Houston City Council Members Carolyn Evans-Shabazz and Abbie Kamin presented a proclamation February 20 in honor of the Camp Logan project, including the integral role played by South Texas College of Law Houston professors and students, the NAACP Houston, and various other organizations.
Representing South Texas Law at the presentation were President and Dean Michael F. Barry; Vice President, Associate Dean and Professor of Law Catherine Greene Burnett; and alumna Ashley Cromika ’21. Through the law school’s Actual Innocence Clinic, dozens of students worked on research for the petition for clemency over a two-year period.
During the ceremony, Houston Mayor John Whitmire also declared Feb. 20, 2024, Camp Logan Day. The presentation occurred in City Hall chambers. “We’ve passed a lot of proclamations in this hall, and there will be future proclamations, but I don’t think there’s a more meaningful one,” Whitmore said. “It’s important that we come together and acknowledge the dark days of our history — and to make a statement that we will not tolerate hate but certainly stand for equal justice and try to right wrongs, certainly in regard to the records.”
More than a century ago, due process was denied to 110 Black U.S. Army soldiers stationed at Camp Logan in Houston — soldiers who were willing to defend their country, but who nonetheless had no voice in their own defense.
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).
Late last year, 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.
“As a council member for District C, which includes Memorial Park and Camp Logan, I feel a sense of responsibility to support efforts that are imperative to preserving this history and honoring more than a century worth of efforts to right this wrong,” Kamin said.
The Houston Riots took place Aug. 23, 1917, following months of racial provocations against members of the 24th — including the violent arrest and assault of two Black soldiers. Following the assaults, and amid rumors of additional threats to soldiers, a group of more than 100 Black soldiers seized weapons and marched into the city, where clashes erupted. The violence left 19 people dead. 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.
“What we tolerate is what we teach,” Barry said. “If we accept this 100-year-old miscarriage of justice as acceptable, that will influence what we do tomorrow.”
