If you could make a movie about any event in Black history, what would you choose?

I would tell the story of the riot at Long Binh Jail - an uprising of incarcerated Black service members during the Vietnam War. (Thread)

Relevant statistics to set the scene: 300k Black Americans served in Vietnam. Although making up only 11% of the population, they accounted for over 16% of the draft. 64% of eligible Black draftees were sent into service versus 31% of eligible white draftees.

At one point, 23% of combat troops were Black — as were 12.4% of the total casualties suffered during the war.

Despite disproportionate representation only 2% of officers in each branch were Black, the only exception being the Army which had roughly 5%.

Re: Long Binh Jail (LBJ) — Black troops accounted for over 60% of the incarcerated population. Unsurprising considering Black service members were twice as likely as white service members receive punitive action.

Vietnam was the first (post Civil Rights Movement) major American war that was completely integrated. Racial tensions remained high, skyrocketing in the wake of several high profile incidents.

Black servicemembers were subjected to overt racism, often given undesirable assignments and secondary duties. White people were also allowed to fly their Conferderate flags while African Americans were punished for displaying symbols of the Black power movement.

At LBJ in particular, racism was intensified. Mistreatment and abuse by guards was a common occurrence. As news about what was happening at home slowly began trickling into the stockade, race relations began to deteriorate even further.

The breaking point for most Black servicemembers was MLK’s assassination. This news, compounded by harsh living conditions (LBJ was built to house 400 but held over 700 prisoners) and continued mistreatment by white people, led to an eruption of anger among Black prisoners.

Jimmi Childress, a former LBJ prisoner, recalls his thoughts at the time:

“We were hot, and crazy, we were fed up. So we decided, we're going to tear this motherfucker down."

And so they did.

On August 29, 1968, Black inmates overpowered guards. They immediately targeted administrative buildings to destroy records. Other prisoners were released, and senior officials were beaten. By the next morning, 68 people were injured and one white inmate was killed.

Much of the stockade (which consisted of tents and repurposed shipping containers) had been torn down and demolished during the riot. Three weeks after the uprising, Black inmates maintained control of a portion of LBJ.

Seeking to downplay the incident, the military allowed them to remain in power for nearly an entire month. Resentment for the war was growing, and the last thing the Pentagon wanted was to draw attention to racial tensions.

Complete control of LBJ was eventually regained towards the end of September. An investigation later revealed racism and understaffing were the primary catalysts of the uprising.

"I'm still angry about the way the military treated its own citizens. I still feel that something hand to be done. I guess I was just trying to prove that I was a human being. I'm over it now, but it took a long time. It took a long time." - Jimmie Childress, former LBJ prisoner

Other notable race riots led on military installations by Black servicemembers:

The Kitty Hawk Riot, 1972

The Camp Lejeune Riot, 1969

NPR has a great article about the LBJ riot that features the quotes taken from Jimmie Childress, and his first hand account of the event: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/08/29/642617106/the-forgotten-history-of-a-prison-uprising-in-vietnam