Carrizal (1916)

Carrizal was a glory and a blunder, a joke and a crucifixion; a blunder on the part of a President who sent an army on a fool’s errand and on the part of a gay, young officer who needlessly risked human life on the theory that Mexicans always run.

Carrizal was a glory for the Mexicans who dared to defend their country from invasion and for Negro troopers who went singing to their death. And the greater glory was the glory of the black men, for Mexicans died for a land they love, while Negroes sang for a country that despises, cheats and lynches them. Even across the sunlit desert as they died came the last wild shriek of a human bon-fire in Texas where Southern “gentlemen” and “ladies” capered in glee—brave, filthy Texas. Laugh? Why shouldn’t they laugh at simple death and grim duty? Have they not faced harsher and more horrible things? “Jim Crow” cars, helpless disfranchisement and organized insult? Why should they not laugh at death for a country which honors them dying and kicks and buffets them living? God laughed. It was a Joke.

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Citation: Du Bois, W.E.B. 1916. “Carrizal.” The Crisis. 12(4):165.