In Touch With Private Gerald Dixon, A Buffalo Soldier
By Betty Miller Buttram
FWIS Contributing Writer
The Walton Performing Arts Center located in Marion High School in Marion, Indiana on Saturday, October 26, 2024, honored and remembered lifelong resident Private Gerald Dixon. He was a member of the 24th Infantry Regiment Buffalo Soldiers. The Buffalo Soldiers were African American regiments in the United States Army that served from the Civil War through the Korean War. Not only was Dixon honored but also the other Buffalo Soldiers of the 24th and their stories. The stories revealed what had happened to them on August 23, 1917, at Camp Logan, and how they got caught up in the Houston/Camp Logan Riot of 1917. The U.S. Army laws declared the soldiers had committed crimes, and they were punished.
Gerald Dixon was born on October 14, 1896, in Seymour, Indiana and was the oldest of five siblings. At the age of 17, he enlisted in the U.S. Army at Columbus, IN. His military assignments took him to the Philippines, Alaska, Mexico, and his last assignment was at Camp Logan, in Houston, Texas. Camp Logan was one of the 34 training camps used for preparing troops for combat in World War I. The camp had 7,600 acres of land which consisted of a main camp, auxiliary remount depot, rifle range, artillery range and drill grounds. On July 27, 1917, the United States Army ordered the 3rd Battalion of the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment to guard the Camp Logan construction site. The regiment traveled to Houston by train from their camp at Columbus, New Mexico, accompanied by seven commissioned officers.
Members of the all-white Houston Police Department were hostile against the local Black community that had been established after the Civil War and hostile toward the Black soldiers stationed at Camp Logan. Jim Crow had its laws with its segregated accommodations and segregated drinking facilities at the construction site. The soldiers endured repeated racial taunts and engaged in several clashes with the Houston Police prior to the Houston/Camp Logan Riot. The soldiers sustained injuries after being beaten and attacked by Houston police. On August 23, 1917, chaos happened, and it started with the Houston Police.
Two Houston police officers fired warning shots to disrupt a gathering on a street corner in the Black community. People fled and the officers giving chase in hot pursuit burst into the home of a local Black woman named Sara Travers who knew nothing about what was happening. They did not believe her, dragged her from her house without her shoes, and she was arrested for hiding the folks that they were chasing. While at a patrol box calling in the arrest, Private Alonzo Edwards offered to take custody of Travers, and he was pistol-whipped repeatedly and arrested. Later that day, Corporal Charles Baltimore, an MP (Military Police) assigned to the 24th Infantry Regiment, approached the two Houston police officers, inquiring about Private Edwards. Baltimore was stuck with a pistol, three shots were fired at him, then he was beaten and arrested.
The soldiers at Camp Logan heard a rumor that Baltimore had been shot and killed. The soldiers immediately began meeting in small groups to vent their anger and eventually plotted their retaliation by initiating a battle with the Houston Police Department. An officer from the 24th Infantry Regiment retrieved the injured Baltimore from the police station and took him back to the camp. This calmed the soldiers for a moment, but they soon received reports of impending violence approaching the camp by an angry white mob. Reacting to the treatment of Corporal Baltimore and the overt racial discrimination, about 150 Black troops marched for two hours through Houston and a violent confrontation ensued between them and the local white residents. By the time the riot ceased, 17 people were dead, including four police officers, nine civilians, and two soldiers.
The U.S. Army had three courts-martial following the Houston/Camp Logan Riot and found 110 African Americans soldiers guilty of mutiny.
There was the hanging of 13 soldiers on December 11, 1917, including Corporal Charles Baltimore. The soldiers were buried in unmarked graves, their surnames were written on paper placed in soda bottles that were buried with each man. Sixty-three soldiers received life sentences at U. S. Army Prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. In 1937, the remains of the 13 executed soldiers were exhumed from their unmarked graves and reburied with military headstones in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the release of the last rioters still in prison.
Private Dixon was sentenced to life in prison. It was reduced to 20 years. He served seven years and was released on parole. On November 13, 2023, the U.S. Army set aside the convictions of the 110 soldiers and granted honorable discharges.
Gerald Dixon passed away on October 27, 1967, and was buried in a private ceremony. Dixon was reinterred at Marion National Cemetery with full military honors on Monday, October 28, 2024.
This story about the 3rd Battalion 24th Infantry Regiment has been hidden in history books. The true cause of the Houston/Camp Logan Riot was the firing of the shots into a gathering by two police officers fueled by racism. Much of African American history is hidden between the years 1865-1965; one hundred years of African American stories of struggles.
Camp Logan does not exist today. It closed on March 20, 1919. In May 1924, the city of Houston took ownership of the land to use as a “memorial” as a tribute to the soldiers who fought in Europe in World War I. The 24th Infantry Regiment did not fight in Europe in World War I.
There is a Camp Logan Marker in Memorial Park which includes the statement that the 3rd Battalion 24th Infantry assisted to guard the Camp revolted in response to Houston’s Jim Crow laws and police harassment which resulted in the Camp’s mutiny and riot on August 23, 1917.
It took the U.S. Army over a century to set aside these convictions. It was determined that the soldiers were wrongly convicted because of their race, and they had not been given fair trials.