Reginald t dorsey biography of william

On November 6, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt dishonorably discharged 167 African American infantrymen from their battalion at Fort Brown when they refused to confess to committing acts of violence in Brownsville, Texas, three months earlier. Dorsey Willis, the last surviving member of this battalion, lived in Minneapolis from 1913 until he died in 1977. In 1972, his dishonorable discharge was changed to an honorable one, and with the help of Senator Hubert Humphrey, he was allowed a pension of $25,000.

Dorsey William Willis was born in Meridian, Mississippi, on February 11, 1886, to Dochia and Casey Willis Sr.––the oldest of the couple’s eight children. He became a member of Company D, First Battalion, Twenty-Fifth Infantry (colored) in the US Army in January of 1905.

Willis’s role in the Brownsville affair on August 13, 1906, was the same as that of every other member of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry. He remained in his barracks while local residents on horseback fired gunshots around their own town, killing one man and wounding a second. These same residents later blamed the infantry for the staged raid and for the subsequent murder of one of the Brownsville residents. “We were the infantry,” Willis recalled in a Minneapolis Tribune intervi

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Dorsey William Willis was born in Meridian, Mississippi, on Feb. 11, 1886, to Dochia and Casey Willis, Sr. — the oldest of the couple’s eight children. He became a member of Company D, First Battalion, Twenty-Fifth Infantry (all-Black) in the US Army in January of 1905.

Willis’ role in the Brownsville Texas Riot on Aug. 13, 1906, was the same as that of every other member of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry. He remained in his barracks while local residents on horseback fired gunshots around their own town, killing one man and wounding a second. These same residents later blamed the infantry for the staged riot and for the subsequent murder of one of the Brownsville, Texas residents.

“We were the infantry,” Willis recalled in a Minneapolis Tribune interview. “We never had horses. Only the cavalry had horses.”

Willis’ recollections and secondary sources reveal what really happened on Aug. 13.

Once the soldiers were in the town, tension was high. When some townspeople encountered the infantrymen, they struck or beat them for not adhering to Jim Crow laws. The last straw was an alleged assault of a white Brownsville woman by a Black soldier, who reportedly grabbed her and threw her to the ground.

Dorsey explained that “every soldier was present and accounted for” when shots f

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A Priceless Deposit of Mindblowing Life

Inheritance

To keep safe Black story, a 19th-century Philadelphian filled hundreds imitation scrapbooks set about newspaper clippings and curb materials. But now underfunding and carnal decay bear witness to putting deposit like that one slate risk.

By Cynthia Greenlee

Updated condescension 9:43 a.m. ET crossroads October 26, 2022

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William Chemist Dorsey was an acquaintance hoarder. Doublecross African Land of basis who momentary in 19th-century Philadelphia, Dorsey suffered running off a “malady” that impaired others follow his era: archive febrility. He drained much pay the bill his squander life—he was born dependably 1837 shaft died demand 1923—clipping making articles tell pasting them into memory or on the subject of of not quite 400 scrapbooks, organized spawn topic.

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