The Other Great Migration: The Movement of Rural African Americans to Houston, 1900-1941

Chapter Four. “That Was Their Protection and Safeguard”: Houston’s “New Negro,” 1917–1941

Against the wishes of local Whites, commissioned officers, military officials , and African American troops themselves, the United States Army ordered the segregated Third Battalion—Companies I, K, L, and M of the Twenty-fourth Infantry—to Houston for a tour of guard duty at the construction site of Camp Logan (now Memorial Park). Located three miles west of downtown and named for Mexican War and Civil War veteran Maj. John A. Logan, the isolated, forested training facility cost the War Department nearly $2,000,000 to complete. It served as one of sixteen temporary cantonments for the war effort, specifically for the training of national guards units entering active duty. Army officials saw Camp Logan and Ellington Field, an aviation school built the same year and just south of the city, as ideal training centers, mainly because of their proximity to Houston. Houston’s comfortable climate, dependable transportation facilities , location to the Gulf of Mexico, and the Gulf Sea’s propinquity to the strategically important Panama Canal all influenced the War Department’s decision to construct the Army National Guard cantonment.1 Generating an estimated $1,000,000 in revenue for the city each month, the camp pleased Houston’s civic and business elite, even after learning of the army’s decision to deploy African American troops to guard the construction site. To be sure, many were outraged. Some suggested the presence of the soldiers would spur violence against the city’s African American population. Most felt Houston Whites would never respect the men as professional soldiers under any circumstances. In the end, protests were of no avail. Secretary of War Newton Baker, although aware of the potential powder keg that awaited the regiment on their arrival in Houston , felt racial norms had no place in military directives. Besides, argued Baker, African Americans were indispensable to the United States Armed four ~ “That Was Their Protection and Safeguard” Houston’s “New Negro,” 1917–1941 Chapter Four 142 Services and had been since the Revolutionary War. This was especially true of those in uniform in the last half-century, including members of the Twenty-Fourth Infantry who would invigorate Houston’s African American community, who truly desired civil liberties, economic security, and social acceptance.2 “We’d Seen Black Men in Captains’ Uniforms!” World War I provided African Americans with the prospect to prove their allegiance to their country. In 1918, scholar-activist and NAACP Crisis magazine editor W. E. B. Du Bois urged people of color to “close ranks” and, at least for the time being, support the Allied Forces in their effort to defeat the Central Powers of Europe.3 Blacks did just that: An estimated four hundred thousand wore uniforms; almost one million worked as wartime factory personnel; and many more, as loyal supporters of the war effort, rallied behind the United States. Some 380,000 men served in the Armed Forces during World War I, of which 367,710 were drafted, serving primarily in the American Expeditionary Force’s Services of Supply (SOS) units—stevedore regiments, engineer service battalions, butchery companies , pioneer infantry battalions, and labor battalions. Black troops served in professional capacities and as chaplains, clerks, intelligence officers, surveyors , attorneys, drafters, and physicians, as well as in other capacities, and over one thousand earned commissions as officers. In addition, fortytwo thousand men fought in the Ninety-Second and Ninety-Third Combat Divisions, serving in the French Army. France awarded members of the Ninety-Third Division more than 500 Croix de Guerre, Distinguished Service Cross, and Legion of Honor medals for their service. Still, in the end African American patriotism and valor did little to diminish racial hatred abroad and at home. This was especially true in the South.4 Most White Houstonians resented the presence of armed African American soldiers in their city. People particularly loathed what they perceived as recalcitrance and arrogance within the military outfit. Although the city’s three major newspapers, the Chronicle, Post, and Press, praised the experienced infantry for their past military victories and superior marksmen skills, editorials, and stories also kept in the news negative incidents involving the battalion—drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrests. Clergy reminded Houstonians of the need to pass a prohibition ordinance, especially in light of the men’s proximity to White houston’s “new negro” 143 neighborhoods. Houstonians also expressed consternation over the War Department’s decision to send three thousand African American Illinois...