The Making of the Houston Martyrs

Retelling the story of the largest group murder trial in American history—that of the 110 Black soldiers convicted by court-martial in the aftermath of the so-called Houston Riot of 1917—The Making of the Houston Martyrs uncovers the meaning of justice in a time of war. In centering the ambiguities and contradictions of this case, the book grapples with larger struggles over police and military authority and jurisdiction as manifested in three relationships between prisons and policing in wartime: the consolidation and normalization of military control over civilians, the scripted use of police-military authority in the quelling of American race riots, and the crosscurrents of military imprisonment as part of the legacy of domestic policing and punishment in the United States. The Making of the Houston Martyrs widens the historical lens of prison and police studies to account for different forms of legal status produced in war and normalized in peace, telling an abolitionist history of state punitive power and its reflections in American political thought.

Sara M. Benson received her PhD in politics and feminist studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She teaches political theory and political science at San José State University and is the author of The Prison of Democracy: Race, Leavenworth, and the Culture of Law.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Troubling Riot Discourse

1. Legal Subjects, Riot Law Formations, and the Insularity of Military Justice

2. The 24th on Trial: Rituals of Mourning in Carceral Houston

3. Is Houston Exceptional? The Script of the American Race Riot

4. The Making of the Houston Martyrs: An Archive of a Movement

Conclusion: Making Amends: The Houston Martyrs and the Obsolescence of War

Notes

Bibliography

Index