Brownsville Affair (redirected from Brownsville Incident)

Brownsville Affair

Racial incident in 1906 in Brownsville, Texas, involving white citizens of Brownsville and African American soldiers stationed at nearby Fort Brown. On the evening of August 13–14, rifle shots on a street in Brownsville killed one white man and wounded another. The mayor and other whites accused African American soldiers of the crime. Though their white officers stated that the soldiers were in their barracks, investigators accepted the mayor's version, and Pres. Theodore Roosevelt ordered dishonourable discharges for 167 African American soldiers for their alleged conspiracy of silence. In 1972 a congressional investigation cleared the soldiers of guilt.