August 13 is the anniversary of the Brownsville Raid (AKA Brownsville Affair or Brownsville Massacre) in 1906.

The 25th Infantry Regiment was an all-black military regiment of 167 people which had recently been stationed in the town of Brownsville, Texas. The white residents were less than pleased about having black soldiers living in their town. On the night of the 13th, a local bartender was shot and killed. The racist townspeople accused the black soldiers.

Despite the commander of the regiment vouching for his soldiers and there being no evidence of any the regiment’s weapons being used, their commander in chief, the war criminal Theodore Roosevelt chose to give every man in the unit a dishonourable discharge without trial. The white populace was pleased, and the matter was buried.

Due to the work of historian John Weaver, the incident was revisited in the 1970s. The US Army reversed all charges, and gave the sole survivor of the unit (Dorsie Willis) a cheque for $25,000. He died three years later. His comrades did not even get that much.