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Willis, Dorsey (1886–1977)

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Dorsey Willis

Dorsey Willis in December 1972. Photograph by John Croft for the Minneapolis Tribune. From box 317 of the Minneapolis and St. Paul newspaper negatives collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

On November 6, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt dishonorably discharged 167 African American infantrymen from their battalion at Fort Brown when they refused to confess to committing acts of violence in Brownsville, Texas, three months earlier. Dorsey Willis, the last surviving member of this battalion, lived in Minneapolis from 1913 until he died in 1977. In 1972, his dishonorable discharge was changed to an honorable one, and with the help of Senator Hubert Humphrey, he was allowed a pension of $25,000.

Dorsey William Willis was born in Meridian, Mississippi, on February 11, 1886, to Dochia and Casey Willis Sr.––the oldest of the couple’s eight children. He became a member of Company D, First Battalion, Twenty-Fifth Infantry (colored) in the US Army in January of 1905.

Willis’s role in the Brownsville affair on August 13, 1906, was the same as that of every other member of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry. He remained in his barracks while local residents on horseback fired gunshots around their own town, killing one man and wounding a second. These same residents later blamed the infantry for the staged raid and for the subsequent murder of one of the Brownsville residents. “We were the infantry,” Willis recalled in a Minneapolis Tribune interview. “We never had horses. Only the cavalry had horses.”

Willis’s recollections and secondary sources reveal what really happened on August 13. Once the soldiers were in the town, tension was high. When some townspeople encountered the infantrymen, they struck or beat them for not adhering to Jim Crow laws. The last straw was an alleged assault of a white Brownsville woman by an African American soldier, who reportedly grabbed her and threw her to the ground.

Dorsey explained that “every soldier was present and accounted for” when shots from the raid rang out. But regardless of their statements, the soldiers were sent to Fort Reno, Oklahoma, arrested, and subsequently dishonorably discharged by President Theodore Roosevelt because of what he called their “conspiracy of silence”––their refusal to confess to the alleged part they played in the affair.

Following his discharge, Willis remained in Oklahoma, where he met and married Lucille Jordan and started a family. His son Reginald Haines Willis was born there in September 1907, and a year later, his father, Casey Willis, died. Dorsey moved to Kansas in 1910, but he made his way back to Oklahoma in 1912, and he left the state for good in 1913.

Willis found himself in Minneapolis in September of 1913 with the same hope as most African American men at the time: to be seen and respected as a citizen of the United States and raise a family outside the reach of Jim Crow. But his dishonorable discharge was a stumbling block to finding gainful employment. Dorsey took jobs shining shoes, sweeping up in barbershops, and working as a doorman in many Minneapolis businesses, among them P. H. Timmins, Arvid N. Swenson, and the Northwest Bank building. “That dishonorable discharge kept me from improving my station,” Willis said in a New York Times interview. At the start of this work in 1913, Willis made ten cents per shoeshine, plus a tip. When he retired in 1971, he made fifty cents per shine. It was on these wages that Dorsey saved money to purchase a home on Minnehaha Avenue South and carve out a life for his family. Dorsey’s son Reginald was supported and respected by the community as a talented guitar player, dancer, and entertainer.

The Black community in Minneapolis welcomed the Willises. Dorsey was vested in many local social organizations and was a member of the Minneapolis NAACP chapter. Though his life in the North seemed more settled, he often traveled south to visit sick siblings and attend funerals. Though he was the oldest of his parents’ eight children, at least four of them preceded him in death. His father had died before Dorsey left Oklahoma (1908), but his mother passed away in 1929. It may have been around this time that he split with his first wife. According to the 1930 census, he was single in that year, but the local directory shows him married to Lillian in 1932. He married Olive, his third and final wife, in 1945.

As Willis’s distance from the Brownsville affair grew in the late 1950s, he tried to clear his name The response he got from Washington, however, questioned his identity, and without proof, Willis abandoned the effort. It wasn’t until 1972 that Willis’s luck changed. He found out that his discharge had been changed to an honorable one in a Minneapolis Star article (Friday, September 29, 1972). He said he bought about twenty copies just to give them out to people.

Senator Hubert Humphrey latched on to the case as a civil rights issue and sought to compensate the Brownsville survivors for the “irreparable harm done” to them. He proposed $40,000 per survivor plus service pensions, which could have totaled up to $55,000. Ultimately, Humphrey’s bill, modeled after one proposed by Augustus Hawkins of California, garnered $25,000 for Willis. The only surviving battalion widow, Louella Conyers, wife of Boyd Conyers, received $10,000.

Dorsey Willis died in Minneapolis in August of 1977, at the age of ninety-one.

