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It’s been Angela Holder’s life’s mission to find her great uncle Jesse ever since she was 6-years-old and spotted an oval-shaped portrait of him at her Great-Aunt Lovie’s house. Her aunt explained that her brother Jesse Moore had been killed by the Army, and that the family did not know where he was buried. 

“That was the only time I ever saw my Aunt Lovie sad,” said Holder, who is now a history professor at Houston Community College.

Lovie would pass away a few months later, but the seed was planted and further solidified Holder’s life mission. “So in my mind, at 6 years old, I said, ‘I’m going to find her brother.’”

Years later as a graduate student in 1987, Holder read Dr. Robert Haynes’ book: “A Night of Violence: The Houston Riot of 1917.” She wrote to the Pentagon that same year inquiring about her uncle’s remains, learned he was interred at the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, and received a copy of his military service certificate. It confirmed his two-years of active service in the National Army was “terminated by death without honor.”

Holder would later learn the manner of his death: he was hanged following a military court’s conviction for mutiny, assault and murder — all crimes that he did not commit — without appeal.

This year, on Nov. 13, Moore was one of 110 Black soldiers of the all-Black 3rd Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment whose honor was restored when the U.S. Army set aside the convictions of the soldiers in what was called the Houston Riot of 1917, or the Camp Logan Mutiny, which began near modern-day Memorial Park in Houston.

The Army also vowed to correct the records of the soldiers “to the extent possible,” to show that their military service was honorable, entitling the descendants to be eligible for benefits.

“This act of clemency on the part of the Army is the largest act of restorative clemency in U.S. history – not just the military,” said John Haymond, a military law historian who co-authored the clemency petition. “In terms of the scope of restorative justice, this case is truly unique.” 

The historic decision came nearly 106 years after the fact, following the efforts of dozens of students and professors at South Texas College of Law Houston, who collectively petitioned the U.S. Army in Oct. 2020 and Dec. 2021, requesting a review of the courts-martial. 

The reversal was years in the making, culminating decades of tireless, but unsuccessful efforts from descendants, private attorneys and civil rights organizations like the NAACP to advance the cause. 

But why is this reckoning finally coming in 2023?

Why now? 

Experts say that research shows early false narratives were placed into the historical record and ultimately buried the truth about the incident. 

“People didn’t really drill down to the ground truth,” said Dru Brenner-Beck, a military law expert and law professor at South Texas, and the lead counsel on the petition that Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth based her decision on.

“You had misrepresentations of what happened, either deliberately or just negligently. Or you have kind of a representation based upon people’s interpretations of the time. And most of the people who wrote what was going on were white people. And most of the Black newspapers – their archives have been destroyed,” she said.

So Brenner-Beck and her co-author historian John Haymond combed through historic clippings from the local Black newspapers to get the facts on what happened, which has been called a mutiny or riot. Brenner-Beck, Haymond, and some descendants now solely refer to it as the “incident.”

“We’ve proven now conclusively that a mutiny never occurred that night,” Haymond said. “I argue that we can’t call it a riot either, because there was no pillaging, there was no looting, there was no burning, there was no indiscriminate mass killing. These men marched out as a military unit under the military authority of their noncommissioned officers. They moved as an organized military force, not as a rabble.”

The ‘incident’

The “incident” took place Aug. 23, 1917, during the Jim Crow era, following months of racial torment against members of the 24th — including the brutal arrest and assault of two Black soldiers by white police officers. Following the assaults, and amid rumors of further threats to soldiers, a group of more than 100 Black soldiers seized weapons and marched from their encampment on the eastern edge of present-day Memorial Park, into the city. Clashes erupted and the violence killed 19 white people, including four Houston policemen and four soldiers. 

