The first full and definitive narrative of one of the most shocking and largely unknown events of racial injustice in U.S. history: the mass execution of nineteen Black soldiers in Texas
On the sweltering, rainy night of August 23, 1917, one of the most consequential events affecting America's long legacy of racism and injustice began in Houston, Texas. Inflamed by a rumor that a white mob was arming to attack their cantonment, and by regular police harassment in the preceding weeks, more than 100 African American soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, took their weapons and marched into the largely Black San Felipe district of the city. A violent confrontation with police and civilians ensued and nineteen lives were lost.
The Army took charge, conducting a court-martial of the 118 soldiers on charges of mutiny and murder. Inadequately defended en masse by only one lawyer inexperienced in capital cases, undermined by perjured testimony and clear racial bias, and confronted by an all-white tribunal committed to a rapid judgment, sixty-four Black soldiers were found guilty. And in the predawn darkness of December 11th, thirteen of them were hanged at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio--extra-legally and in secret, violating even the Army's own regulations. The largest mass execution in the Army's history outraged the country and inspired preventive legislation, and yet six more Black soldiers were executed in early 1918 and dozens more sentenced to life in prison.
The Houston Incident, as it became known, has remained largely untold, a deep stain on the Army's record and pride. Award-winning historian and Army veteran John Haymond has spent eight years researching the events surrounding the Incident and engaging in efforts that ultimately led, in December 2023, to overturning the verdicts and awarding honorary discharges to all the soldiers involved. His dramatic chronicle of what transpired, situated amongst the rampant racism in Texas and the country, is a crucially important and harrowing reminder of our racially violent past, offering the promise that justice, even posthumously, can prevail.
