Brownsville Texas Incident of 1906

In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt summarily discharged 167 black soldiers of the 25th Infantry without honor, without trial and without due process. It was the only instance of mass punishment in the history of the regular U.S. Army. The men were, in fact, innocent of any wrongdoing in what became known as the Brownsville (TX) Incident. Yet they had to live the rest of their lives with the shame and disgrace leveled upon them. In his memoir, "The Brownsville Texas Incident of 1906: The True and Tragic Story of a Black Battalion's Wrongful Disgrace and Ultimate Redemption," Lieutenant Colonel (ret) William Baker, tells the story of his quest to unearth the powerful and compelling evidence that would eventually exonerate those falsely accused men and give them the justice that had eluded them for more than 67 years. Through the words of the lone survivor, Dorsie Willis, "That dishonorable discharge kept me from Improving my station in life," he told the New York Times in 1977. "God knows what it did to the others."