1917 Logan Camp Mutiny, Houston Texas

In 1917, 118 black soldiers were charged with murder, mutiny, aggravated assault and disobeying orders, after a race riot in Houston.  Nineteen of the soldiers wer eventually hanged.

Here's what happened.  The all-black 3rd Battalion, 24th Infantry, (a unit of the famed Buffalo Soldiers) was posted in Houston to guard the construction of the $2million project, Camp Logan.  Houston was fully under Jim Crow, many of the soldiers had come from New Mexico where Jim Crow laws were not enforced, and thus expected equal treatment in the army, with white soldiers.  However, the population of Houston insisted that segregation be upheld.  The black soldiers were treated to racial abuse from construction workers on the site, and police harassement.

On August 23, 1917, the soldiers heard a rumor that Corporal Charles Baltimore had been killed by police.  This turned out to be untrue, although he had been arrested and beaten for inquiring about another soldier.  On hearing this, 156 soldiers appropriated rifles from stores and marched into town.  Local whites armed themselves.  Eventually there were four casualties among the black soldiers, with fifteen white locals killed.

This was the only race riot in the US to result in more whites being killed than blacks.  The aftermath of this mutiny was brutal.  14 black soldiers were hung on December 11, 1917.  63 others were given life sentences, then the following year six more soldiers were hung.  No material evidence was presented for most of the hangings and prison sentences.

Now, 100 years later, Priscilla Graham, a Houston author and historian is among those seeking to the soldiers pardoned on the basis that their arrests and trials were unjust.  So far, Graham has written to Presidents Obama and Trump, but has received no reply.