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In the aftermath of reconstruction, African-Americans faced a difficult period of confronting rampant racial discrimination and racial violence. While slavery had ended with the civil war, any gains in the field of racial equality were modest at best. Even those African-Americans who served their country in the military, such as the "Buffalo Soldiers" (who had served alongside Theodore Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War) returned home to inequality and prejudice. While Theodore Roosevelt appeared to be a great reformer in many fields, his record in the advancement of the rights of African-Americans is equivocal. This became apparent in an incident known as the Brownsville Affair, an incident that arose out of tensions between African-American 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, the scales of justice were tipped against them, resulting in a number of wrongful convictions. When those wronged appealed to their President, they found no support.
On July 28, 1906, a group of African-American soldiers known as "Buffalo Soldiers", arrived at Ford Brown, near Brownsville, Texas. Their status as soldiers who had served their country honorably afforded them no relief from the legally sanctioned discriminatory treatment in the community.In early August of that year, a fight broke out between a black soldier and a local Brownsville night watchman. The night watchman was shot to death. It was said that the soldier went to town looking to provoke an incident with the night watchman. Local laws made it an offense for black soldiers to carry weapons into town. The killing occurred at a brothel where other soldiers were also present. When word of the killing spread, a large mob of armed whites immediately began to form. The black soldiers who were in town were chased and shot at by the white mob. The incident escalated and in the end three people were dead: one black soldier and two white males. The city of Brownsville barred members of the 25th Infantry from setting foot in the city again.
On the night of August 13, 1906, a white bartender was shot and killed and a Hispanic police officer was wounded. The residents of Brownsville blamed the black soldiers of the 25th Infantry at Fort Brown. The soldiers of the 25th Infantry were accused of the shootings. Their white commanders at Fort Brown confirmed that all of the soldiers were in their barracks at the time of the shootings. Brownsville's mayor and others claimed that some of the black soldiers had participated in the shooting. Suspicious evidence was presented from the shootings, including spent bullet cartridges that the prosecutors claimed came from Army rifles which belonged to soldiers from the 25th. Contradictory evidence demonstrated the spent shells were planted and not used in the shootings. Investigators rejected this and accepted the statements of the local whites and of the Brownsville mayor.
Soldiers of the 25th Infantry were pressured to name the men who fired the shots, but they maintained that they had no idea who had committed the crime. Captain Bill McDonald of the Texas Rangers investigated 12 enlisted men. The local county court did not return any indictments based on his investigation. Residents maintained their complaints about the black soldiers of the 25th.
At the recommendation of the Army's Inspector General, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered 167 of the black troops dishonorably discharged because of what he called their "conspiracy of silence". Six of the soldiers had been Medal of Honor recipients.This dishonorable discharge prevented these 167 men from ever working in a military or civil service capacity. Some of the soldiers had been in the U.S. Army for over twenty years, while others were extremely close to retirement with pensions, which they lost. Booker T. Washington, a leading African-American educator, asked President Roosevelt to reconsider his decision. Roosevelt refused to do so.
Many Americans of both races were outraged at Roosevelt for his decision. Roosevelt had previously enjoyed good political support among African-Americans. Roosevelt purposely withheld news of the discharge of the soldiers until after the 1906 Congressional elections, so that the pro-Republican black vote would not be affected. Many hoped that the judicious William Howard Taft would intervene, and Taft privately urged Roosevelt to reconsider, but Taft did not take a public stand against the decision for fear of adversely affecting his chance to be the next President.
Leaders of major African-American organizations, such as the Constitution League, the National Association of Colored Women, and the Niagara Movement tried to persuade Roosevelt not to discharge the soldiers, to no avail.
