Army sets aside convictions of Black soldiers in 1917 Houston riot

Dozens of Black soldiers implicated in the 1917 Houston riot now have new legacies.

Driving the news: The U.S. Army set aside the court-martial ruling convicting 110 soldiers over the deadly event, the military branch announced Monday.

Why it matters: The historic move, first reported by the Houston Chronicle, characterizes their service as honorable and paves the way for the soldiers' descendants to receive military benefits.

Catch up fast: While standing guard over the new Camp Logan in the summer of 1917, members of the all-Black 3rd Battalion of the 24th Infantry Regiment endured months of racist ridicule and encounters with Houston police enforcing Jim Crow laws.

• On Aug. 23, 1917, two soldiers were beaten and arrested after interfering with the violent arrest of a Black woman by Houston police.
• That, along with rumored additional violence against the battalion, led more than 100 soldiers to take up arms and march into the streets of Houston.
• Clashes with residents and police ultimately left 19 people dead.

The Army convicted 110 soldiers of mutiny, assault and murder, executing 19 of them, including some within a day of sentencing.

What happened: Members of the South Texas College of Law asked the Army to overturn the convictions in 2020, saying the mass trial was fraught with errors.

• That included a lack of evidence to convict many of the defendants and an incompetent lawyer, according to University of Houston historian Dr. Gerald Horne.

The latest: The Army held a special ceremony at Houston's Buffalo Soldiers National Museum on Monday commemorating the move.

• Two of the soldiers' descendants were in attendance, per the Chronicle.

What they're saying: "With the support of our experts, our dedicated board members looked at each record carefully and came up with our best advice to Army leaders to correct a miscarriage of justice," Michael Mahoney, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for review boards, said in a press release.

• "It's never too late to do the right thing," Horne tells Axios. "However, they should not have been convicted in the first instance. It was a travesty of justice, but better late than never."