Oscar-winning screenwriter salutes Army’s reckoning of injustice faced by WWI-era Black soldiers
Written by Black Hot Fire Network on November 26, 2023
TOPEKA — Academy Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker Kevin Willmott welcomed the U.S. Army’s decision to set aside courts-martial convictions of 110 Black soldiers, including 19 executed for involvement in World War I-era race rioting in Houston.
Willmott, a professor of film at University of Kansas, released “The 24th” in 2020 to shed light on injustices that precipitated the uprising in 1917 and triggered military prosecution of the soldiers.
He directed the movie and worked on the script for about 20 years. The project was finished amid aftermath of the killing of . . .
