Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 253, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 November 1917 — Negro Soldiers Go On War Path At Montgomery, Aia. [ARTICLE]

Negro Soldiers Go On War Path At Montgomery, Aia.

Quick work by the military police, coupled with the determination of Major John C. Fulton, commander of the Tenth' training battalion (negroes), prevented probably serious trouble when some of the negro soldiers became excited over the report that one of their number had been captured by a mob. For a time there was danger of a race riot, but the military police took the situatipn in hand and at midnight everything was quiet, with most of the soldiers in quarters and a cordon out with orders to arrest and hold all stragglers. The trouble started when Jim Long, a negro chauffeur, was arrested after running into a white woman. Long was taken to the police station and released on bond, but the negroes heard that “a soldier is being token out to be lynched,” ana started out to rescue their companion. As the soldiers started through the streets they were joined with several hundred others with a large number of white persons. Military police went to the center of the disturbance and sent about seventy of the soldiers to headquarters for interrogation. They were later sent to the camp under guard. Major Fulton says that the matter will be threshed down to the very bottom.