As illustration of this resentment one could quote much from the spoken and the written word of the Negroes. But a poem, or part of a poem, may suffice. It is Archibald Grimké’s “Thirteen Black Soldiers.” The 24th United States Infantry, a Negro regiment, was sent to Houston, Texas, and was received with lack of sympathy and some hostility by the population. A series of petty troubles culminated in a riot and mutiny. Sixty-four Negroes were court-martialled, and thirteen were sentenced to death, and hanged. It seems to show a lack of foresight to station a Negro regiment among such a hostile people as the Texans. They are more the enemies of the Negroes than were the Germans, and there was certainty of trouble. Grimké’s poem expresses the boiling resentment to which I have referred. She hanged them, her thirteen black soldiers, She hanged them for mutiny and murder, She hanged them after she had put on them her uniform, After she had put on them her uniform, the uniform of her soldiers, She told them they were to be brave, to fight and, if needs be, to die for her. This was many years before she hanged them, her thirteen black soldiers. She told them to go there and they went, To come here and they came, her brave black soldiers. For her they went without food and water, For her they suffered cold and heat, For her they marched by day, For her they watched by night, For her in strange lands they stood fearless, For her in strange lands they watched shelterless, For her in strange lands they fought, For her in strange lands they bled, For her they faced fevers and fierce men, For her they were always and everywhere ready to die. And now she has hanged them, her thirteen black soldiers. For murder and mutiny she hanged them in anger and hate, Hanged them in secret and dark and disgrace, In secret and dark she disowned them, In secret and dark buried them and left them in nameless disgrace. Why did she hang them, her thirteen black soldiers?