Brownsville Affair
| Date | August 1906 |
|---|---|
| Location | Brownsville, Texas, United States |
| Also known as | Brownsville Raid |
| Deaths | 1 |
The Brownsville Affair, or the Brownsville Raid, was a racial incident that arose out of tensions between black soldiers and white citizens in Brownsville, Texas, in 1906. When a white bartender was killed and a police officer wounded by gunshot, townspeople accused the members of the 25th Infantry Regiment, a unit of Buffalo Soldiers stationed at nearby Fort Brown. Although commanders said the soldiers had been in the barracks all night, evidence was planted against them.
As a result of a United States Army Inspector General's investigation, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the dishonorable discharge of 167 soldiers of the 25th Infantry Regiment, costing them pensions and preventing them from serving in civil service jobs. A renewed investigation in the early 1970s exonerated the discharged black troops. The government pardoned them and restored their records to show honorable discharges but did not provide retroactive compensation.
Since arriving at Fort Brown on July 28, 1906, the black soldiers had been required to follow the legal color line mandate from white citizens of Brownsville, which included separate accommodation for black people and white people, showing respect for white people, and respect for local laws.
A reported attack on a white woman during the night of August 12 so incensed many townspeople that Maj. Charles W. Penrose, after consultation with Mayor Frederick Combe, declared an early curfew the following day to avoid trouble.
On the night of August 13, 1906, gunshots killed a white bartender and wounded a Hispanic police officer in the town. Immediately the residents of Brownsville cast the blame on the black soldiers of the 25th Infantry at Fort Brown. The soldiers of the 25th Infantry were accused of the shootings, but the all-white commanders at Fort Brown confirmed that all of the soldiers were in their barracks at the time of the shootings. Local whites, including Brownsville's mayor, still claimed that some of the black soldiers participated in the shooting.
Local townspeople of Brownsville began providing evidence of the 25th Infantry's part in the shooting by producing spent bullet cartridges from Army rifles which they said belonged to the 25th's men. Despite the contradictory evidence that demonstrated the spent shells were planted in order to frame men of the 25th Infantry's role in the shootings, investigators accepted the statements of the local whites and the Brownsville mayor.
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