From 1907–1908, the US Senate Military Affairs Committee investigated the Brownsville Affair. In March of 1908 the majority supported Roosevelt's conclusion. Senator Joseph B. Foraker of Ohio had lobbied for the investigation and filed a minority report in support of the soldiers' innocence. His report was critical of Roosevelt's actions. Another minority report by four Republicans concluded that the evidence was too inconclusive to support the discharges. In September 1908, African-American activist W. E. B. Du Bois urged African-Americans to register to vote and to remember Roosevelt's handling of this incident.
Foraker was initially convinced of the guilt of the men. However he was presented with evidence obtained in a private investigation by an African-American attorney. The lawyer had tried to meet with Roosevelt to present the evidence, but Roosevelt refused to meet with him. Foraker was able to convince the Senate to investigate the Brownsville case, and got the body to pass a resolution requiring Secretary of War William Howard Taft to turn over information. Foraker unsuccessfully argued that the president lacked the authority to discharge the men.
At the Gridiron Dinner on January 27, Roosevelt gave a speech attacking Foraker and defended his own conduct in the Brownsville case. It was not customary to allow anyone to follow a president's speech, but Foraker was given the chance to reply. Foraker showed no deference to his President. He stated that one Sergeant had been dishonorably discharged even though "he was as innocent of any offense against the law of any kind whatever" and he said that Roosevelt was fully aware the soldiers had been wronged. He said, "I was seeking to provide for those men an opportunity to be heard in their own defense, to give them a chance to confront their accusers and cross-examine their witnesses, and establish the real facts in the case." Roosevelt spoke in angry rebuttal, underscoring that the matter had gotten personal between them.
On February 23, 1909 The Committee on Military Affairs recommended Bill S.5729, which for correction of records and reenlistment of Officers and men of Companies B,C, and D of the 25th Infantry. Unfortunately, Senator Foraker was defeated in his re-election bid for his senate seat. He continued to work on Brownsville in his remaining time in office, guiding a resolution through Congress to establish a board of inquiry with the power to reinstate the soldiers. Foraker had hoped for a requirement that unless specific evidence was shown against a man, he would be allowed to re-enlist. The bill, which passed both houses, only provided for the board of inquiry.
On March 6, 1909, shortly after he left the Senate, Joseph Foraker was honored at a mass meeting at Washington's Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. He told the crowd:
"I have said that I do not believe that a man in that battalion had anything to do with the shooting up of Brownsville, but whether any one of them had, it was our duty to ourselves as a great, strong, and powerful nation to give every man a hearing, to deal fairly and squarely with every man; to see to it that justice was done to him; that he should be heard."
On April 7, 1909 under the provisions of the Act of March 30, 1909 a Military Court of Inquiry was selected by Secretary of War Jacob M. Dickinson to report on the charges and recommend for reenlistment those who had been discharged. Of the 167 discharged men 76 were located as witness, but 6 did not wish to appear. The 1910 Court of Military Inquiry undertook an examination of the soldiers' bids for re-enlistment, in view of the Senate committee's reports. The members interviewed only about one-half of the soldiers discharged. It accepted 14 for re-enlistment, and 11 of these re-entered the Army.
In 1970, John D. Weaver published The Brownsville Raid, which investigated the affair. Weaver argued that the accused members of the 25th Infantry were innocent, and that they were discharged without benefit of due process of law as guaranteed by the United States Constitution. After reading his book, Congressman Augustus F. Hawkins of Los Angeles introduced a bill to have the Defense Department re-investigate the matter. In 1972, the Army found the accused members of the 25th Infantry innocent. On this recommendation, President Richard Nixon pardoned the men and awarded them honorable discharges without backpay. These were generally issued posthumously, as there were only two surviving soldiers: one had re-enlisted in 1910. In 1973, Congress passed a tax-free pension for the last survivor, Dorsie Willis, who received $25,000. He was honored in ceremonies in Washington, DC and Los Angeles.
A more recent book on this subject is Taking on Theodore Roosevelt: How One Senator Defied the President on Brownsville and Shook American Politics by Harry Lembeck, published on January 6, 2015.