Brownsville Affair
The Brownsville Affair was a racial incident that arose out of tensions between black soldiers and white citizens in Brownsville, Texas, in 1906. When a white bartender was killed and a police officer wounded by gunshot, townspeople accused the members of the 25th Regiment, an all-black unit stationed at nearby Fort Brown. Although commanders said the soldiers had been in the barracks all night, evidence was planted against them.
As a result of an Army Inspector General's investigation, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the dishonorable discharge of 167 soldiers of the 25th Regiment, costing them pensions and preventing them from serving in civil service jobs. A renewed investigation in the early 1970s proved the men innocent. The government pardoned them and restored their records to show honorable discharges but did not provide compensation to survivors and descendants.
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[edit] Background
The Brownsville Affair arose out of racial tensions between the white residents of Brownsville, Texas, and the black infantrymen of the 25th Infantry Regiment (United States) at nearby Fort Brown.
Since arriving at Fort Brown, the black soldiers had been subject to intense racial discrimination from the white citizens of Brownsville. As a result of these racial tensions, a fight broke out between a black soldier and a local Brownsville merchant. The city of Brownsville barred members of the 25th U.S. Regiment from setting foot in the city again.[1]
[edit] August 13, 1906
On the night of August 13, 1906, gunshots killed a white bartender and wounded a white police officer in the town. Immediately the residents of Brownsville cast the blame on the black soldiers of the 25th Regiment at Fort Brown. The soldiers of the 25th Regiment were accused of the shootings, but the all-white commanders at Fort Brown confirmed that all of the soldiers were in their barracks at the time of the shootings. Local whites, including Brownsville's mayor, still claimed that some of the black soldiers participated in the shooting.[2]
[edit] The evidence
Local townspeople of Brownsville began providing "evidence" of the 25th Regiment's part in the shooting by producing spent bullet cartridges from Army rifles which they said belonged to the 25th's men. Despite the contradictory evidence that demonstrated the spent shells were planted in order to frame men of the 25th Regiment's role in the shootings, investigators accepted the statements of the local whites and the Brownsville mayor.[2]
[edit] The results
When soldiers of the 25th Regiment were pressured to name who fired the shots, they insisted that they had no idea who had committed the crime.[2] The soldiers were not given any type of hearing, trial, or the opportunity to confront their accusers (all rights guaranteed to U.S. citizens in the Constitution).
Captain Bill McDonald of the Texas Rangers investigated 12 enlisted men and tried to tie the case to them. The local county court did not return any indictments based on his investigation, but residents kept up complaints about the black soldiers of the 25th.[1]
At the recommendation of the Army's Inspector General, the U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt ordered 167 of the black troops dishonorably discharged because of their "conspiracy of silence".[1] This dishonorable discharge prevented the 167 men from ever working in a military or civil service capacity. Some of the black soldiers had been in the U.S. Army for over twenty years, while others were extremely close to retirement with pensions, which they lost.[2]
The prominent educator and activist, Booker T. Washington, got involved and asked President Roosevelt to reconsider his decision in the affair.[2] Roosevelt instead dismissed Washington's plea and allowed his decision to stand.
[edit] Congress steps in
Blacks and many whites across the United States were outraged at the actions of President Roosevelt.[2] The black community, which had previously supported the Republican president (in addition to their loyalty to the party of Abraham Lincoln, blacks noted that Roosevelt had invited Booker T. Washington to a White House dinner, and had spoken out publicly against lynching), began to turn against him. The administration withheld news of the discharge of the soldiers until after the 1906 Congressional elections, so that the pro-Republican black vote would not be affected. The case became a political football, with William Howard Taft, positioning for the next candidacy for presidency, trying to avoid trouble.[1]
Leaders of major black organizations, such as the Constitution League, the National Association of Colored Women, and the Niagara Movement tried to persuade the administration not to discharge the soldiers, but were unsuccessful.[3] From 1907-1908, the US Senate Military Affairs Committee investigated the Brownsville Affair, and the majority in March 1908 reached the same conclusion as Roosevelt. Senator Joseph B. Foraker of Ohio had lobbied for the investigation and filed a minority report in support of the soldiers' innocence. Another minority report by four Republicans concluded that the evidence was too inconclusive to support the discharges.[1] In September 1908 W.E.B. Du Bois urged blacks to register to vote and to remember their treatment by the Republican administration when it was time to vote for president.[3]
Feelings across the nation remained high against the government actions, but with Taft succeeding Roosevelt as President and Foraker failing to win re-election, some of the political pressure declined. A 1910 Court of Military Inquiry undertook an examination of the soldiers' bids for re-enlistment, in view of the Senate committee's reports, but its members interviewed only about one-half of the soldiers discharged. It accepted 14 for re-enlistment, and eleven re-entered the Army.[3]
The government did not re-examine the case until the early 1970s.[1]
[edit] Justice in 1970s
In 1970, John D. Weaver published The Brownsville Raid, which investigated the affair in depth. Weaver argued that the accused members of the 25th Regiment were innocent. After reading his book, Congressman Augustus F. Hawkins of Los Angeles introduced a bill to have the Defense Department re-investigate the matter to provide justice to the accused soldiers.
In 1972, the Army found the accused members of the 25th Regiment innocent. At its recommendations, President Richard M. Nixon pardoned the men and awarded them honorable discharges without backpay. These were generally issued posthumously, as there were only two surviving soldiers: one had re-enlisted in 1910. In 1973, due to actions of Hawkins and Senator Hubert Humphrey, the Congress passed a tax-free compensation for the last survivor, Dorrie Willis, who received $25,000. He was honored in ceremonies in Washington, DC and Los Angeles.[4]
[edit] In popular culture
The History Channel included an episode entitled "Discharged Without Honor: The Brownsville Raid" (2000) in its History's Mysteries.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f Garna L. Christian, "BROWNSVILLE RAID OF 1906", The Handbook of Texas Online, accessed 17 November 2011
- ^ a b c d e f Wormser, Richard. "Jim Crow Stories: The Brownsville Affair", The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, 2002, PBS, Educational Broadcasting Corporation
- ^ a b c "The Brownsville (Texas) Riot of 1906", The Encyclopedia of American Race Riots, edited by Walter C. Rucker, James N. Upton, Hartford, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Company, 2007, pp. 81-82
- ^ Weaver, John D. The Brownsville Raid, reprint Texas A & M University, 1992, with new Afterword, accessed 17 November 2011
- Weaver, John D. The Brownsville Raid, New York: W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 1970; reprint Texas A & M University, 1992, with new Afterword.
[edit] Further reading
- Garna L. Christian, "The Brownsville Raid's 168th Man: The Court-Martial of Corporal Knowles," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 93 (July 1989).
- Ann J. Lane, The Brownsville Affair: National Crisis and Black Reaction (Port Washington, New York: National University Publications, Kennikat Press, 1971).
- New York Times, September 29, 1972.