On Dec. 11, less than four months later, 13 soldiers were hastily hanged. The men were executed in secrecy less than a day after sentencing and before the verdicts were publicized, according to Army officials, and without appeal or review of the case by the War Department and the President — something that the Army remedied shortly thereafter following a public outcry. It was the largest court-martial in U.S. history where 63 defendants—all of whom pled not guilty— were represented by a single defense counsel who was not a professional lawyer.

“These soldiers were wrongly treated because of their race and were not given fair trials,” said Wormuth, in a Nov. 13 press release.

Hurdles to justice

In addition to the proliferation of misinformation, Haymond said there were other major hurdles over the years that delayed justice, including the passage of time. 

“The farther into the past that an event falls, the harder it is, first of all, to really understand based on fact what happened,” he said, “and also the harder it is to make people care sometimes.” 

The second major hurdle, Haymond added, was that the records were classified by the Army until the late 1970s. But Brenner-Beck and Haymond had an advantage as former Army soldiers and knew how to access them.

The third major hurdle was internal resistance at certain levels of the military when the advocates presented their first petition in Oct. 2020. Haymond said critics argued that if the Army granted clemency in this case, it could potentially open up a floodgate of other clemency appeals and demands for reparations, and ultimately inundate them with requests for justice restoratively and retroactively.

“But it’s never been about the money,” Haymond said, noting that under law, reparations have to be calculated off the pay scale the soldier was receiving at that time. 

“As you can imagine, soldiers in the First World War did not get paid a lot. And so even with interest calculated into it … the reparations would never represent a fair accounting for the injustice that occurred.”

“Our response was, if you ever find another case that is as egregious, as desolate where the injustice is so clear, then it ought to be challenged and overturned,” he said.

Years in the making

Jason Holt, a New Jersey lawyer and descendant of Pfc. Thomas C. Hawkins, who was among the first 13 to be executed, said it’s been his lifelong journey to seek justice for his uncle and was the inspiration for his decision to become a lawyer. 

In a letter he shared with the Landing, his uncle had written to his parents shortly after learning his sentence and told them that by the time they had received it, he’d be “in heaven with the angels.”. 

“I am sentenced to be hanged for the trouble that happened in Houston Texas altho I am not guilty of the crime I am accused of,” the letter read.

What impressed Holt was his uncle’s concern for his family, but the ultimate peace he had with his fate. 

“You don’t hear any vengeful kind of tones,” Holt said. “What you see in this letter is really more forgiveness. And that’s where the inspiration comes from because I’m not sure that I can act like that. I’m not sure that I can be that strong. I’m not sure that I can find peace the way he did before he was executed.”

His mind was blown trying to imagine how his uncle was able to find peace and sleep the night before. 

“What do you do? Do you find sleep? What do you do if you find out that you’re going to be executed tomorrow? Holt said. “It’s not like today where someone stays on death row for years and years. The preparation is mental. How do you prepare yourself for that?”

Roughly 30 years ago, while studying law at Rutgers University, he convinced his professor to pursue research on Camp Logan. They even started a nonprofit organization to offset some of the research costs, but it never came to fruition, he said, noting that some military experts they consulted didn’t think that they would be successful. 

“Some of the advice that we received was that it was a bit premature,” Holt said, noting that was just a portion of his advocacy. “That there needed to be more attention going on the incident itself, and we needed to build up momentum. They didn’t view it as a straight legal matter. (There) needed to be some other things that would happen.”

Holder launched several petitions over the years, including one in collaboration with the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, seeking to persuade the U.S. Army to add more information to the first 13 soldiers’ unmarked graves.

In 2018, the NAACP Houston branch passed a resolution seeking a presidential pardon for the first 13 soldiers who were executed. But that too was unsuccessful, and experts say a pardon would have carried an imputation of guilt.

But after countless petitions, years of research, annual observances at the museum, visibility at conferences, and presidential pardon requests, there was a key component missing that could get them over the hump: someone with the legalese in military law to petition for clemency.

Getting over the hump

“We might have had the drive, we might have had the passion,” Holder said, “but we did not have the legal-speak to make the case.” 

