The Senator and the Sharecropper's Son: Exoneration of the Brownsville SoldiersTexas A&M University Press, 1997 - 271 pages A mysterious midnight shooting spree that began on a dirt road in Texas between Brownsville and Fort Brown on August 13, 1906, killed one civilian and shattered the lives of 167 black infantrymen who had been summarily discharged without honor by a stroke of President Theodore Roosevelt's pen. In The Senator and the Sharecropper's Son, John D. Weaver completes the task he began with his 1970 book The Brownsville Raid, which, two years later, led to the soldiers' exoneration. Weaver now traces the intertwined lives of Ohio's Senator Joseph B. Foraker, who risked his political career in an eloquent defense of the soldiers, who "asked no favors because they are Negroes but only for justice because they are men"; of Dorsie Willis, the Mississippi sharecropper's son who emerged from obscurity as the black battalion's last survivor; and of the New York aristocrat who linked the fates of those two men--the flamboyant and popular Theodore Roosevelt. Weaver's narrative explores these tangled lives against the background of "the color line," which W. E. B. Du Bois defined in 1903 as "the problem of the twentieth century." The Senator and the Sharecropper's Son gives a powerful human dimension to the facts of history. The senator committed political suicide by championing the men caught up in this "Black Dreyfus Affair" and Dorsie Willis, who spent fifty-nine years shining shoes in a downtown Minneapolis barbershop, told a reporter, "That dishonorable discharge kept me from improving my station. Only God knows what it done to the others." |
Contents
| 3 | |
| 19 | |
| 30 | |
4 Slavery must be the greatest of crimes | 42 |
5 No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumphs of war | 54 |
6 what it is like when the wolf rises in the heart | 64 |
7 Theres only one life between this madman and the White House | 73 |
8 He laughed with glee at the power and place that had come to him | 82 |
13 The malice of politics would make you miserable | 134 |
14 Hes weak Theyll get around him | 150 |
15 whether Taft or the Titanic is likely to be the furthestreaching disaster | 162 |
16 It will take a very big man to solve this thing | 170 |
17 The Champion of People Who Had No Champion | 183 |
Afterword | 198 |
Bibliographic Essay | 215 |
Notes | 219 |
9 Prof Booker T Washington was in the city yesterday and dined with the President | 90 |
10 Regret to report serious shooting in Brownsville | 101 |
11 It is even more important to protect Americans in America | 110 |
12 They ask no favors because they are Negroes | 120 |
Bibliography | 247 |
Index | 259 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
administration agreed American appointment army asked bill Bois brought Brownsville Busy called campaign candidate citizens Cleveland Colonel colored Company Congress court Democrats Dorsie election father feel fight Foraker Foraker's four given governor hand Hanna Harding Hayes Henry History honor hope Ibid interest January John Joseph Joseph Benson Foraker Julia justice later Letters of Theodore Live Lodge looked March McKinley months Morison morning mother Negro never night nomination noted Ohio party pointed political president president's Press Pringle race recalled Record replied reported Republican returned secretary Senator sent Sherman soldiers South southern speech Taft Theodore Roosevelt thing thought tion told took turned United vote Walters wanted Washington weeks White House Willis World wrote York young
Popular passages
Page 162 - Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
Page 72 - Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife ! To all the sensual world proclaim, One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name.
Page 163 - The man who wrongly holds that every human right is secondary to his profit must now give way to the advocate of human welfare, who rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.
Page 14 - Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against the brazen foreheads of the defamers of his country and the maligners of his honor.
Page 54 - Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: 'You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.
Page 50 - We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.
Page 158 - But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.
Page 101 - The men with the muck-rakes are often indispensable to the well-being of society; but only if they know when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them, to the crown of worthy endeavor.
Page 60 - Order the squadron, except the Monocacy, to Hong Kong. Keep full of coal. In the event of declaration of war Spain, your duty will be to see that the Spanish squadron does not leave the Asiatic coast, and then offensive operations in Philippine Islands.
Page 56 - We want no wars of conquest ; we must avoid the temptation of territorial aggression. War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed ; peace is preferable to war in almost every contingency.