tragic chapters in American race relations and one of the darkest hours in the annals of the United States Army.

Fort Sam Houston, Tex.

Dec. 11, 1917
Dear Mother &. Father,
When this letter reaches you I will be beyond the veil of sorrow. I will be in heaven with the angels. Mother don’t worry over your son because it is heavens gain. Look not upon my body as one that must fill a watery grave but one that is asleep in Jesus.

I fear not death. Did not Jesus ask death “Where art thy sting?” Don’t regret my seat in heaven by mourning over me. I now can imagine seeing my dear Grandmother and Grandfather and the dear girl Miss Bessie Henderson that I once loved in this world standing at the river of Jordan beckoning to me to come, and O! Mother should they be sensitive of my coming don’t you think that they are anxious for tomorrow morning to come when I will come unto them. I am sentenced to be hanged for the trouble that happened in Houston Texas altho I am not guilty of the crime that I am accused of but Mother, it is God’s will that I go now and in this way and Mother I am going to look for you and the family [and] if possible, I will meet you at the river. Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden, I will give the rest. Bless his holy name. This is the happiest day I met with since Jesus spoke peace to my soul in Brookstone church from my promise to God. I have strayed away but I am with him now. Send Mr. Harris a copy of this letter. I am your son,

Fort Sam Houston

As my capital account was then reduced to ten cents, I was in a very embarrassing social and economic condition. As I walked up the dock that November morning before daylight, it was, as was natural at that time of year, raining. I picked up a scent, about as a dog would looking for his breakfast. It led me to a restaurant operated by Bill Gross. Some of you may recall that fine five hundred weight colored man who operated what he named “Our House.” Well, it certainly proved to be my house. As I entered, I told Bill I had just arrived by the San Francisco steamer, was without financial resources, and if my faced looked all right, I would like to negotiate a credit until I could secure employment to build up a financial reserve. We concluded satisfactory credit terms, and on a new economic start in life, I got my breakfast on credit.

Bill was a fine cook and administered his own kitchen, with Mrs. Bill as dishwasher. Seattle was not then advanced in the culinary arts to a point where it seemed necessary to have short dressed, silk stockinged [sic], permanent waved waitresses. The facts are that there was no available waiter material of female gender in those days. And none was needed, as far as Bill was concerned. He had cut a half-moon opening in the partition between kitchen and dining room. Bill served in the kitchen, all on one plate, passed it through the half moon, and called the patron to “Come and Get it.” That breakfast was pork sausage and flapjacks with coffee. That was the scent I had picked up on my way up the dock that morning. Bill had the window open and I presume that was his method of advertising his fare.
Source: “Robert Moran Address” in Malcolm E. Moran, ed., Pioneer Memories, (Seattle: 1939) pp. 6-7.

BERIAH BROWN ON CIVIL RIGHTS IN SEATTLE, 1874
When the enrollment of an African American student at the University of Washington in 1874 stirred controversy including complaints of white parents to the Board of Regents and the very public withdrawal of some students by an angry parent described as “an ardent and active Republican politician,” Beriah Brown, editor of the Puget Sound Dispatch, defended the right of the African American student in an editorial which appears below. The names of the African American student and the “ardent Republican” are not known. Brown was elected Mayor of Seattle in 1878 when the town had approximately 3,000 residents including 19 African Americans. The niversity (which was essentially a high school at the time) had about 100 students in total.
Bitter complaint has been made to the Regents of the University against Professor Hill for admitting colored children into the school and one parent—a very ardent and active Republican politician—has taken his own children out of school on that account. All discussion upon the proprieties of this question was long since foreclosed. The paramount law of the land guarantees to every colored citizen all the civil, social and political rights secured to any white citizen under the same conditions. Every child of African descent born in this country has the same right of access to our public schools as the children of the most privileged of Caucasian blood. No teacher or school officer has any more legal right to exclude one than the other. If there is a right of discrimination in is in favor of the colored person. The exclusion of a white child from a public school would subject the teacher or officer who caused it to no penal consequences. Under the Civil Rights act of Congress, to exclude a colored pupil on ‘account of race, color or previous condition of servitude,” is a misdemeanor, to be tried by Federal Courts, and punishable by heavy penalties.

All good citizens are bound to obey the laws, and whoever rejected the advantages offered by the Government for the education of his children, upon the ground that those advantages are shared by colored children, to be consistent, would reject the plan of salvation and his hopes of Heaven on the same account.

In the Fourth Ward, at least, the black family seems to have survived the period of slavery fairly well. In 1870, 57% of the population over the age of fifteen were married, 34% were single and 9% were widowed, separated or divorced. More significantly 77% of Fourth Ward black households were headed by males, and 73% had both husband and wife present. The black family was intact...

Fourth Ward was distinguished from other black communities in Houston by the number of important black institutions that it housed. It was the location of most of the city's early black religious and educational institutions and many of its black businesses and professionals were centered there. The first black church in Houston, Trinity Methodist Episcopal, which began in the antebellum period, was located at Travis and Bell (in what is now downtown Houston). The most prominent black church, Antioch Baptist, was also a Fourth Ward institution. Antioch was established by white missionary William C. Crane in 1866... In the summer of 1866, a black minister, I.S. Campbell, took charge of the church and, after first holding services in a "brush arbor" erected on the banks of Buffalo Bayou, built a frame structure in 1868... Jack Yates became pastor of Antioch in late 1868; in 1869 he moved the church to its present site, a brick structure on Robin Street.

The influence of these early back churches on the community extended far beyond religious matters. In 1869, for example, black churches were involved in the organization of the Harris County Republican Club...one of the few truly integrated organizations at this time... The Club held most of its meetings in Antioch Baptist Church... In 1872, Antioch and Trinity Methodist worked together to raise money and purchase a park for blacks in Houston. Both churches sponsored picnics and Emancipation Day celebrations on wooded land north of San Felipe in the Fourth Ward. In 1872, they acquired a permanent park site, Emancipation Park (in the Third Ward). Antioch also helped promote black education. [Jack] Yates, after failing in his efforts to locate Bishop College in Houston, worked with white missionaries to establish Houston College in rented facilities in the Third War in 1885. In 1894, the school moved to its own three-acre site west of the city limits on San Felipe... The Fourth Ward was neither the first nor the largest black community in Houston. A majority of blacks have always resided in other wards during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Nevertheless, the myths of the ward's primacy in the history of black Houston are rooted in reality. For the fifty years following emancipation, it was the center of much black activity and culture...the "mother ward" of black Houston...