Taking on Theodore Roosevelt: How One Senator Defied the President on Brownsville and Shook American Politics

In August 1906, black soldiers stationed in Brownsville, Texas, were accused of going on a lawless rampage in which shots were fired, one man was killed, and another wounded. Because the perpetrators could never be positively identified, President Theodore Roosevelt took the highly unusual step of discharging without honor all one hundred sixty-seven members of the black battalion on duty the night of the shooting.This book investigates the controversial action of an otherwise much-lauded p...