Maj. Davidson Secures Punishment of Whites for Cruelty to Blacks
Court-martial Verdict Attracts Attention in South
Maj. Lester Davidson, Sioux City, of camp Robinson at Ruston, La., recently officiated as trail judge advocate (prosecutor) at a military trial which attracted considerable attention, the trail having taken place at Shreveport, La.
The defendants were two white members of the military police who had been court-martialed on charges that they had aided and abetted in the beating of a Negro soldier by a white civilian near Ruston during army maneuvers.
By ruling of the special court, the accused men were reduced from the rank of privates first class to privates, sentenced to serve one month at hard labor and fined two-thirds of a month’s salary.
The Shreveport Times gave the trial a write-up in considerable detail, indicating the significance apparently attached to the court’s ruling.
According to that newspaper, testimony was that the civilian, while driving a truck, got into a “cursing altercation: with two Negro soldiers on the sidewalk; that, when the civilian started to get out of his truck, one of the Negro Soldiers drew a knife and two Negro civilians in the truck held the white civilian in the truck; that the civilian reported the matter to a civilian policeman, and that the civilian policeman picked up two M.P.’s (military policemen) and took the offending Negro soldiers into custody.
It was alleged at the trail that the military policemen ordered the two Negro soldiers to get into the civil policeman’s car; that the Negro soldiers were driven into the woods, that there one of the Negro soldiers was ordered to get out of the car, and that the civilian truck driver then was allowed to beat the Negro soldier with a blackjack taken from one of the military policemen; that the military policemen did not report the matter to any senior officer.
In his closing speech, Maj. Davidson declared that the case involved a highly important principle of American citizenship. He said colored folks in the south had learned not to expect justice from white neighbors and that the verdict in this case would apprise them whether or not there was any more justice in the army and any more respect for the constitution and especially the bill of rights. He said persecution, intolerance and bullying were glorified in Germany and it was just such things the new United States Army was being organized to fight. If the Negro was to be treated unjustly not only in civil life, but in the army as well, why, asked Maj. Davidson, should he want to go to war to help prevent another country from treating white people the same way?
Maj. Davidson lives at 3111 Stone Park Boulevard and is a son of Mr. and Mrs. Abe Davidson, Bellevue Apartments.
Source: Sioux City Journal, Oct. 4, 1941 (photo included)
Off For Camp
Maj. Lester C. Davidson of the officers reserve corps Saturday received orders to report Monday at Ruston, La. for four weeks duty with the Second Army now on maneuvers. He will be attached to the legal staff. Maj. Davidson is a son of Mr. and Mrs. Abe Davidson, Bellevue Apartments, and lives at 3111 Stone Park Boulevard. He attended Northwestern, Leland Stanford and Michigan University. In the practice of law here he had charge of the litigation which resulted in putting parking meters out of business.
Source: The Sioux City Journal, September 14, 1942 (photo included)
