Compensation Is Owed To The Descendants Of The Third Battalion/24th Regiment US "Buffalo Soldiers" -- In Houston's Organized Lynchings -- With Thanks To Anon. For Alerting Me!

Nope. I've not mentioned this one, before -- but my erstwhile Anon. commenter is absolutely right. It both belongs here, and represents justice too long denied, by the US Army.

Of course, this was little more than organized mass lynching, down in Houston, as the US entered WWI. It is. . . disgusting. And we all retain. . . a sworn duty to make amends. Here's The Guardian (UK) on it all -- and a bit:

. . .Christine Wormuth, the secretary of the army, said in the statement that the move marked the army’s acknowledgment of past mistakes and sets the record straight.

“After a thorough review, the board has found that these soldiers were wrongly treated because of their race and were not given fair trials,” Wormuth said.

Military records will be corrected to the extent possible to recognize service as honorable and their families might be eligible for compensation, according to the army.

In August 1917, four months after the US entered the first world war, soldiers of the all-Black Third Battalion of the US army’s 24th Infantry Regiment, also known as the Buffalo Soldiers, marched into Houston where clashes erupted following racial provocations.

The regiment had been sent to Houston to guard Camp Logan, which was under construction for the training of white soldiers who would be sent to France during the first world war. The city was then governed by Jim Crow laws and tensions boiled over. . . .

Out of 118 soldiers, 110 were found guilty in the largest murder trial in US history. Nineteen of them were hanged.

According to the army’s statement, the first executions happened secretly a day after sentencing. It led to immediate regulatory changes prohibiting future executions without review by the war department and the president. . . .

Our history is sordid, indeed -- and is widely littered with such atrocities. Damn. Just. . . damn.

And lest you cluck-cluck, that "that was then". . . even as late as Summer 2020, Houston's National Museum For The Buffalo Soldiers was still being sporadically vandalized -- with racists' slogans (including a swastika, and a misspelled word for Democrats -- not exactly geniuses). See above.

So, yes -- we still have a long way to go -- now, let us all. . . resolve to do better. Onward.

नमस्ते