World War I and Houston (1900-1926, Section 7)
1914
Europe was plunged into World War I. The United States formally entered the conflict three years later. The war was fought in Europe, but life on the home front also changed dramatically.
In Houston, underlying racial tensions erupted in violence on August 23, 1917 with the Camp Logan Riot. Local police had repeatedly harassed and abused African-American soldiers stationed at Camp Logan just outside of Houston. White police officers and other city workers failed to show the black soldiers respect, fearing local black citizens would demand the same regard. “During the summer of 1917 the number of incidents involving police brutality reached frightening proportions.” 1 Tensions simmered for weeks, but the arrest of a black corporal who had defended an African-American woman against the police sparked the riot. During the riot nineteen people died; another 15 were wounded. After the riot, nineteen supposedly mutinous soldiers were court-martialed, sentenced to death, and hanged. Another 63 black soldiers received life sentences. No white civilians were tried. African Americans at the time and historians in the following decades considered the convictions unjustifiable.
One year later the entire nation became embroiled in a different worldwide drama. A strain of influenza, or flu, called Spanish Influenza made its way across the globe infecting hundreds of millions and killing some thirty million worldwide. In the United States, complications of Spanish Influenza led to an estimated 675,000 deaths. The flu first hit the United States at Camp Devens near Boston in August 1918. Houston experienced the first wave of the flu in early October. Schools, theaters, and churches temporarily closed in an effort to stifle the spread of the disease. Some 34,000 Houstonians succumbed to the illness in the first wave. It is unknown how many died in the subsequent waves. The disease often spread most quickly and proved deadliest among people between the ages of 20 and 30, in part, because so many young men had joined the military. Due to the close quarters, the army was not always able “to prevent the spread of communicable diseases.” Members of the armed forces suffered disproportionately high incidences of disease.
Houstonians participated in the war effort on many fronts. Among them, Dr. George Washington Antoine served in the medical corps. African-American physician Dr. Benjamin Covington developed an influenza vaccine and the Army Medical Corps quickly secured his formula for the troops at the close of World War I. However, the many vaccines in use at the time proved particularly ineffective in halting the influenza.
Citations
- Robert V. Hayes, A Night of Violence: The Houston Riot of 1917 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1976)