Published May 20, 2010
By Loretto J. Hulse, Tri-City Herald staff writer
Learn how a history-making struggle between truth and justice changed the lives of dozens black soldiers at a free lecture tonight in Pasco.
Investigative journalist and author Jack Hamann of Seattle will present “Speaking Truth To Power: Modern Lessons from an Historic Injustice” at 7 p.m. on the HUB main stage at Columbia Basin College. His talk is part of the annual Mid-Columbia Literary Festival series.
Hamann will be talking about 43 soldiers, charged with rioting and the lynching of an Italian prisoner of war at Washington’s Fort Lawton, who endured the largest and longest Army court-martial of World War II.
The case — which received worldwide attention in 1944 — was prosecuted by Leon Jaworski, later to gain fame as the Watergate special prosecutor.
More than six decades later, Hamann and his wife, Leslie, found the previously top secret court-martial documents in the National Archives.
Their research led to a reversal of the convictions and an apology from the U.S. government to the soldiers who still were alive and their relatives.
The story is told in Hamann’s book, On American Soil: How Justice Became a Tragedy of WWII.
“It’s a very intriguing story,” said Maria Allan with CBC. “It was actually his wife who found the report which was key to the book.”
Allan serves on the selection committee for the Inquiring Minds Program of Humanities Washington.
“He spoke to (the committee) for just 20 minutes, and he had me then. I wanted to know more, I had to hear the rest of the story,” she said.
Hamann was chosen to be a speaker for the Inquiring Minds Program but also is coming for LitFest.
“I was still so fired up over hearing Hamann speak they said they just had to have him come,” she said.
On American Soil was Investigative Reporters & Editors’ book of the year in 2005.
The final speakers in the Community Lecture series are Bruce and Susan Mattley, who live near Walla Walla.
“Cowboys and Cowgirls in Story and Song,” sponsored by the Three Rivers Folk Life Society, will be at 7 p.m. June 17 at Mid-Columbia Library, 1620 S. Union St., Kennewick. Admission is free.
For more information on the series, go to www.columbiabasin.edu/litfest.
For more information on Hamann, go to www.jackhamann.com/books.
Additional news stories can be accessed online at the Tri-City Herald.