Resolving an injustice

The two sentences on page 537 of the 2016 Texas history book for 7th graders are annoyingly anodyne.

"A riot in Houston involving African American soldiers and local residents resulted in 20 deaths. On questionable evidence, 19 soldiers were hanged for their part in the conflict."
"Resulted in 20 deaths"? Does that mean *killed*? What for? Why would *soldiers* be executed for it? What was "their part"? And what was "the conflict"?

I can just imagine a history teacher having to deal with this, but there's no time for that. "Never mind. We've got a lot to cover. Moving on."

But no. No, let's take a moment to discuss this. Because the Army just overturned the convictions of 110 Black soldiers charged with mutiny, assault, and murder, and I think it deserves some attention.
[Source]

The United States was at war, and Black soldiers were enlisting in the U.S. Army. White Texans, however, insisted that the federal soldiers honor state laws regarding segregation.

"The conflict" started when Houston police pistol-whipped and shot at a black corporal. The incident came "After weeks of racist taunts, harassment and beatings."
[Source]

"'The soldiers came to town with patriotism in their hearts, ready to serve their country faithfully,' Brig. Gen. Ronald Sullivan, chief judge with the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals, told the crowd Monday. 'But [they] were met with racist provocations and physical violence.'"

"A common racist epithet for Black people 'appears to have been employed in connection with almost every case of disorder,' a witness stated. The use of the word 'was invariably met by angry responses, outbursts of profanity and threats of vengeance.'"
[Source]

The provocations spurred "a group of more than 100 Black soldiers to seize weapons and leave camp, thinking that they were marching in their own self-defense," Undersecretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo said.

"Nineteen people, including four Black soldiers, were killed. Months later, represented by a single officer who was not yet an attorney, the Black soldiers stood trial, Camarillo said. After nearly a month, a court took two days to deliver the first of 58 convictions, resulting in 13 soldiers being hanged. Within a year, 52 more convictions and six more executions followed."

But there were "'many 'irregularities' in the way the charges were leveled," and so "the convictions were vacated and the records of the service members will now reflect honorable discharges."

"Angela Holder was 6 years old when she was shown a picture of her great-uncle, Cpl. Jesse Moore, who was one of the 13 soldiers hanged in 1917. She asked her great-aunt about him, and was told he had been 'killed by the Army in Houston.' Ms. Holder wanted to know more.

She learned from his record that he had been "terminated by death without honor."

But now that record is “no more,” she said in a telephone interview on Monday, and Corporal Moore’s record will reflect that he “served honorably.”

“Justice has been served,” she said, adding: “Words cannot express the joy that those words are going to be off that former record.”
[Source]