Dear Friends,
On August 23, 1917, the Camp Logan Riots occurred here in Houston. Some of the same injustices that the soldiers of Camp Logan faced, including racial profiling, police brutality, and inadequate legal representation, are issues that people of color still grapple with today. We hear their voices in the present and work toward addressing what was previously left unheard.
Members of the 3rd Battalion, 24th Infantry were stationed to guard Camp Logan in what is now Memorial Park during World War I. They were one of the four Buffalo Soldier regiments and among more than 350,000 Black soldiers, who served in segregated units during World War I, ready to give their lives for freedoms not yet afforded to Black people in the United States.
Under the brutal system of Jim Crow in Houston, the soldiers endured severe, nonstop racist harassment and violence from white residents, police officers, and fellow members of the military. Tensions from the ongoing violence and harassment boiled over on August 23, 1917, when a Black soldier was beaten and arrested for intervening in police mistreatment of a Black woman. A military police officer was also beaten and shot at by Houston police when he inquired about the soldier that day.
Frustration and fear escalated among the soldiers as reports of the violent police assaults spread throughout the camp along with rumors of an approaching mob. More than 100 soldiers began a march to the jail, and a violent confrontation ensued.
By nightfall, some 21 people had been killed, including 11 civilians. Every single member of the 24th Infantry was tried in military court without adequate representation or allowed due process to appeal their conviction. This second tragedy was an unfair trial with 41 sentenced to life in prison. There was the public hanging of 19 soldiers, of which 13 were part of the largest mass execution in U.S. history.
In 2016, the Houston NAACP Veterans Chair, Clyde Lemon, collaborated with Houston Community College Professor Angela Holder, a descendant of Corporal Jesse Moore, who was among the soldiers hanged, to work on pardons for the executed soldiers. With persistence, they found Geoffrey Corn of the South Texas College of Law and Dru Brenner Beck, retired army lawyers who helped work on the clemency initiative.
After 6 years of review and 106 years of delayed justice, U.S. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth granted clemency to the 110 soldiers of the 3rd Battalion of the U.S. 24th Infantry Regiment on November 13, 2023, in Houston, which restored the status of the soldiers to honorable discharge. On December 5, 2023, the Commissioners Court unanimously approved an official apology for allowing this racial violence to occur within its boundaries. The National Buffalo Soldiers Museum hosted the solemn ceremony restoring the status of the soldiers of Camp Logan in the United States Army with an honorable discharge.
In Harris County, we still hear the cries of the soldiers from the Camp Logan Riots. We are working every day to end our reliance on mass incarceration and advance community safety. We remain committed to creating a more equitable justice system for all and standing against the scourge of racism wherever it still exists.
Sincerely,
Rodney Ellis