2024-01 Raynors Americana Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/20/2024
A pinback, 1-1/4" diameter, at the center is an illustration of four Black soldiers below of which is "Discharged Without Honor, and around the illustration "REMEMBER BROWNSVILLE". A few spots on the rim, some rusting on the back and pin. Still a remarkable pinback. The Brownsville affair, or the Brownsville raid, was an incident of racial discrimination that occurred in 1906 in the Southwestern United States due to resentment by white residents of Brownsville, Texas, of the Buffalo Soldiers, black soldiers in a segregated unit stationed at nearby Fort Brown. When a white bartender was killed and a white police officer wounded by gunshots one night, townspeople accused the members of the African-American 25th Infantry Regiment. Although their commanders said the soldiers had been in the barracks all night, evidence was allegedly planted against the men. As a result of a United States Army Inspector General's investigation, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the discharge without honor of 167 soldiers of the 25th Infantry Regiment, costing them pensions and preventing them from ever serving in federal civil service jobs. The case aroused national outrage in both black and white communities. After more investigation, several of the men were allowed to re-enlist.
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