22 November 2023 :
November 13, 2023 - U.S. Army Overturns the 1917 Convictions of 110 Black Soldiers
That Resulted in the Execution of 19
On November 13, 2023, officials announced that the U.S. Army had overturned the convictions of 110 Black soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, who were charged with mutiny in connection with the racial violence that occurred during the 1917 Camp Logan rebellion. Nineteen Black soldiers were hanged following the court-martial ruling on December 11, 1917, which was the largest execution of military soldiers in history. In her statement, Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth stated, “…these soldiers were wrongly treated because of their race and were not given fair trials.”
During the Jim Crow era, the Black soldiers of the 24th Infantry Regiment were continuously harassed by racist police and white locals while stationed at Camp Logan, a military training camp in Houston. On August 23, 1917, Corporal Charles Baltimore was beaten and shot by police after interfering in the arrest of a Black woman. In response to this incident, Black soldiers marched in protest— into Houston, which resulted in a violent confrontation with a white mob.
In a recent article in the Defender, journalist Aswad Walker reported that Gabe Camarillo, the 35th Under Secretary for the Army, acknowledged the wrongs of the racially biased ruling by granting honorable discharges to the Black soldiers during the ceremony held at the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum. Camarillo also established a plan to provide benefits to the survivors’ families through a partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Attorney Jason Holt, a descendant of Pfc. Thomas Hawkins stated, “Today, a mortal blow has been dealt to the injustice of the master-slave relationship, such that 106 years later, the color of their skin was not a barrier to the fair dispensation of military jurisprudence, and we all here rejoice that their convictions were overturned and set aside.”
