Brownsville, Texas
At the dawn of the 20th century, Brownsville boasted around 7,000 inhabitants. It was the seat of Cameron County, and a railroad line from Corpus Christi to Houston connected Brownsville’s people to the metropolitan centers of the day. The local newspaper enjoyed a robust following, and the town’s mostly Mexican police force had recently been reformed and issued uniforms, in blue for winter and in khaki for summer.
The town citizens considered themselves quite racially tolerant, although the town’s small Black population was strictly forbidden from drinking at any of the three bars run by the White residents, and most of the Mexican population worked menial jobs and lived in poverty on the outskirts of town. However, when word came that Fort Brown was to be manned by 3 companies of Black soldiers, Anglo and Mexican townsfolk alike reacted with horror, anger, and a deep seated desire to run the soldiers out of town at the slightest provocation.
Companies B and C of the 25th Infantry rode into Fort Brown on July 28th, 1906. The third company, Company A was set to join them soon. Their commanding officer, Major Charles Penrose, wrote about their arrival:
People were standing along the streets, but there were no smiling faces or anything of that kind, as you might imagine when you are coming to a new post a little hand clapping or a little cheering sometimes. There was nothing like that.
At their new posting, the soldiers were subject to repeated indignities, from being refused service at the town’s White owned businesses to one soldier, Private James Newton, being pistol whipped by a White customs inspector for not stepping off the sidewalk into the street when passing a group of White women. Despite these provocations, the soldiers caused significantly less trouble in town than had the White regiment that preceded them. When payday came and the soldiers packed the Mexican run bars, even Brownsville’s mayor and police chief were forced to admit that it was the quietist, most orderly payday they had ever witnessed. Not a single fight broke out, and no arrests were made.