The Making of the Houston Martyrs

Retelling the story of the largest group murder trial in American history—that of the 110 Black soldiers convicted by court-martial in the aftermath of the so-called Houston Riot of 1917—The Making of the Houston Martyrs uncovers the meaning of justice in a time of war. In centering the ambiguities and contradictions of this case, the book is about larger struggles over police and military authority and jurisdiction as they appear in three relationships between prisons and policing in wartime: the consolidation and normalization of military control over civilians, the scripted use of police-military authority in the quelling of American race riots, and the crosscurrents of military imprisonment as part of the legacy of domestic policing and punishment in the United States. The Making of the Houston Martyrs widens the historical lens of prison studies and police studies to account for different forms of legal status produced in war and normalized in peace, telling an abolitionist history of state punitive power and a study of its reflections in American political thought.

Sara M. Benson received her PhD in politics and feminist studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She teaches political theory and political science at San José State University. Her first book was The Prison of Democracy: Race, Leavenworth, and the Culture of Law.