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Associated Press. “Army Clears Blacks After 66 Years.” Minneapolis Tribune, September 29, 1972.

Baker, William. The Brownsville Texas Incident of 1906: The True and Tragic Story of a Black Battalion's Wrongful Disgrace and Ultimate Redemption. Fort Smith, AR: Red Engine Press, 2020.

“HHH Urges Recompense for Wrong to Willis.” Minneapolis Star, June 15, 1973.

Malcolm, Andrew H. “At 86, Black Resentful of Army Action in Texas Raid.” New York Times, December 31, 1972.

Marriage Record. Dorsey Willis and Lucille Jordan. December 26, 1906. Guthrie, Logan County, Oklahoma. Ancestry.com database, scanned image, October 2021.

McConagha, Al. “HHH Asks Compensation for Ex-Soldier, 87, in City.” Minneapolis Tribune, February 21, 1973.

Minneapolis city directories, 1915–1950. Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

Minneapolis Spokesman, various. Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub, Minnesota Historical Society.
https://newspapers.mnhs.org/jsp/browse.jsp?collection_filter=6ff34a0f-54f7-4bc3-861a-d07acb7dba65

Robertson, Nan. “Family of Black Victim in 1906 Texas Raid Recalls Stigma.” New York Times, February 8, 1977.

Smith, Marietta. “Army Admits Error, Clears City Man after 66 Years.” Minneapolis Star, October 5, 1972.

St. Paul Recorder, various. Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub, Minnesota Historical Society.
https://newspapers.mnhs.org/jsp/browse.jsp?collection_filter=578670e0-fcaf-4562-a166-28850a1922dd

United States Census, Hennepin County, MN. April 16, 1930. Ancestry.com database. Scanned images.
https://www.ancestry.com/search/categories/35

United States Census, Hennepin County, MN. April 16, 1940. Ancestry.com database. Scanned images.
https://www.ancestry.com/search/categories/35

US City Directories, 1882–1995. ancestry.com database.
https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2469

Various issues of the Brownsville Daily Herald (1897–1910). Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86099906

Weaver, John Downing. The Brownsville Raid. New York: W. W. Norton, 1970.

Related Images

Dorsey Willis
Dorsey Willis
Fort Brown
Fort Brown
Olive and Dorsey Willis
Olive and Dorsey Willis
Dorsey Willis at his honorable discharge ceremony
Dorsey Willis at his honorable discharge ceremony
Dorsey Willis receiving an apology and honorable discharge
Dorsey Willis receiving an apology and honorable discharge
Dorsey Willis being interviewed
Dorsey Willis being interviewed

Turning Point

In 1970, John D. Weaver publishes The Brownsville RAID, which brings attention to the Brownsville soldiers’ treatment. In June of 1972, US House Representative Augustus Freeman Hawkins (D-California) proposes a bill to overturn their wrongful dishonorable discharge.

Chronology

1886

Dorsey W. Willis is born in Mississippi on February 11.

1905

Willis enlists in the US Army on January 5 and is assigned to Company D, First Battalion, Twenty-Fifth Infantry.

1906

Willis is stationed at Fort Brown in Brownsville, Texas, on July 26.

1906

The incident in Brownsville, also known as the Brownsville Raid and the Brownsville Affair, takes place on August 13.

1906

The US Army issues Special Orders 266 on November 5, dishonorably discharging Willis and the other infantrymen from service. It is the largest summary dismissal of soldiers in Army history.

1906

Willis marries Lucille Jordan in Logan, Oklahoma, on December 26.

1908

Willis’s son Reginald Haines is born in Guthrie, Oklahoma, on November 7.

1913

Willis moves with his family to Minneapolis, where he works as a porter in various downtown locations until he retires in 1971. He eventually buys a house at 3724 Minnehaha Avenue.

1960

In August, Willis meets his only grandchild, Regina Willis, for the first time.

1972

On September 28, Army Secretary Robert Froehlke declares the 1906 dishonorable discharge of the 167 African American soldiers in Brownsville a “gross injustice” and changes all discharges to honorable.

1973

Willis officially receives his honorable discharge and an apology from the US Army during a ceremony held in Minneapolis on February 11.

1973

Willis appears before a House (Veterans Affairs) Committee in June in support of legislation introduced by Senator Hubert Humphrey (in February) to authorize a US Claims Court to consider a reparations bill.

1973

The US Senate passes legislation on August 3 directing the army to pay $25,000 to each of the Brownsville survivors, as well as $10,000 to each of the unmarried widows of the other soldiers involved.

1973

In November, the House approves a reparation bill to pay survivors of the raid and their widows.

1974

Willis receives a reparation payment of $25,000 in January.

1977

Willis dies in Minneapolis in August at ninety-one years of age.