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This is a contributing entry for The Path of Houston's Camp Logan Riot of 1917 and only appears as part of that tour.Learn More.
This is the location of the 3rd Battalion 24th Infantry Soldier's Camp, located approximately 0.5 miles away from Camp Logan. While stationed in Houston to protect the Camp Logan construction site, the soldiers of this Battalion were required to live offsite and march to and from the larger camp every day due to the military's agreement with the City of Houston that only white men would live within Camp Logan itself. This was the launching point of the Camp Logan Riots on the evening of August 23, 1917. After weeks of being called derogatory names, suffering from physical attacks and fending off other racism-fueled moments of danger, a group of soldiers had enough of the disrespect and danger. A group of uncertain numbers took up arms and set off on an evening march that would ultimately leave 50 dead (21 dead during the riot and 19 executed afterward) and dozens of citizens gravely wounded.

Map of the 24th infantry camp; Houston, Texas, showing bullet holes in the vicinity (c. 1917)

Map of the 24th infantry camp; Houston, Texas, showing bullet holes in the vicinity (c. 1917)

Soldiers of the 24th infantry at Camp Logan

Soldiers of the 24th infantry at Camp Logan

When the men of the 24th Infantry landed in Houston, they arrived in a city with unfamiliar and highly demeaning Jim Crow laws that were only exacerbated by a police force with a long history of unchecked racist brutality. With proven skills in the field of battle in Cuba and three tours of the Philippines, members of the 3rd Battalion were seasoned career military men. But racial tensions were especially high in the South with the white mobs targeting the Black community in the East St. Louis riot only a month before and the ongoing dark cloud of lynchings looming overhead.

Even with these concerns in mind, stepping off the train in Texas from Columbus, New Mexico, these soldiers could scarcely have anticipated the bloodshed that they would encounter only weeks after their arrival at the camp—both on the streets of Houston and in the gallows in San Antonio. Life in Houston was a battle unlike any they had faced yet as a unit with daily verbal and physical abuse from white construction workers, police officers and Houston citizens. Even those soldiers raised in the segregated South had expected some level of respect as commissioned soldiers but hadn't anticipated their arrival sparking as a means to maintain racial harmony within their city. Instead of treating the Black soldiers with respect, city leaders and citizens remained openly hostile, perhaps in an attempt to ensure Black Houstonians wouldn't begin to expect better treatment themselves. 

 After weeks of clashing with racist Houston police and civilians, on August 23, 1917, word made it back to camp that Cpl. Charles Baltimore - one of the Battalion's highly regarded military policemen - had been beaten, shot and killed by Houston police officers after attempting to retrieve Private Alonzo Edwards, who had been arrested after attempting to diffuse the violent arrest of an innocent Black woman in town. Tensions were high in the camp, even after news that he was still alive but wounded. After rumors that a white mob was headed their way, a group of 100 soldiers raided the supply tents for rifles and ammunition and began their retaliatory march towards Houston. 

The 1917 Houston Riots/Camp Logan Mutiny, Prairie View A&M University. Accessed November 1st 2020. https://www.pvamu.edu/tiphc/research-projects/the-1917-houston-riotscamp-logan-mutiny/ .

Robert V. Haynes, “Houston Riot of 1917,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed November 01, 2020, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/houston-riot-of-1917.Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

Image Sources(Click to expand)

The University of Houston Digital Library

Getty Images