The 24th (2020)

 

            “The 24^th” is a motion picture about the infamous Houston Riot of 1917. It was directed and co-written by Kevin Willmot who also wrote the screenplay for “Da 5 Bloods”.  It started with the 24^th Regiment, an all-black unit led by white officers, arrives outside Houston to guard the construction of a training camp. A camp that will train white soldiers before they go to the Western Front in France. The men of the 24^th want to go also, but the Army does not plan on putting them in combat. Their commanding officer, Col. Norton (Thomas Haden Church) is not a bigot and it has hit the ceiling in his career and his hopes for combat because he is loyal to his men. His second in command represents the majority of white officers who commanded black units in WWI and WWII. The movie focuses on a few of the blacks, especially Corporal Boston (Trai Byers). He is more intelligent than his peers and Norton urges him to go to officer training. Boston has a bad relationship with Private Walker (Mo McRae) who considers him to be an Uncle Tom and who resents his intelligence. Their relationship reminds of Searles and Trip in “Glory” with Norton resembling  Col. Shaw. The unit’s sergeant is named Hayes (Mykelti Williamson) is a lifer who has given up on the Army treating blacks well.

            Almost as soon as they get to the camp, they are harassed by the white construction workers who are led by a flaming racist. Boston tries the “you are talking to an American soldier” route which is met with jeers. You may be wearing a uniform, but you still are a n-word. He gets beaten when he refuses to give up his seat on a train. “Jim Crow is the law here.” When the white racist kills a black man, the local sheriff lets him out of jail.  Nortan is sympathetic, but he can’t change the system. And then he reluctantly agrees to a promotion to a white unit heading for France. The new commander, his exec Major Lockhart, is a bigot. With Norton gone, things spiral out of control. When a rumor hits the camp that a soldier was killed by cops and Boston is in jail, the blacks arm themselves. Sgt. Hayes changes his tune and leads the men into Houston because they are fed up with the treatment. This results in the killing of some police and civilians. The movie concludes with the court martial.

            “The 24^th” is a low budget movie that sincerely wants to bring a forgotten event in American History to the screen. Most Americans are not aware of the riot which resulted in the largest murder trial in the history of the Army. The 369^th Infantry Regiment (the Harlem Hellfighters) has gotten good coverage as the most famous unit to fight in the trenches. It was loaned to the French army because Gen. Pershing did not have confidence in black troops. That discrimination was slight compared to what black soldiers faced in the U.S. if they were stationed in the South. “The 24^th” has some truly despicable whites, but when I attempt to describe them as cartoonish villains, I have to remind myself that there were people like that. When black soldiers were treated like scum in spite of serving their country, you wonder what took them so long to snap. You will root for them to get payback, but the movie accurately portrays their actions as murder.

            The characters are all stereotypes, but the cast is decent. The focus on Boston was wise and his romance with a black woman feels real. Not surprisingly, there is a love triangle involving Walker. Church is the big star in the cast and his character is appealing as the rare white officer who treats his men as equals. The film has the feel of a Hallmark movie and the sincerity can be a bit cloying, but as a history lesson is has a lot to offer. As you can see below, it is an accurate depiction of the mutiny and although the scenes before that are probably fictional, it does a good job of showing why the soldiers were provoked. And I have to credit the movie with not justifying what the soldiers did that night. It was murder and not justified, but understandable.

GRADE = C

HISTORICAL ACCURACY:  The film is admirably accurate. The riot is also known as the Camp Logan Mutiny, which fits because that is what the soldiers did. The unit was actually the 3^rd Battalion of the 24^th Infantry Regiment (one of the original all-black units created for the Indian Wars, hence the name Buffalo Soldiers). The treatment they received from the white community and especially the all-white Houston Police Department is accurate. Most of the main characters are real, but with the names changed. On August 23, 1917, policemen Lee Sparks and Rufus Daniels fired shots to break up a peaceful crowd in a black neighborhood. When the blacks fled, Sparks chased and ended up breaking into a home where he found a black woman. He pulled her out of the house to arrest her. Private Alonzo Edwards intervened and offered to take custody of the woman. He was pistol-whipped and arrested. Later that day, Corporal Charles Baltimore (obviously Boston in the movie) approached Sparks to ask about Edwards, he was hit by Sparks’ pistol and ran with shots chasing him. He was found hiding under a bed and taken to jail. At the camp, rumor spread that Baltimore had been killed. His comrades were in the process of arming themselves when a white officer arrived with Baltimore. Maj. Snow assembled the men and warned them about taking action that they would regret. One of the men had a rifle hidden and he fired a shot and yelled that there was a white mob shooting at them. The blacks mutinied and armed themselves. 155 men, led by a Sgt. Vida Henry, marched into Houston. They fired at any houses with lights on. They fired at cars. The HPD cops were poorly organized and outgunned so encounters led to the deaths of 5 policemen. Things turned when some of the blacks fired on a car killing a National Guard officer. This caused the soldiers to realize they had crossed a line. They went back to the camp. Outside the camp, Henry committed suicide. The men turned themselves in. The movie was correct that 63 soldiers were charged with murder and 58 were found guilty. 41 were given life with hard labor and 13 were hanged, including Baltimore.