Хьюстон қырқыны: 1917 жылғы қара солдаттардың көтерілісі

Riot in response to a police assault of black soldiers

The Houston race riot of 1917, also known as the Camp Logan Mutiny, 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. 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". In November 2023, the Army set aside all 110 convictions.

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.

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. 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. 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. An officer from the 24th Infantry Regiment retrieved the injured Baltimore from the police station, which seemed to calm the soldiers for the moment. 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. By the time the firing ceased, 17 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.

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 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". 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. (The JAG Boards of Review to review death sentences were created by a subsequent rule, General Orders 7, on January 7, 1918. The boards, though they had advisory power only, were the Army's first appellate courts.]] On August 31, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson commuted the death sentences of ten soldiers to life in prison. 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." 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."

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. On March 8, 1927, President Calvin Coolidge reduced the sentences for the last 20 imprisoned rioters, making them eligible for parole within one year. 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. On November 13, 2023, the Army set aside the convictions of the 110 soldiers.

The area where Camp Logan was located is now called Memorial Park. It is bordered by highways I 10 and I 610.

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. The 24th, a movie about the riot, was filmed partly in the Brooklyn South Square section of Salisbury, North Carolina in June 2019. 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.