100 years ago, a riot and a rush to judgment
Relatives of Camp Logan defendants say they should be pardoned because of flawed trials
A hundred years to the day after a group of African-American soldiers rampaged through the streets of Houston and left 16 residents dead in their wake, relatives of the first group of men hanged for their involvement are hoping they will someday receive a posthumous presidential pardon.
The Camp Logan Riot, as it came to be known, was one of the darkest days in the city’s history. Soldiers from the Third Battalion of the 24th Infantry Regiment left camp against orders and exacted revenge for a month of humiliating and at times physically abusive treatment at the hands of local white citizens and police officers.
For Angela Holder, a local history professor whose great-uncle was one of the condemned men, the petition drive she and other descendants are promoting has nothing to do with innocence — though it is possible that some of those convicted never left camp on Aug. 23, 1917 — and everything to do with simple fairness.
The 13 men sentenced to die in the first of three courts-martial were led to the gallows only two weeks after the trial ended. The review of their conviction and sentence was cur-
sory, and approval of the commanding general was given almost as soon as the trial transcript was completed.
For Holder, the entire proceeding was a rush to judgment that ended the life of a proud young soldier as it was just taking hold.
“There was this kneejerk reaction, if you will,” said Holder, who teaches at Houston Community College. “The court should have taken its time and looked at what is happening here, and if we are going to take lives, make sure you are doing so in accordance with the law. ”
Holder and her family have long felt that Jesse Brown committed no crime, as he claimed in his last letter home, written on the eve of his execution. True or not, there was no time for anyone to seriously review any of the guilty verdicts and the evidence used to secure them. The 41 soldiers sentenced to long prison terms in the same trial had plenty of time for reconsideration. Not so the men who were hanged in virtual secrecy on the chilly morning of Dec. 11 in San Antonio.
For those men, there was no appeal, no chance to request clemency. The speed of execution angered not only the nation’s black community but the Army’s judge advocate general, Gen. Samuel Ansell, who issued orders that no executions could take place in the future without a review of the case by his office.
Case produced reforms
All such court-martial sentences would henceforth be submitted to a Board of Review, which would serve “in the nature of an appellate tribunal.” Two later courts-martial for men involved in the events of Aug. 23, 1917, produced more death sentences and long prison terms.
But their convictions were looked at in depth. Ten of those condemned to die had their sentences commuted to life, and all of the imprisoned men ultimately were released over the next decade and a half.
“The men who were sent to prison were given clemency,” Holder said. “Those 12 men and my uncle were not. They did not benefit from those changes, like the next two groups did.”
Holder doesn’t downplay the soldiers’ behavior. They disobeyed orders and left camp fully armed and looking for retribution. And in all honesty, she cannot prove Brown did not leave camp that night. His insistence is not proof. Irrefutable evidence has always been in short supply.
It’s the rushed nature of the first court-martial that has long bothered not just relatives of the dead but many others. With 63 defendants bundled together in the dock just two months after the event, due process was not the order of the day. All of the men were represented by a single officer, a man trained in law but not actually a lawyer.
“I don’t think there is any doubt some of those soldiers were guilty of murder,” said Fred Borch III, the regimental historian and archivist for the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps. “But I have to believe some were innocent, at least of killing people. With 63 defendants, there are going to be levels of guilt with all of them. How can you shake out those levels with only one defense counsel? You just can’t do it.”
For that reason, Holder and the other relatives are asking for a posthumous pardon. It would not be a tribute, she said, as some or most of the men may have committed murder, but simply an acknowledgement that they had served honorably before then and did not get a fair trial.
The petition would be reviewed by the Office of the Pardon Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice. A pardon itself would have to come from the president, as specified in the U.S. Constitution.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the case.
“I think it’s totally appropriate,” said Paul Matthews, founder of Houston’s Buffalo Soldiers Museum, which is holding events this week in commemoration of the tragic mutiny and its aftermath. “It’s not something we are trying to force on anyone. It’s just the right thing to do. I think most people appreciate that.”
Matthews, a retired Army captain, said a pardon wouldn’t serve as an attempt to exonerate the men or excuse their actions.
“Mutiny in a time of war is punishable by death — we know that,” Matthews said. “But there should have been a process that was justifiable for everybody. It’s clear there was no due process. Some men probably were convicted who were not even there, and someone who may have killed somebody may have slipped back into camp and not been charged.”
Tensions mounted
The Camp Logan Riot was the culmination of a month of incidents. Black soldiers of the Third Battalion of the 24th Infantry Regiment bristled at Houston’s Jim Crow laws, which were all but universal across the south.
The men had been brought to Houston in the early months of America’s involvement in World War I to guard over a new military installation at Camp Logan, roughly where Memorial Park is now located, during its construction. Civic leaders protested to the Army, saying it was a bad idea. It turned out they were right.
The men were cursed and sneered at by many white residents. The Nword was used daily. They were told to sit in the back of streetcars and, of course, to use only designated “colored” facilities.
The soldiers talked back. Incidents with police increased, including arrests and altercations. Police officers did not respond well to black people who were not deferential and accommodating.
The violent arrest of a corporal on a rainy Thursday in late August started a chain reaction. Rumors of his death proved wrong — he was beaten about his head — and he later showed up in camp. But the soldiers decided they had had enough and decided to leave camp that night to exact revenge.
Although the pretrial investigation was reasonably thorough, the case was problematic because local civilians who witness the killings could not identify which soldiers were responsible. Most of the soldiers themselves did not give statements. Roll had been taken back at camp to determine who was not there, but given the chaotic situation it was reasonable to assume some men were missed.
Options limited
Borch said the prosecutor’s only option was to rely on the testimony of soldiers who had received immunity, which raised the possibility of self-serving recollections. Army officials wanted a quick resolution that did not have the appearance of a legal lynching.
“This was not a court of justice — you have to remember that,” Borch said. “Courts-martial then were for (violations of ) good order and discipline. Here you have soldiers who have rioted and mutinied and disobeyed orders of their officers. And not only that, but with disastrous results for the citizenry of Houston.”
When all three courts martial were completed, 110 out of 118 had been found guilty of some crime and 29 men were given death sentences, 10 of which were commuted to life by President Woodrow Wilson. A vigorous campaign by the NAACP eventually helped most of the men with lengthy prison sentences get paroled by 1930.
Holder hopes to do the same with a broad pardon.