In 2018 she asked Geoffrey Corn, a former South Texas law professor, and Clyde Lemon, the Houston NAACP armed services and veterans affairs chair, to help her.

She captured their interest after posing a question: “If the Army felt that it had done the right thing, then why did they issue General Order Number Seven?”

In January 1918, just one month after the executions, the Army issued General Order No. 7 which prohibited executions, dishonorable discharges and dismissals without a review by the Judge Advocate General of the Army. 

“It changed it going forward, but it didn’t help them,” said Cathy Burnett, another law professor at South Texas College of Law of Houston who worked on the case. 

If the Army determined in January that what happened at Camp Logan would from then on be prohibited, then why was it OK in the first place? That question, Holder said, was the catalyst that “got the ball rolling.”

Brenner-Beck and Haymond co-authored the clemency petition, which was researched by a team of roughly 30 South Texas students and professors.

“Each of us are former soldiers ourselves, we understand the military culture from the inside out,”  Haymond said of himself and Brenner-Beck. “And therefore we knew how to basically use the military process in order to get the military to produce the result.”

Brenner-Beck said although they obviously knew there were “significant injustices that were fundamentally unfair” and violated the Constitution, they understood that screaming words like “lynching” or applying modern-day standards of unfairness to the Army wouldn’t get them a hearing. 

“You have to get them past that visceral reaction … in order to then actually read what actually happened to these soldiers,” Brenner-Beck said.

She believes that was the critical part that “tipped the hand” for the Army Secretary’s decision. 

“We presented it in a way that called (for) the Army to uphold their own values, and to uphold the loyalty that they owe to the soldiers as well,” Brenner-Beck said. “And that was in the petition, overtly.”

‘No expiration date on justice’

Many descendants have told the Landing that even more than a month later, they still haven’t fully processed the news. 

“It’s hard to describe because you’re elated and numb at the same time,” Holt said. “I didn’t think the results that we would achieve would happen in my lifetime. … I was preparing for my son to pick this up if it came to that.”

Although it’s been a long journey, Holder said there’s “no expiration date on justice.” 

Now, the next step is honoring the soldiers properly. 

Since 1992, Memorial Park has maintained a plaque from the Texas Historical Commission and, though it’s hard to read, it details the incident. Now it just needs to be updated, said Shellye Arnold, the president and CEO of the Memorial Park Conservancy. 

This year, the conservancy debuted an exhibit situated throughout the Clay Family Eastern Glades with six audio narratives from descendants and community members connected to these events, reflecting on their impact over a century later. The exhibit was available on-site from Aug. 23 through Sept. 26, but, in an effort to make it “enduring,” it’s also available on their website. 

“It’s very much a Memorial Park story,” Arnold said, noting how these soldiers were sent to guard Camp Logan, a training site for soldiers who then went to battle in World War I. The park is named in honor of those soldiers who fought in the war and trained at Camp Logan. 

Memorial Park Conservancy plans to continue to tell the story through its upcoming 100-acre project dubbed Memorial Groves. The project will honor all who served the war efforts at Camp Logan, including the 24th Infantry Regiment, with groves of trees planted and lined up in rows like soldiers. It’s part of Memorial’s Park’s $200 million, 10-year master plan, set to be completed by 2028.

“The trees hit their prime when they’re 19, 20, 21, 22. That’s when soldiers are in their prime and it’s often when soldiers are felled,” Arnold said while driving and showing Landing reporters the land. “We interpret culture and history through the land, so we don’t build sculptures of people with statues. We use the land to tell the story.”

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Hi there! I’m Monique Welch, one of Houston Landing’s Diverse Communities reporters, and I focus my reporting on Black, Asian, Asian American, or Pacific Islander, LGBTQ+ and People with Disabilities communities in our area. What stories do you think I should cover? You can also reach me by email: monique@houstonlanding.org.

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