Camp Logan
By Pamela Gibbs-Smith
Updated June 2024
More than a century has passed since 110 Black soldiers stationed at Camp Logan were convicted of mutiny, murder and assault in the 1917 Houston Riot, with 19 of them executed at Fort Sam Houston. Now those convictions have been overturned.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army Michael Mahoney has directed the Army Review Boards Agency to “set aside” the convictions of all soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, U.S. 24th Infantry Regiment. The Army will recognize the overturned convictions in a ceremony Monday at the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum in Midtown. Their service records will now reflect that they served honorably.
“It can’t bring them back, but it gives them peace,” said Angela Holder, whose great-uncle, Cpl. Jesse Moore, was one of the executed soldiers. “Their souls are at peace.”
In October 2020 and December 2021, South Texas Law — with the help of several professors and numerous law-student researchers — petitioned the U.S. Army requesting a review of the courts-martial convicting the soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment (also known as the Buffalo Soldiers).
In November of 2023, the Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth approved the recommendation of the Army Board for Correction of Military Records to set aside all the courts-martial convictions. The soldiers’ records will be corrected to indicate that each received an honorable discharge.
The History of the Houston Riots of 1917
On Aug. 23, 1917, 156 members of the 3rd Battalion charged with guarding the construction of Camp Logan — a 7-acre site in River Oaks that is now part of Memorial Park — marched toward downtown Houston in retaliation for earlier, racially charged incidents. Melee ensued; 17 people died that night.
In the months that followed, the Army convicted 110 Soldiers in a process characterized by numerous, substantial irregularities. Thirteen of the convicted men were immediately executed in the largest mass execution of American soldiers by the U.S. Army; six more were executed in the following weeks.
Their convictions stem from the largest murder trial in U.S. history.
“This incident was one of the first projects the NAACP Houston Branch ever investigated a century ago, and it continues to be important to us today,” said Dr. James Dixon, NAACP Houston Branch board president. “We must address this past injustice and educate people about the wrongs that occurred so they don’t happen again. We are determined to seek clemency for these soldiers because it is never too late to do the right thing.”
“The actual violence that night lasted approximately three hours, but the implications of the unjust convictions and punishments that occurred afterward have lasted a century,” Corn said. “These soldiers – regardless of the circumstances of the violence that occurred – did not receive due process and had no opportunity to appeal. The justice system failed them.”
– Professor Geoffrey Corn
The U.S. Army’s Plan to Restore Honor
The U.S. Army set aside the convictions of mutiny, murder and assault for 110 Black soldiers who were accused in the 1917 Houston Riot at Camp Logan in a ceremony Monday at the Buffalo National Soldiers Museum. The announcement from Under Secretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo was met by enthusiastic applause and a standing ovation.
Correcting their military records to honorable discharges. And third, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs will deliver survivors’ benefits to families who have long been denied access to those resources.
Numerous local and national media outlets have covered the story, and the story continues to gain momentum. Here are just a few of the story links:
