SAN ANTONIO — In 1917, during the Jim Crow era, members of the All-Black 24th Infantry Regiment, which served in Mexico and the Phillipines were sent to Houston to guard a training camp.
A series of run-ins with white police and a false rumor the solders were going to be attacked set off a race riot. 13 Black soldiers convicted of mutiny and murder were killed.
It was the largest mass execution in the history of the Army. All were given no chance of appeal, nor the right to a fair trial.
A century later, the Army determined that all convictions should have been overturned.
The gallows were built on what is now the Fort Sam Houston Golf Course. The bodies were buried in a row, a short distance away, memorialized only by a date: December 11, 1917.
KENS 5 Photographer Jeff Johnsey recently stood by family members who watched as proper headstones for the unjustly executed were unveiled.
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