The soldiers were convicted of mutiny, murder and assault, the Chronicle reported.
“It can’t bring them back, but it gives them peace,” Angela Holder, whose great-uncle, Cpl. Jesse Moore, was one of the executed soldiers, told the Chronicle. “Their souls are at peace.”
The decision, reached weeks ago by Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, restores each of the soldiers’ individual rights, privileges and properties lost, meaning that their descendants may now be eligible for benefits, the newspaper reported.
According to the Texas State Historical Association, the Black soldiers were assigned to protect Camp Logan, a 7-acre training base, after the United States declared war on Germany in the spring of 1917. On July 17, 1917, the Black soldiers were ordered to travel by train with seven white officers from the regimental encampment at Columbus, New Mexico, to Houston.
On Aug. 23, 1917, Camp Logan soldiers clashed with whites, according to the Chronicle. The disturbance resulted in the deaths of 17 people, including five police officers. Most of them were whites.
Around noon that day, Houston police officers Lee Sparks and Rufus H. Daniels arrested a Black soldier for allegedly interfering with their arrest of a Black woman who was at a game of craps, according to the TSHA.
When Cpl. Charles Baltimore, one of the 12 Black military police officers in the battalion, asked about the soldier’s arrest, words were exchanged and the MP was allegedly struck over the head. Baltimore was taken to police headquarters, but a rumor soon reached Camp Logan that he had been killed, the TSHA reported.
Baltimore returned to the camp but was bloodied, according to the Chronicle. That night a shot rang out, and soldiers grabbed their rifles and set up a defensive perimeter around the camp. Sgt. Vida Henry ordered the soldiers to march out of the camp in formation, the newspaper reported.
According to the nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative’s version of the incident, more than 150 Black soldiers left the camp and approached the Houston city limits to confront the police. Although they planned a peaceful march to the police station, the soldiers encountered a mob of white men.
The Black soldiers killed 15 whites, including four police officers, and seriously wounded 12 others. One of those wounded, an officer, later died, according to the TSHA.
Henry was later found dead, the Chronicle reported. Pvt. Bryant Watson, Pvt. Wiley Strong and Pvt. George Bevens also were killed.
America was once an amazing country. Now? Everything that made our nation great must be erased or overturned because the bad guys long ago — who did truly horrible things — are now firmly in control.
Black-Run America (BRA), indeed.